Zenosbooks

Saints And Strangers by Angela Carter. New York. 1986. Viking Press. hardcover. 126 pages. September 1986. Jacket design by Melissa Jacoby. Jacket painting The Peaceable Kingdom circa 1840-1845 by Edward Hicks. 0670811394.

 

 

0670811394FROM THE PUBLISHER -

   Spellbinding, entrancing, vital-all the words critics used to describe Carter’s Nights at the Circus apply as well to this thrilling collection by ‘the poet of the short story.’ - Lisa St. Aubin de Teran. The saints and strangers of Angela Carter’s title are those who, in the words of the Puritan settlers of Massachusetts, would colonize the New World. And in this dazzling collection of short fiction, the focus is on the New World of both fact and the imagination. Three of these eight stories are set in America-’The Fall River Axe Murders’ is a haunting cinematic prologue to that most celebrated of nineteenth-century crimes; ‘Our Lady of the Massacre’ depicts (in a completely authentic voice) the adventures of an eighteenth-century indentured servant who is kidnapped by the Indians and married to a chieftain; ‘The Cabinet of Edgar Allen Poe’ brings its obsessed hero to a kind of crippled life; and a fourth, ‘Black Venus,’ brilliantly reimagines the relationship of Charles Baudelaire to his Caribbean Creole mistress, a daughter of the New World languishing in the Old. In other stories, we are transported to the steppes of Central Asia (‘The Kiss’). an Alpine village full of mysterious happenings (‘Peter and the Wolf’), an enchanted forest (‘Overture and Incidental Music to A Midsummer Night’s Dream’), and an Edwardian kitchen (‘The Kitchen Child’). In each case, we are caught by the tale-spinning magic that distinguishes Angela Carter’s best work. Yet these stories do more than dazzle us with glittering prose and eccentric flights of fancy. Each speaks with an achingly human voice and embraces the frailty and mystery of the flesh. Whether they are saints or strangers, the subjects of Angela Carter’s latest book are unforgettable.

 

 

Carter AngelaAngela Carter (7 May 1940 – 16 February 1992) was an English novelist and journalist, known for her feminist, magical realism, picaresque and science fiction works. In 2008, The Times ranked Carter tenth, in their list of ‘The 50 greatest British writers since 1945’ Born Angela Olive Stalker in Eastbourne, in 1940, Carter was evacuated as a child to live in Yorkshire with her maternal grandmother. As a teenager she battled anorexia. She began work as a journalist on the Croydon Advertiser, following in the footsteps of her father. Carter attended the University of Bristol where she studied English literature. She married twice, first in 1960 to Paul Carter. They divorced after twelve years. In 1969 Angela Carter used the proceeds of her Somerset Maugham Award to leave her husband and relocate for two years to Tokyo, Japan, where she claims in NOTHING SACRED (1982) that she ‘learnt what it is to be a woman and became radicalised.’ She wrote about her experiences there in articles for New Society and a collection of short stories, FIREWORKS: NINE PROFANE PIECES (1974), and evidence of her experiences in Japan can also be seen in THE INFERNAL DESIRE MACHINES OF DOCTOR HOFFMAN (1972). She then explored the United States, Asia and Europe, helped by her fluency in French and German. She spent much of the late 1970s and 1980s as a writer in residence at universities, including the University of Sheffield, Brown University, the University of Adelaide, and the University of East Anglia. In 1977 Carter married Mark Pearce, with whom she had one son. As well as being a prolific writer of fiction, Carter contributed many articles to The Guardian, The Independent and New Statesman, collected in SHAKING A LEG. She adapted a number of her short stories for radio and wrote two original radio dramas on Richard Dadd and Ronald Firbank. Two of her fictions have been adapted for the silver screen: The Company of Wolves (1984) and THE MAGIC TOYSHOP (1987). She was actively involved in both film adaptations, her screenplays are published in the collected dramatic writings, The Curious Room, together with her radio scripts, a libretto for an opera of Virginia Woolf's Orlando, an unproduced screenplay entitled The Christchurch Murders (based on the same true story as Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures) and other works. These neglected works, as well as her controversial television documentary, The Holy Family Album, are discussed in Charlotte Crofts' book, Anagrams of Desire (2003). Her novel NIGHTS AT THE CIRCUS won the 1984 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for literature. At the time of her death, Carter was embarking on a sequel to Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre based on the later life of Jane's stepdaughter, Adèle Varens. However, only a synopsis survives. Angela Carter died aged 51 in 1992 at her home in London after developing lung cancer.


 


Search

Copyright © 2024 Zenosbooks. All Rights Reserved.
Joomla! is Free Software released under the GNU General Public License.