Wise Children: A Novel (FSG Classics)

by Angela Carter

Paperback, 2007

Status

Checked out

Publication

Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2007), Edition: 1st, 240 pages

Description

A comic tale of the tangled fortunes of two theatrical families, the Hazards and the Chances. It contains as many sets of twins and mistaken identities as any Shakespeare comedy, and celebrates the magic of over a century of show business.

Media reviews

The New York Times Book Review
Wise Children inhabits its own manic universe and would probably translate into a spirited, bawdy musical comedy-farce of the kind in which the Chance sisters themselves performed, long ago.

User reviews

LibraryThing member caviglia_jr
Wise Children is my favorite novel. In the world. That I've ever read. Ever. Which actually makes it a little hard for me to speak about it rationally. It's the story of a (mostly) English show business dynasty as told by elderly former chorine Dora Chance (the rest of the family possess the
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surname Hazard, of course!). In the true Shakespearean tradition the book is full of twins (I think there are FIVE sets), it's besotted with Shakespeare from top to bottom (intended). Dora and Nora Chance are (probably) the illegitimate twin daughters of the great stage star and Shakespearean, Melchior Hazard. As Dora says at one point, being illegitimate, she and her twin go on the halls. And that's really the meat of the book. It's about art and entertainment high and low and everything between. And about family. About parents and children and people who are parents in name only and about the people who raise and love them. The cast is enormous, and nearly everyone in the book is "family" in some way or another to the two Chance sisters, either by marriage, blood, adoption or coercion. Their father, Melchior, never acknowledges them officially - his American brother, Perry, steps up, puts his name on the birth certificate and becomes their adored and adoring uncle.

I mean it when I say nearly every sort of enterprise that might hire an actor makes an appearance: Shakespeare (of course), music hall, vaudeville, burlesque, English pantomime, Hollywood movies, game shows, commercials, children's television, cooking shows, and on and on. The Chance sisters are raised in a theatrical boarding house by their beloved Grandma Chance (vegetarian, pacifist, nudist and drinker of créme de menthe). The appearances by real life luminaries are blessedly few and far between. Famous people are mentioned occasionally, but they remain off stage. There's a lovely description of a Fred and Adele Astaire routine - the girls' first show, and the first time they see their father in the flesh. There is also a whole Dan Leno routine in a seaside theater in Brighton, and he becomes an actual character in the book, playing Bottom in a disastrous movie version of A Midsummer Night's Dream. I had no idea that Dan Leno was a real person until I read my always charming inamorato's book on vaudeville (No applause, Just Throw Money). I may have even said out loud, "Oh! He's real!" to an entire subway car.

One of the most wonderful things about the book is Dora's voice. She's a smart, working class dame who learned how to write from her former boyfriend, just referred to by his nickname, Irish. He's clearly drawn from a mixture of Fitzgerald and Faulkner in their Hollywood years. She's by turns hard boiled and sentimental, and the set pieces are wondrous: the winter orgy outside of a burning mansion, the set of the aforementioned film of Dream, the entire Brighton sequence. The last line of the book, after a raucous party filled with centenarians, butterflies and incest, is "what a joy it is to dance and sing".

Wise Children is cast pretty much entirely with people who until fairly recently wouldn't have been allowed to be buried in cemeteries along side so-called decent people. Self-invented actors and performers and impresarios. That is to say, my kind of people.
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LibraryThing member NancyKay_Shapiro
I should have made a note of where it was I saw this novel mentioned, only a few weeks ago, because of course I've forgotten. But it was somewhere online probably and must've been a trusted source, because I put it right on my public library list, even though I usually think of Angela Carter's
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work, what little I've read of it, as kind of tiresomely laden with lots of symbols and fairy-taley things. (A personal dislike.)

I also tend not to flock to books about the smell of the crowd and the roar of the greasepaint, nor ones which are too "comic", both of which this one pretty much is, but nevermind, I got it, I read it, I was entirely engrossed and charmed, it was heaps of fun.

It's a first-person account of the life of a woman now in her semi-spry 70s who, with her identical twin sister, was a song-and-dance girl in music hall in London in the first half of the 20th century. She's also the unacknowledged and illegitimate daughter of Britain's greatest living Shakespearian actor.

