| Nights at the Circus |
[Apr. 24th, 2008|04:35 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  calm | ] |
I recently read Nights at the Circus for the first time, and I have to admit I didn't like it as much as The Magic Toyshop or The Bloody Chamber. I was first introduced to Angela Carter by watching the movie A Company of Wolves. I then read The Bloody Chamber, which I loved. I love fairy tale retellings, in general, but hers especially captivated me. Most older folk tales/fairy tales can be pretty gory or sexual in nature, so her stories felt a bit old and rural, which was fun.
I also liked The Magic Toyshop and really felt like I had entered another mode of existence. Some kind of dreamlike place mixed with the less pretty parts of real life. Nights at the Circus gave me a somewhat similar impression, but it really didn't draw me in quite the way The Magic Toyshop did. I still liked it, but I was ready for the book to conclude. Though the ending really baffles me, and I don't know what to make of it. |
|
|
| source/authenticity of Angela Carter quote re Wordsworths |
[Apr. 1st, 2007|05:36 pm] |
|
over 15 years ago an English professor told my criticism class his favourite Angela Carter quotation — a quip about Wm. and Dorothy Wordsworth. "For every man who writes poetry, there's a woman who thinks the sun shines out of his asshole." Any know if this is genuine, or the source? I don't think that it's in that essay about the Wordsworths in Nothing Sacred. Any help appreciated. |
|
|
| |
[Mar. 21st, 2007|06:32 pm] |
|
Hello, I'm fifteen years old, and I've just started reading Angela Carter. I first saw The Company of Wolves a couple of years ago, and I was interested in reading the short story. I found Nights at the Circus in my school library about a month ago and I loved it. I'm currently reading The Bloody Chamber, which I'm enjoying so far. I was wondering if anyone could possibly recommend me which of Carter's novels I should try next...I know there are several in my school library, but I can't decide which one to read next. |
|
|
| Paper help |
[Nov. 10th, 2006|05:56 pm] |
Does anyone know of any good online resources for criticism on Carter? I'm doing a paper on Woolf's Orlando and gender fluidity in other 20th Century women writers and my college library is seriously limited as far as non-syllabus authors are concerned.
I'll be using the Libretto for Orlando, The Passion of New Eve, and probably Infernal Desire Machines. Help of any sort will be hugely appreciated. |
|
|
| |
[Oct. 6th, 2006|12:00 am] |
| [ | music |
| | rain and the hum of my hard drive | ] |
I just came across this interview and thought some of you would be interested in reading it. |
|
|
| The Sadeian Woman |
[Sep. 24th, 2006|10:37 pm] |
In The Sadeian Woman Angela Carter gives us a re-evaluation of the work of the Marquis de Sade from a feminist perspective. She sees de Sade as the prototype of the moral pornographer. He viewed the relations between the sexes (and between the classes) honestly and without hypocrisy. He shows sex as being about power, as being a social relation that is dependent on social and political structures. He also frees female sexuality from the function of reproduction and emphasises that it is not gender that matters but power. De Sade also demonstrates an understanding of the mechanics of the female orgasm that is a little surprising when you consider the complete ignorance on that topic that prevailed through much of the following century. Carter looks at de Sade’s best-known works, particularly Justine and Juliette. The eponymous heroine of Justine believes that virtue will be rewarded, and despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary continues to believe this. She is also convinced that virtue, in a woman, is entirely a matter of sex – as long as you don’t have sex, or if you must have sex as long as you don’t enjoy it you are automatically virtuous. In fact Carter tells us that Justine’s behaviour is often astonishingly selfish and even callous because of this profound misunderstanding of the nature of virtue. Her sister Juliette does not share her delusions. She embraces vice with enthusiasm, and she gets everything she wants. The fact that she is a woman does not prevent her from gaining both wealth and power. Justine is powerless not because she is female but because she misunderstands the nature of society.
Carter also relates de Sade’s work to the way women have been depicted in Hollywood, with Marilyn Monroe being a version of Justine. The Sadeian Woman is Angela Carter at her most provocative.
 |
|
|
| Nothing Sacred |
[Sep. 21st, 2006|01:01 am] |
I’ve been reading more of Angela Carter’s Nothing Sacred. The essay on William and Dorothy Wordsworth and their junkie friends was amusing. And Dorothy’s rather pathetic devotion to her brother, which to Carter at least appears to have a very large element of repressed sexuality to it. I must confess I know little of Wordsworth and I loathe his poetry.
I loved her piece on British television drama, and the essential folly of trying to turn Great Books into decent television. As she points out, great novels are by their very nature usually not suited for film or TV adaptation. It’s the things that make them great as novels that make them unsuitable for TV or movies. If you want proof you need look no further than the BBC’s disastrous adaptation of Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast novels.
