The Bloody Chamber: And Other Stories

If you love fairy tales and folklore, you'll enjoy this collection of short stories.

From Back Cover: "'The Bloody Chamber' is an amazing book. Its material is drawn from fairy and folk tales such as "Bluebeard's Castle," "Puss in Boots," "The Erlking," "Little Red Ridinghood," "Beauty and the Beast," as well as from the darker annals of the folk imagination where the myths of werewolves and vampires, ogres and devils are kept. Thinks of Grimms' fairy tales as retold by Anais Nin or Isak Dinesen." "Angela Carter...has transformed classic fairy tales into potent adult tales. Her cunning revision render [the stories] as dangerous and thrilling as they were in childhood. In sumptuous prose, no cozy moments; the landscape is always slightly askew and even happy endings leave unformed questions and unresolved tensions." - The Los Angeles Times "These are stories for the fireside, the bedside, the bathroom reading rack. They serve the appetite for grisly detail and cool conclusions." - Doris Grumbach, 'The Washington Star' "Angela Carter is one of my favorite dangerous drugs." -Tom Robbins

In Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories, the author re-creates the fairy tales of old, melding them into feminist tales of love, loss, lust, and sexuality. While her stories find their genesis in the childlike versions of Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White, and others, Ms. Carter transforms these fantastical stories into adult renditions where vampires prey on virgins, where children lie down with wolves, and a Count "thrust his virile member into the dead girl". In each of these stories, Ms. Carter creates an unexpected, erotic feel which is intertwined with mystery and an adult edginess that goes far beyond the original versions of these fairy tales. She also is very adept at giving the reader just the right amount of clues, never being too obvious, and respecting her reader's intelligence in unraveling the webs she weaves with these stories. Ms. Carter additionally has an ability to take what could be mundane aspects of her stories and infuse them with richness which keeps the reader involved in the story, compelling them to read on. Finally, Angela Carter is a master of symbolism: the young officer in The Lady of the House of Love as the true measure of life and freedom, the kiss in The Company of Wolves as the conquest of men, the clothing in The Snow Child as a representation of power. In every story within the pages of The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories Angela Carter's brilliance come through, and her readers are rewarded with lush, rich, compelling, adult stories of adventures born from our childhood fairy tales.

"The Bloody Chamber" is a work of literature which transcends genre and unearths the thinly veiled erotic elements of the fairy tale form. Each of the ten stories in this collection are as rich and sensuous as red velvet, it is quite possible to open the book at any page and find yourself immersed in the beauty of the prose. Highlights include the eponymous novella "The Bloody Chamber" (Carter's subversive re-telling of the "Bluebeard" story) and "The Lady of the House of Love", which illuminates the notion of a decaying European aristocracy behind the myth of the vampire.Carter presents us with two contrasting (yet not conflicting) versions of the "Beauty and the Beast" story with "The Courtship of Mr Lyon" and "The Tiger's Bride". In the former, the fierce nature of the beast is curbed by the gentleness of the female protagonist, whilst in the latter, the heroine discovers the liberating power of the repressed animal aspect of her sexuality. Each story has a feminist flavour, exploring both male and female sexual desire, and the darker domains of eroticism. A book which will increasingly be hailed as a masterpiece in years to come.

Carter's tales are just so lucid, so oddly heavenly, so dark and enchantingly lovely and seductive in a true Gothic sense. Carter doesn't mess around with making her stories appealing to the masses, her writing is rich and austere, her imagery haunting and will NEVER leave your mind. Who can forget the sad vampiress, in her chamber, who falls in love with the sun (the young and naive soldier) who's ancestors come "peeking" in and out her like their grim portraits on the wall? Who can forget the girl trapped by the Erl-King, who is reeled into the "vortex" of his green eye and his watery embraces (ouch, and the love bite!)? These are truly phantasmagoric, rich tales with class and heavy symbolism and very spooky little touches which will never stop enchanting you.

Do you have the courage to enter Angela Carter's quirky realm of magical realism? She is brilliant. BRILLIANT! I love these short stories -- or rather, fairy tales that everyone is familiar with. The stories have very familiar themes, like tragic love stories, werewolf stories and Cinderella-like stories. Of course, Angela added her own ingredients in the stories. There are a lot of elements of sex and a large dosage of magical realism. They are so mind-boggling disturbing that I found myself thinking about them long after I finished reading them. My favorites are "The Lady of the House of Love," "The Snow Child," and "The Werewolf." I marvel at Carter's imagination. She is truly gifted. Her writing style sort of reminds me of Amanda Filipacchi -- a brilliant French novelist. In fact, I wonder if Carter influenced Filipacchi's work. I highly recommend The Bloody Chamber. This isn't for the faint at heart; this is dark literature at its finest!