I found this unique interpretation of the fairy tales of Western Europe carries all the hallmarks of Angela Carter's brilliance, both as a storyteller and a feminist social commentator.
The Bloody Chamber of the title is a reworking of Bluebeard's gory tale; other stories within this book are The Courtship of Mr. Lyon, The Tiger's Bride, Puss-in-Boots, The Snow Child, The Werewolf, The Company of Wolves, and Wolf-Alice. Angela has not so much as retold the tales as used archetypes to recreate the spirit of the original, from oral tradition.
Each tale is told in dense, sparkling prose, exploring the Jungian psychology and latent warnings of the sexual predation of men, present in the originals, but with subtlety and understated endings, some of which are less than happy. Beauty may be more self-reliant and knowing than we are used to, but her happy ending comes from her understanding of the nature of man…and woman. Magical, realistic, erotic, gothic and surreal, this collection should be picked up and read by the fireside on a cold winter night.