The story she tells takes in the music hall childhood in Brixton, a chance to be in a Hollywood film spearheaded by the famous father, and, as the final set-piece (Carter's wonderful at big set-pieces), the 100th birthday of the great man, at which party all his family, both legit and illegit, cast-off or retained, gathers, and much mayhem ensues.

Carter's themes are of love and loyalty--the twin sisters never find relationships more important to them than they are to each other; the family that surrounds them is seldom directly biological. It's about life lived with great gusto, chances taken (Dora and her sister are surnamed Chance, and performed as the Lucky Chances), nostalgia, and keeping on keeping on.

This would make a smashing mini-series.
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LibraryThing member sometimeunderwater
Sat on my to-read pile for about seven years. When I finally finished it, I was honestly a little disappointed. It's all a little too crafted, full of structural patterning and surface references to Shakespeare (the sort of book that provides English undergraduates love to mine) but ultimately it
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felt a little emotionally shallow.

Deeper engagement with C20th British light entertainment, and a bit less of the Magical Realism-lite family history, would have fixed it. Gorgeous George deserved a whole book to himself.

Given it extra points for being probably the only novel ever to reference Leigham Court Road in Streatham.
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LibraryThing member Nandakishore_Varma
I love Angela Carter's prose: the sentences dance together, perfectly matched, creating a sinuous harmony of prose that's almost poetry. Wise Children is no different. In telling the story of the Misses Dora and Leonora Chance, the "Chance Sisters" whose rhythmically clicking heels have lighted up
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many a music hall stage, Ms. Carter has not spared any expense, choosing to spread the paint in loud, garish brushstrokes. For are they not the twin daughters (albeit born on the other side of the blanket) of the great Shakespearean actor Melchior Hazard?

Dora tells the story-and does it in such a bawdy style reminiscent of the music hall that you get carried away. It is a wildly improbable story, full of clandestine affairs, terrible disasters and great revelations-yet somehow unreal, as though we are watching a burlesque play. The girls are bastards of the great Melchior, born during the first world war, abandoned by their mother and brought up by Grandma Chance and their father's twin brother Peregrine. Even though their father do not accept them publicly, their story is always entwined with the story of the Hazard family, as Melchior moves from the drama stage to Hollywood and back again, picking up three and discarding two wives in the process. He has twin daughters from his first wife and twin sons from his third, and they all interact in wildly improbable ways throughout this kaleidoscopic novel.

It would not make any sense to describe the plot, so I will not attempt it-even if I were able to do so! Suffice it to say that there are artifices and deceptions aplenty, and nothing is what it seems to be...rather like a Shakespear play... In fact, the spirit of the great bard, especially the bawdiness of his comedies, is present throughout the narrative. This novel could be Angela Carter's tribute to him. Also, the vulgar light of the music hall makes itself felt on each page.

This is show business, and after some time, we start asking ourselves: is anything for real? As Nora asks Dora towards the end-does their father really exist? Or is he a pasteboard creation of their imaginations?

The other persistent theme is that of twins. One active, one passive: one quiet, one sprightly: one good, one evil... Even the city of London, split by the river into "twins": the North, respectable and the South, vulgar. Diametrical opposites permanently linked together. The novel aptly ends with the arrival of a new set of twins.

The question then arises: for such a many-layered story, why only three stars? Well...the book had a bit too much of vulgarity in it for me. Maybe Ms. Carter did it on purpose, but the constant references to semen (especially on one occasion, the presence of it on a young man's moustache after he has oral sex with another man) put me off. Also the numerous instances of incest didn't help. But I confess it is entirely a matter of personal taste.

So the verdict: a well-written, fast-paced literary novel, but perhaps not everybody's cup of tea.
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LibraryThing member Kristelh
Last novel by Angela Carter. She was diagnosed with lung cancer when she wrote this book.I listened to the audio read by Tracy Ullman. She did such a fantastic job.

