Sometimes I have heard about a book long before I have read it. This was the case with Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber. I didn’t know much about it, but I knew that it was a feminist take on traditional fairy stories, much admired by some pretty intense and impenetrable feminist writers. I assumed that I would find Carter’s writing as dense as I do these commentators but I was pleasantly surprised: Carter’s stories were easy to read, although the subject matter was disturbing. Although, fairy stories are pretty disturbing too, when you think about it.
The book contains a number of short stories. The first, The Bloody Chamber is the longest by far, set in a recognizably present time and unlike the other stories, has no supernatural or shape-shifting elements. Based on the story of Bluebeard, a young girl marries a wealthy older man who has had several other wives. Left alone in the their large old house, and warned not to enter a particular room, she of course enters the room where she finds pornographic and torture instruments and the body of one of her predecessors. I found this off-putting: I always find it difficult to watch screen depictions of torture, and this story was no exception. But it was saved by MUM riding to the rescue- good old mum!
The other stories also riffed off fairy stories- not a straight retelling necessarily, but certainly picking up on themes in the original. Several of them were based on Beauty and the Beast, or Little Red Riding Hood, and there are three stories about wolves or werewolves. There are enough resonances in the language and structure for you to relax into reading a fairy story, until she subverts your expectations by going in a different direction. Most of the stories are set in an undetermined, gothic European setting without specific reference to time and place. Some are very short, consisting of only one or two pages.
There is no sex in it as such, although there is plenty of disrobing and exposure, and it was also interwoven with coercion and threatened violence. I must confess to finding it disturbingly erotic as well. It is beautifully written, with very skilled control of pacing and a light touch in combining familiarity with disequilibrium.
My rating: 8/10
Sourced from: CAE reading group.
The Resident Judge of Port Phillip 