Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Angela Carter

In Angela Carter’s tragically short life she produced a body of work that still glows with intelligence and humor. Her equally excellent fiction and non-fiction offered moods and themes from Gothic, feminist, surreal, carnivalesque, blackly comic, serious, angry, and joyous presented in beautifully selected language and presented by an intelligent mind with a deep love for culture, history, and literature. The world she created evokes fellow travelers such Isak Dineson, William S. Burroughs, the fairy tales of Perrault and Grimm, surrealism of Leonora Carrington and Alfred Jarry, the animation of Jan Svankmajer, the satire of Swift, the new worlds sci-fi of Ballard and Moorcock, and Borges. Her non-fiction covers literature, food, travel sexism/feminism, surrealism, film, and mythology with the same savage wit as her fiction. Sorry, if my write up makes her work sound so boring as there are few worlds in literature as terrifying, disturbing and guaranteed to change your view of the world as that of Angela Carter. Here are some of my favorites by her.
The Bloody Chamber: And Other Stories (Penguin Ink)

Nights at the Circus

Burning Your Boats: The Collected Short Stories

The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman. Angela Carter

The Passion of the New Eve (Virago Modern Classics)

Shaking a Leg: Collected Writings

No comments:

Post a Comment