The story is engaging. Twin chorus girls, Dora and Nora Chance are celebrating their 75th birthday. The date is 4/23 and it is also
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the birthday of Mechior Hazard and his twin Peregrine. It is also the supposed birthday of Shakespeare. Dora is the narrator. It is packed full of humor. It also has many allusions, magical realism and carnivalesque in the mix. Nora and Dora are unacknowledged and illegitimate daughters of an icon of the British Stage, Sir Melchior Hazard.They were raised by their mother's landlady,Grandma Chance,after the mother died. It probes and pokes at our expectations of reality and society and the subversive nature of fatherhood.

The story is full of references, allusions to Shakespeare. The book has 5 chapters and most plays of Shakespeare had 5 acts.

The Grandfather clock symbolizes the absent father, phallic symbol and is flawed as it rarely strikes the correct time.

Another aspect is pairings of opposites; sets of twins; Chance and Hazard. Superficial nature of differences.

Illegitimacy vs legitimacy. Nora and Dora live on the wrong side of the Thames. Born out of wedlock. They play in dance halls, father is in the legitimate theater.

Incest; 1/2 brother/sister, pantomine goose with gosling, sister share the blond tenor, Uncle Perry with Dora.
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LibraryThing member thelotustree
A book for lovers of Shakespeare who enjoy seeing the bard being taken on a roller coaster romp that rewrites expectations!

The book plays on the common "green space" trope used by Shakespeare (we start in the normal world, enter the forest (green space) and everything goes topsy turvy, only to be
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restored in the end when the characters emerge from the forest and re-enter society) but completely inverts it and embraces the chaos of the carnavalesque.

We start with chaos, enter a more sedate time in Hollywood, and then emerge once again into the topsy turvy. Angela Carter's subversion of expectation and not so gentle prodding at the world of so called high art, is a masterpiece and must read for anyone who enjoys a humouristic romp through literary history!

One of my all time favourites.
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LibraryThing member isabelx
There is still magic in this novel even though it is a more realistic story than some of Angela Carter's others; it is filled with the glamour of show business and the magic of the theatre. Dora and Nora are identical twins, the illegitimate offspring of a famous Shakespearean actor whose family
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contains an abundance of twins, both identical and fraternal. On the 100th birthday of the father who has never acknowledged them, letting it be believed that they are the daughter's of his own twin brother, Dora looks back over their eventful lives, during which they were always on the disreputable side of show business as well as having been born on the wrong side of the blanket. And even at this late stage in the story of the Hazards and the Chances there are still family secrets to be revealed, as they discover at the birthday party!
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LibraryThing member thioviolight
I loved this book right from the beginning! The last Angela Carter book I read before this was "The Passion of New Eve," which wasn't as easy to get into for me, and the wonderfully different, witty tone of "Wise Children" was a total delight. The novel is filled with fascinating characters and
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intrigues, and I was entertained right to the very end -- in fact, I was sad to reach the end of Dora's tale and say goodbye to the Chance twins. One of my favorite reads this year!
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LibraryThing member JenneB
Aside from being a lot of fun, I thought this book was really well constructed. It's supposedly just the rambling life story of an old lady, but the plot is like clockwork.
LibraryThing member MoochPurpura
I agree that this is a book that enchants! I was delighted when it came out. I still remember the etymology of hazard and chance, the maniacal host with the catchphrase >, and the winter party scene.
LibraryThing member Wubsy
I had to read this for AS Level English Lit and hated almost all of it. I couldn't get on with the style of writing and I felt at times it was being too obviously outrageous or weird without really saying anything important. However it did have some funny moments and the characters were nicely
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formed.
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LibraryThing member iayork
One of my favorites!: I'm not a huge fiction reader. However, I first read this when it was assigned to me in one of my women's lit classes in college. Needless to say it's one of the few books I found worth keeping once I had my BA in hand.

"Wise Children" features five sets of twins in the famed
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(but fictitious) Hazard dynasty of theatre, spanning from the heyday of the mid to late 1800s to the decline of the art with the advent of movies. Dora and Nora, the main characters (Dora being the narrator) tell a delightful story of their lives as illegitimate children "on the left hand side of the family", fathered by a famed actor in a one-night stand during WWI. The tale is expressive and detailed, with a good deal of good-natured bawdiness and who's sleeping with whom. Rather than coming off as trashy, the novel instead maintains a light heart about the whole thing from start to surprising and triumphant finish. It;s a lot of laughs, smiles, but also some tears.

