Telling Tales

Fairy tales are described as “a story, usually for children, about elves, hobgoblins, dragons, fairies, or other magical creatures.” (Dictionary.com)

I consider fairytales to be works of the imagination- highly detailed and dramatic; they are the stuff of dreams, or might be thought of as Science fiction of the past. Sometimes they even taught lessons, but for most part they used to be closer to real life, the supernatural elements within the story was not only present, but sometimes taken for granted. (For example: no one ever stops reading and says “pigs can’t talk”).

Angela Carters The Bloody Chambers book contains a collection of stories all tangled up with the one before it. Every story is inspired by a famous classic fairy tale - Beauty and the Beast (The Tiger's Bride), Red Riding Hood (The Werewolf), Alice Through The Looking Glass (Wolf-Alice). Every tale is a twisted, perverted excess in story telling. Each tale could be described as the evil twin of the original which inspired it, which would have been told to the children of hell

“Without question, a 20th Century original. No matter what one thinks of her writing” (Vander Meer).

Well one might say Angela Carter has brio to her writing. While she mastered the art of magic realism, opening a page from one of her fairy stories, so surrealist, it’s scary. Carters’ stories are always infused with a sense of humour, sex appeal and wisdom. Feminism always lay at the heart of her fiction.

The big werewolf with his unnatural eyes, handsome, head turning, man turned halo wolf, doesn’t act like normal villains. Modern fairy tale villains, especially Carters, may be ugly, bad and well described. But they’re too heavy, too bright. The old zest is gone, and a new dawn of Carter characters is here.

Feminism is everywhere within her stories. The language used is very beautiful, erotic, brilliant so unexpected it brings a type of understated literacy to her work.

Her words are minimalist, yet powerful. As we explore the way she described Little Red Riding Hood, and how she had jut begun her: "woman’s bleeding, the clock within her that will strike, henceforward, once a month.” She is