Description
A collection of short stories- 'BLACK VENUS' displays the superbly witchy Angela Carter at her best. Her fabulous fables all speak for themselves in tones so commanding you feel this must be Baudelaire's mistress, ageing, remembering, still spreading syphilis, or Lizzie Borden restless in the fatal and hot Massachusetts summer. Whatever her subject Miss Carter writes like a dream - sometimes a nightmare. And as the voices call out, the images blaze, one is saved from an excess of fantasy by earthy realism, a sudden bark of humour' - SUNDAY TELEGRAPH
Genres
Collection
User reviews
LibraryThing member cammykitty
500 Great Books by Women edited by ERica Bauermeister, Jesse Larsen and Holly Smith says of Saints and Strangers,"Sometimes disquieting, sometimes funny, always thought-provoking, Angela Carter's stories offer a feminist revision of images that lie deep in our collective psyche." Elegantly said,
Most of the stories are based on historic events such as Lizzie Borden's rampage or Edgar Allen Poe's relations with women. Yes some are tragic and some are humorous, but all are quite serious. Carter's intelligent, inquisitive mind is a clear driving force behind all these stories. They are not plot driven, not even character driven. Each story is thickly atmospheric, grounded in a specific place, sometimes described in such detail that it becomes dreamlike or hallucinatory. The people in these stories are both simply people and transcendent, sometimes at the same time. Definitely worth reading, but I'm not sure I can really tell you what you'll find.
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but most of the review is made up of one line synopses of the short stories. If the reviewer had to write more that described the collection as a whole, I think she would feel as daunted by the task as I am. Most of the stories are based on historic events such as Lizzie Borden's rampage or Edgar Allen Poe's relations with women. Yes some are tragic and some are humorous, but all are quite serious. Carter's intelligent, inquisitive mind is a clear driving force behind all these stories. They are not plot driven, not even character driven. Each story is thickly atmospheric, grounded in a specific place, sometimes described in such detail that it becomes dreamlike or hallucinatory. The people in these stories are both simply people and transcendent, sometimes at the same time. Definitely worth reading, but I'm not sure I can really tell you what you'll find.
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LibraryThing member Crowyhead
Excellent retellings of fairy tales and other famous stories. My favorite is the short story based on the Lizzie Borden murders.
LibraryThing member tawdryjones
Angela Carter is a brilliant storyteller and writer. Check her out!
LibraryThing member caerulius
Carter's short stories take you to amazing places. She often uses real historic characters as the centerpieces of her tales, and evokes them with a gorgeous mystery that really makes them come to life.
This collection is also included in Burning Your Boats:
"The Fall river Axe Murders" is a
"Our Lady of the Massacre" is the tale of a Lancashire prostitute who is prophecied by her old employer that she'll be the Madonna of the New World... and is then deported to the Americas and intimately witnesses the destruction of the native culture. Written in a period vernacular, the voice of the narratrix is clear and distinct; she feels like someone you could know. She evokes a colonial South that is lush and believable.
"The Kiss"- Very short fable of an arabesque wife and her husband's architect.
"Peter and the Wolf"- This I was surprised not to find included in The Bloody Chamber, given its folktale origins. However, this is not the Peter and the Wolf you may be familiar with. It's a haunting story about a young Russian boy's self discovery of faith and sex and humanity and the divine.
"The Cabinet of Edgar Allan Poe" is a strange story, carrying the reader through the tortured psyche of one of America's most famous writers, with a special focus on the influence of his mother, a consumptive actress, on his later life.
"The Kitchen Child" feels like a fable. It's witty and irreverent and charming.
"Overture and Incidental Music for A Midsummer Night's Dream" I've never been super-partial to. It's beautifully written, but the Golden Herm, the "changeling boy" at the center of the argument between Oberon and Titania in Shakespeare's play, kind of left me "eh."
"Black Venus" is an amazing story, centered around the beautiful Jeanne DuVal, the lover of Charles Baudelaire.
This collection is also included in Burning Your Boats:
"The Fall river Axe Murders" is a
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beautiful account of the morning before Lizzie Borden famously murdered her parents. Lizzie is something of a passion for Carter, given that she is also the central figue in another story (not in this compilation), "Lizzie and the Tiger". It's a fascinating story, calm and lyrical with a sinister edge. "Our Lady of the Massacre" is the tale of a Lancashire prostitute who is prophecied by her old employer that she'll be the Madonna of the New World... and is then deported to the Americas and intimately witnesses the destruction of the native culture. Written in a period vernacular, the voice of the narratrix is clear and distinct; she feels like someone you could know. She evokes a colonial South that is lush and believable.
"The Kiss"- Very short fable of an arabesque wife and her husband's architect.
"Peter and the Wolf"- This I was surprised not to find included in The Bloody Chamber, given its folktale origins. However, this is not the Peter and the Wolf you may be familiar with. It's a haunting story about a young Russian boy's self discovery of faith and sex and humanity and the divine.
