Two new books about Angela Carter

[kestrell]

I'm currently on an Angela Carter binge, because the entire time I was death-marching through Eugenides’s _The Marriage Plot_ (which struck me as a "St. Elmo's Fire" for literature snobs), I kept thinking, "Well, he's no Angela Carter." Carter is still one of the few writers who managed to write novels which featured subversive female protagonists while also being dark, funny, literate, and original.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jan/25/card-from-angela-carter-review?CMP=twt_gu

Comments

[jesse_the_k]

The Ivy-league upbringing tells me I must read Eugenides. The happy Midwesterner says "meh." Any others of his to reccomend? If not, which is a good Angela Carter to begin with?

[kestrell]

I don't think I've read other Eugenides novels, and am probably unlikely to do so after this example. I kept going onward thinking that there would be some extraordinary turning point which would justify the hype, but that never happened.


As for an introduction to Carter, I would recommend either _The Bloody Chamber_, which is her collection of dark feminist fairy tales, or _Wise Children_, which is a riotous mash-up of Shakespeare and twenty-century media as told through the lives of two elderly British actresses. I would actually highly recommend the latter as my personal favorite, since it satisfies my English lit-media studies-Shakespeare narrative fetishes, plus it's probably Carter's most upbeat novel. There's a character in it who is referred to as "Wheelchair," which might initially seem a bit offensive, but ultimately there is more explanation of the character which makes things a bit more understandable.

[jesse_the_k]

Ooooh, thank you for a tantalizing description; it's in my library queue right now. (I so enjoy reading books my friends enjoy reading. It's an itty-bitty brain transplant.)