Carter was a splendid writer (she died in 1992, not long after finishing this book). The story is woven in excellent style, ecoking a wide range of emotions. The characters, rather than being soap operaish (though the drama runs high, no pun intended) are well-crafted and believeable. "Wise Children" is an intimate peek into the tangled web of the Hazard family, with a knowing wink at each page.

Highly recommended for a light, entertaining, but far from saccharine read.
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LibraryThing member iayork
One of my favorites!: I'm not a huge fiction reader. However, I first read this when it was assigned to me in one of my women's lit classes in college. Needless to say it's one of the few books I found worth keeping once I had my BA in hand.

"Wise Children" features five sets of twins in the famed
Show More
(but fictitious) Hazard dynasty of theatre, spanning from the heyday of the mid to late 1800s to the decline of the art with the advent of movies. Dora and Nora, the main characters (Dora being the narrator) tell a delightful story of their lives as illegitimate children "on the left hand side of the family", fathered by a famed actor in a one-night stand during WWI. The tale is expressive and detailed, with a good deal of good-natured bawdiness and who's sleeping with whom. Rather than coming off as trashy, the novel instead maintains a light heart about the whole thing from start to surprising and triumphant finish. It;s a lot of laughs, smiles, but also some tears.

Carter was a splendid writer (she died in 1992, not long after finishing this book). The story is woven in excellent style, ecoking a wide range of emotions. The characters, rather than being soap operaish (though the drama runs high, no pun intended) are well-crafted and believeable. "Wise Children" is an intimate peek into the tangled web of the Hazard family, with a knowing wink at each page.

Highly recommended for a light, entertaining, but far from saccharine read.
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LibraryThing member limoncello
Angela Carter is one of my favourite authors. I love her fantasies, the twists and turns in her stories and her wonderful sense of humour. I love her use of metaphor and the universality of her themes. So of course I loved this book.
LibraryThing member larpiainen
Talk about colorful language! Even a bit challenging for a non-native English speaker, but worth every trip to the dictionary...great story.
LibraryThing member LizzieG
Wise Children was written by Angela Carter in 1991, the last of her nine novels, published before her death in 1992.

The story is a complex tale – set on the day of identical twins Dora (the narrator) and Nora Chance’s 75th birthday, it is a memoir of their personal lives as illegitimate twin
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daughters of Sir Melchior Hazard, a British theatrical legend, and their professional lives as vaudeville ‘hoofers’ – the Lucky Chances. All of the vignettes recollected by Dora lead towards the dénouement set at their father’s centennial party.

Central to the theme of the book – emphasised by the choice of quotations used at the outset of the novel – is the relationship between mothers and daughters ("Father is a hypothesis but mother is a fact"), and there is a very matriarchal slant to the story. This is very in keeping with Carter’s other works, which emphasise the power held by women in determining their own destinies.

At times the thread of the narrative is difficult to follow – the timeline jumps around incessantly and there is (fittingly for a novel about theatric types) a large cast of supporting characters – but Carter’s clever use of language to describe situations and events and her talent in bringing the principals to life make this a joy to read.

Wise Children requires one to suspend belief at times due to its use of magical realism, but if you can get to grips with the multiple pairs of twins, the numerous illegitimacies and the constant Shakespearian motif, then the highs and lows in the book will really tug at your heart strings. There’s also plenty of bawdy humour to keep the pace up.
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LibraryThing member leslie.98
Having not much liked Angela Carter's Nights at the Circus, I was a little reluctant to read this. However, I am glad that I did - I found this book much more to my taste than Nights at the Circus. I found the story of Dora and Nora quite interesting & loved the references to the 30's and 40's
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musical stars.
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LibraryThing member yooperprof
Oh, so that's why I haven't read Angela Carter before now.