"The Cabinet of Edgar Allan Poe" is a strange story, carrying the reader through the tortured psyche of one of America's most famous writers, with a special focus on the influence of his mother, a consumptive actress, on his later life.
"The Kitchen Child" feels like a fable. It's witty and irreverent and charming.
"Overture and Incidental Music for A Midsummer Night's Dream" I've never been super-partial to. It's beautifully written, but the Golden Herm, the "changeling boy" at the center of the argument between Oberon and Titania in Shakespeare's play, kind of left me "eh."
"Black Venus" is an amazing story, centered around the beautiful Jeanne DuVal, the lover of Charles Baudelaire.
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LibraryThing member the_awesome_opossum
If Angela Carter weren't English, she would be a great author of American Southern gothic literature. The first short story in this collection, a re-imagining of Lizzie Borden in a sticky and oppressive (in more ways than one) atmosphere of summer heat and tension-laced household, sets the tone for
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the rest of the stories: the exaggerated and overwhelming made tangible. Carter writes wryly, like a story told when both the storyteller and listener are cynically, acutely aware that one shouldn't put faith in fairy tales, yet the stories insist on being told anyway. Show Less
LibraryThing member Nandakishore_Varma
Angela Carter's prose is mesmerising... an absolute pleasure to read. She straddles the dreamworld between myth and reality, and her writing matches her imagination. Apart from that, all the eight "pieces" (one cannot call them stories, I think) in this slim volume are delightfully unconventional:
The title story, written from the POV of Baudelier's mistress, portrays her as a simple girl, out to make a living on the mean streets. Whatever persona the poet imposes on her is his fantasy, a typical male fantasy which objectifies the female for the satisfaction of his desire. Similarly, in "Our Lady of the Massacre", a "victim" of Indian captivity provides a captivity narrative significantly different from the conventional ones.
But I think the gem of the collection is the last story, which delves into the mind of Lizzie Borden. It is almost like a script, and the story unfolds like a movie in the reader's mind.
If you love the English language, this is the book for you.
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subversive, if you like. The title story, written from the POV of Baudelier's mistress, portrays her as a simple girl, out to make a living on the mean streets. Whatever persona the poet imposes on her is his fantasy, a typical male fantasy which objectifies the female for the satisfaction of his desire. Similarly, in "Our Lady of the Massacre", a "victim" of Indian captivity provides a captivity narrative significantly different from the conventional ones.
But I think the gem of the collection is the last story, which delves into the mind of Lizzie Borden. It is almost like a script, and the story unfolds like a movie in the reader's mind.
If you love the English language, this is the book for you.
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LibraryThing member Nicolai-Michiel
Nice collection of short stories by the journalis Angela Carter with deliriously delicious complex language and each story engaging in one or other form. Shows the power of female authors.
The strongest story is the titular one 'Black Venus' its a small personal history about Charles Baudelaires
Favorite passage by this muse:
'Down there, far below, where the buttocks of the world slim down again, if you go far south enough you reach again the realm of perpetual cold that begins and ends our experience of this earth, those ranges of ice mountains where the bull-roaring winds bay and bellow and no people are, only the stately penguin in his frock coat not unlike yours, Daddy, the estimable but, unlike you uxorious penguin who balances the precious egg on his feet while his dear wife goes out and has a good time as the Antartic may afford.
If Daddy where like a penguin, how much more happy we should be, there isn't room for two albatrosses in this house.'
The strongest story is the titular one 'Black Venus' its a small personal history about Charles Baudelaires
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muse. An ingenious tale in which Carter masterfully weaves poems of Baudelaires 'les Fleurs du Mal.'Favorite passage by this muse:
'Down there, far below, where the buttocks of the world slim down again, if you go far south enough you reach again the realm of perpetual cold that begins and ends our experience of this earth, those ranges of ice mountains where the bull-roaring winds bay and bellow and no people are, only the stately penguin in his frock coat not unlike yours, Daddy, the estimable but, unlike you uxorious penguin who balances the precious egg on his feet while his dear wife goes out and has a good time as the Antartic may afford.
If Daddy where like a penguin, how much more happy we should be, there isn't room for two albatrosses in this house.'
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LibraryThing member LibroLindsay
Almost all of these stories serve as some indecent amendment to history that will forever be left out of textbooks. These are histories I want to believe. They seem to belong to another time, not the 20th Century, and they are all somewhat cruel, indeed making strangers out of saints and vice
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versa. I give five stars to the stories I loved the most--"Our Lady of the Massacre," "The Cabinet of Edgar Allan Poe," and "Black Venus" in particular. As a whole, this collection didn't read as cleanly for me, but Carter's got some lines that bring me to my knees. Show Less
LibraryThing member therebelprince
I think Carter is at her best writing novels, but these short stories are still pretty grand. Little snippets of postcolonialist feminist academia is perhaps a better description than "story", however.
Subjects
Awards
World Fantasy Award (Nominee — Collection / Anthology — 1986)
Notable Books List (1986)
Original language
English
Original publication date
1986