Her hatched job on Gone with the Wind was fun too. God I hate that movie.
 |
|
|
| Angela Carter on Lulu and Lola Lola |
[Sep. 19th, 2006|01:17 pm] |
Reading Angela Carter’s essay on Pandora’s Box and The Blue Angel in her collection of essays and journalism, Nothing Sacred, inspired me to watch The Blue Angel yet again tonight. While The Blue Angel is often seen as a film about a femme fatale who draws an innocent man to his destruction Carter sees it rather differently. She sees Lola Lola as a positive character, a strong woman in charge of her sexuality, who is in no way responsible for the unfortunate fate of Professor Rath (Emil Jannings). She sees the Professor as a monster who thoroughly deserves his fate. Watching the movie again I’m inclined to agree with her. He really is a very unpleasant man – a pompous ass, a bully, and a fool. The clown he later becomes is already there in embryo. Lola Lola really does nothing to bring about his downfall. He pursues her. Perhaps she should have discouraged him, but she was simply too soft-hearted to do so. Her crime was to be nice to him. She doesn't trap him into marriage – the marriage is entirely his idea. And it’s not as if she ever pretended to be anything other than she is. If he chose not to see the reality of the woman she was, if he chose to believe that she was going to become something different, then he’s simply made the mistake of falling in love with his own fantasy of her, rather than with the actual woman. His spiral downwards into degradation and depression, and self-pity, seems to be entirely his own work too. After all, did he really expect to keep his position as a professor at the grammar school after marrying her? And given the state that he gets himself into it’s remarkable that Lola Lola continues to have a certain affection for him, and continues to support him. Professor Rath’s fate may be tragic, but it’s a tragedy of his own making.
With any luck tomorrow I’ll get a chance to watch Pandora’s Box again.
 |
|
|
| Nights at the Circus, On Stage |
[Jan. 28th, 2006|09:25 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  blah | ] |
Here's a link on the new London stage version of Nights at the Circus...do we have any Brits in the community? I'd love to see this...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/reviews/observer/story/0,,1697159,00.html
I do wish they could have cast someone a little older, larger and more weatherbeaten as Fevvers, but perhaps the girl is good.
There's also some fascinating stuff on projects that Carter was working on when she died, such as an opera based on Virginia Woolf's Orlando! And it looks as if Wise Children is coming to the stage as well! Now the question is if the resurgence (or surgence, rather) of interest in Carter will cross the pond to the US. |
|
|
| Angela Carter reads this year |
[Dec. 18th, 2005|12:46 am] |
|
So what novels or stories by Angela Carter have you read this year? Or articles, or miscellaneous writings, or anything at all Angela Carter-related even. |
|
|
| Angela Carter as gothic writer |
[Dec. 17th, 2005|02:59 pm] |
|
I’ve been reading The Cambridge Companion to Gothic Fiction, and it mentions Angela Carter as a modern gothic writer. Do you think she was in fact a gothic writer? And what are her most gothic books? |
|
|
| BBC film of Magic Toyshop |
[Sep. 5th, 2005|09:38 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | content | ] |
| [ | music |
| | chantel bucovina | ] |
Hi fellow Angela Carter lovers, delighted this community exists. Applied to art-college nearly ten years ago, and being ask to name the artist who most influenced my work, I wrote Angela Carter....- I was told this was unacceptable as she was not a visual artist...any thoughts?
Just found a wonderful new toy called "piratebay" where great films can be had (for free!), first thing I searched for was the BBC (I think) version of the Magic Toyshop. But failed like many times before to find it....
Turned on the TV one night, aged 12 and caught the tail end of this film....ran to the library next day and got out anything she had ever written (including "The Sadeian Woman")
if any of you have any idea where to get this film I would be thrilled, and very grateful
Came accross the tattooed tigerlady recently....will try to locate picture and post here. |
|
|
| "I'm basically unemployable, that's why I'm a writer" |
[Sep. 2nd, 2005|10:33 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | blah | ] |
Hello everyone. Have you seen this? I was very surprised to see they had put the whole film up. Anyway, really fascinating, and Carter seems thus far (I'm watching it right now) to be as warm, witty and intelligent as those who knew her remembered her. |
|
|
| Introductory Post |
[Jul. 12th, 2005|12:05 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  nostalgic | ] |
| [ | music |
| | tick tock tick tock | ] |
When I was a teenager I spent a lot of time at the central library. If I wasn't looking for something specific, I would often scan the shelves and wait for books to jump out at me. I found some of my favorite artists, writers and thinkers this way, such as Kenneth Patchen, Joseph Cornell, Bernard Rudofsky, Elizabeth Hawes and Angela Carter.
The first book that I read by AC was Nights at the Circus. It's been so long (17 years) that I can't conjure up many specifics, only that I became obsessed with her and set about finding every book she wrote or edited. I was in the middle of Wise Children when I heard about her death. I never finished it.
Although I have a stack of around 20 of her books on the shelf next to my bed, it's been years since I read one cover to cover. I just added her name to my list of interests tonight and stumbled upon this community. It's good to see a new generation of readers appreciating her work. Among my most prized volumes are a pb edition of her first novel Honeybuzzard, and the two children's books she wrote in the early 70's -- The Donkey Prince and Miss Z, The Dark Young Lady, but I can't say that I have a favorite.
I don't know how easy it would be to come by but The Review of Contemporary Fiction Fall 1994 devoted half an issue to an introduction, remembrances, an interview, and several critiques of her work.