Definitely not my cuppa. I know a lot of people love Carter's plotting and her style, but I thought this was terribly tedious - trying much too hard to be funny. Different likes for different types, indeed.
LibraryThing member jayne_charles
This is a tale of showbiz and ambiguous paternity was interesting for a few chapters but gradually lost me in a tangle of complicated family relationships and discarded tights. It did convey a strong sense of nostalgia for the high-kicking Dutch cap-wearing luvvie luvvie days of the characters’
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youth, and though I wasn’t around in the first half of the last century it brought that time to life in an admirable way. I did lose the plot during the Hollywood section, however, and never completely got it back. I wanted it to teach me something and yet it was so daft (the final plot surprise was perhaps the daftest of the daft) that anything it did teach me was going to be hard to believe.
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LibraryThing member Lisa.Johnson.James
Where do I start? This book is irreverent, humorous, tongue in cheek, witty, sarcastic, definitely NOT politically correct, & can be a bit confusing. It has more plot twists & turns than two snakes tied in a knot. The narrator is Dora Chance, one of a set of identical twins born "on the wrong side
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of the tracks", the product of an all but nameless showgirl & a successful stage star, who is himself a twin. The family intrigues will leave you a little sad, but not for long, as the whole concept of family in this book ends up being not who is there biologically, but who is there for you in all other ways. I loved it :)
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LibraryThing member Black_samvara
Dora and Nora, the illegitimate daughters of an eccentric family of acting greats were raised by their landlady Mrs Chance. This is the story of their lives as showgirls and the bizarre and humorous intertwining of their lives with the family and father who is never quite theirs.

Their uncle
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Peregrine is a fabulous character, a man who drifts in and out of our tale - frequently fabulously rich and with an attention span that -might- fill a gnats navel.
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LibraryThing member sweetiegherkin
Wise Children is narrated by Dora Chance on her 80th birthday as she reflects back on the helter-skelter life she and her twin sister Nora lived - from being orphaned at birth and raised by a nonconventional woman to getting into show business in the London theater world to arriving in Hollywood
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for a chaotic timespan to film a Shakespearean-based musical.

This book is an enjoyable read, filled with an undertone of witty, tongue-in-cheek humor along with a lot of ribald innuendo (and not so innuendo) as well as some occasional slapstick-style comedy. The pacing is quick, speeding the novel along even though not a ton happens in terms of succinct plotting.

In my opinion, starting the story with the birthday, going back in time and then moving forward chronologically to eventually end up back on the birthday was actually a disservice because in the beginning it was more difficult to see how all these characters relate and interact with each other, whereas by the end, it was all much clearer. But that's a small personal grievance that others may find perfectly acceptable.

The bigger issue I found was the climactic scene of the big family birthday party. There's an element of the absurd throughout the novel, which works quite well for the comedic aspect. But the birthday party takes it to a whole new level of ridiculousness that felt like it undermined the book a bit. The final ending was a bit bizarre on a couple of levels, highlighting just how dysfunctional this family really is.

Still, the book did explore the interesting overall theme about what makes up a family, as well as various subthemes about show business excesses, love and relationships, getting older, loss, etc. Despite all the undercurrent of humor, it touches on very heavy issues including death, World War II, abandonment by spouses and parents, etc.

All in all, I enjoyed this book but I think I'm missing what makes it such a classic and I'm not sure that I feel compelled to run out and pick up some more Carter to read any time in the near future.
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LibraryThing member Bagpuss
I think if I knew what I know about Shakespeare now when I read it, I might have got even more out of it. A great novel about twins and legitimacy.
LibraryThing member Dreesie
This took me forever to read--I maxed out renewals and had to re-request, and wait, and finally got it again.

I am lost as to why this is on the 1001 books list. It is nothing special, and I found it exhausting to read. It's not exactly stream of consciousness, but is narrated by Dora Chance,
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identical twin about age 80, discussing her showbiz (stage mostly, first half 20th century) life with her twin sis, her extended complicated family of foundlings, cheaters, divorces, and many half siblings of different ages. Not funny, just very tiring. Also , very long chapters.

Not for me at all. But it's done!
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LibraryThing member capriciousreader
Definitely held up to the reread. Just as fantastic as I remembered! I love this book!

Original language

English

Original publication date

1991

Physical description

240 p.; 5.67 inches

ISBN

0374530947 / 9780374530945

Local notes

Fiction
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