I'm going to drift off to sleep with Fevvers tonight. I'm excited to revisit the circus almost a whole other lifetime since that first encounter. Thanks for reminding me. |
|
|
| Another new member! |
[Jul. 10th, 2005|06:15 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  exhausted | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Dinah Washington-Soulville | ] |
Hello everyone,
I am glad for this community too! I must say I'm fairly new to the world of Angela Carter. I remember watching a movie called Company of Wolves when I was a little girl. Much of it was scary to me but still it fascinated me. I was too young then to understand the hidden message of losing innocence through wild and erotic dreams told as the fairy tale of Little Red Riding Hood. Last year I got the chance to see that (cult)movie again. It was an eye opener for me. Right away I went looking on the web for everything about Angela Carter. I haven't read any of her books yet. I want to read Bloody Chamber and The Magic Toyshop first. Again I'm glad for this community because I wouldn't want Angela Carter to be forgotten.
Sara |
|
|
| Love |
[Dec. 3rd, 2004|11:50 am] |
| [ | mood |
| | thoughtful | ] |
I must admit that I had never heard of the book "Love" before. But, I saw it for sale at a book fair last week, and even though I wasn't really looking for anything new to read, I had to buy it. Aside from the obvious reason that I fully intend to read everything by Carter at some point in my life, I also bought it because it was really cheap and because it was short, so I figured it would be a good quick read. I absolutely loved it. A review on the jacket described it as a novel, but it was only 120 pages, so I would categorize it more as a novella. But I guess that's semantics, really. At any rate, it's a book that you can easily read in a short amount of time.
I think that the characters in this book are actually some of my favorites in any of Carter's books. They were unique and compelling people, and their actions, no matter how extreme, were always believable. I would describe this book as a modernized Gothic (in the traditional literary sense) romance novel. With, of course, Carter's traditional perverse touches.
The prose style is actually rather restrained by Carter's standards. However, there are a few trademark Carter touches, such as her love of incredibly long sentences. Also, the overall tone of the book is much darker than most of her work.
The only complaint I had with the book was the afterward that was added to the addition I bought. I couldn't really ascertain when it was written, but I estimate sometime in the late '80s. Carter wrote it to briefly update what had happened to the characters in the intervening years. But, for me, it was something of a let-down. Maybe I just didn't want to think of these characters growing up into lives of (for the most part) middle-class mediocrity. But I think also the tone of the afterward was sort of dismissive. As if Carter was writing off the characters' behavior as just adolescent foolishness. But more than that, I think that to me the book had a sense of not really taking place in reality. And, aside from a few references to current fashion, it didn't really seem rooted in any particular time period. However the afterward completely shattered that illusion. And also it was obvious that Carter didn't put much passion or imagination into the afterward. It seems almost as if she regarded the book as something, slightly embarrassing, that she did in her youth.
Maybe I'm nit-picking. That didn't really take anything away from my enjoyment of the book itself. I think after a while I will re-read the book, but I'll skip the afterward from now on.
Thoughts? |
|
|
| |
[Nov. 10th, 2004|09:25 pm] |
I just joined this group, so I'll introduce myself. I'm Alicia, 21 y.o., live in The Netherlands, have a BA in English and I'm an MA student of Western Literature and Culture. I recently had to read Carter's Nights at the Circus and although I haven't finished it yet and I'm not really a fan of Carter's, I was interested in your views on this novel.
I had to do a presentation on the first part of Nights at the Circus a few weeks ago, in relation to Julia Kristeva and Hélène Cixous, which was difficult but also interesting, because we suspected that the main character of the novel, Fevvers, was a personification of Cixous ideas about women finding their own voice, taking their place in society and flying ('voler').
Does anyone know more about Cixous in relation to Carter? |
|
|
| Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell |
[Oct. 19th, 2004|06:46 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  tired | ] |
| [ | music |
| | deborah conway - under my skin | ] |
A while back someone mentioned Susanna Clarke’s “Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell” as being somewhat in the Angela Carter mould. I very nearly didn’t buy it when I saw the size of it – I really wish this fashion for immensely long books would pass. But it was on special and lots of people have raved about it, so I bought it. I shudder to think how long it will take me to read it. |
|
|
| introduction from sorta newby |
[Sep. 17th, 2004|02:53 pm] |
|
I've been here a while, but haven't really introduced myself. I'm Al, from Australia. Other writers I like - Borges, Jeff VanderMeer, Umberto Eco, Italo Calvino, China Miéville, Tanith Lee, Storm Constantine (especially "Calenture" which has a definite magic realist feel to it), Russell Hoban (especially "The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz"), Mervyn Peake, Michael Swanwick. My favourite film directors are David Lynch, Dario Argento, Alfred Hitchcock and Hayao Miyazaki. Favourite TV shows - Serial Experiments Lain, The X-Files, Buffy, Boogiepop Phantom. I apologise if this appears twice - I've been having massive problems with Live Journal recently. It's been more like Barely Alive Journal. |
|
|
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small}
bloodychamber