[REVIEWS] Book: The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter

The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter

Well, I usually include some kind of blurb about the books I review. Most of the time it's copied direcctly from the back cover or inside flap. This book ... doesn't have one! So instead you get what Wikipedia says about it:

The Bloody Chamber (or The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories) is an anthology of short fiction by Angela Carter. It was first published in the United Kingdom in 1979 by Vintage and won the Cheltenham Festival Literary Prize. All of the stories share a common theme of being closely based upon fairytales or folk tales. However, Angela Carter has stated: "My intention was not to do 'versions' or, as the American edition of the book said, horribly, 'adult' fairy tales, but to extract the latent content from the traditional stories."

I had some trouble with the author's writing style. First and most irritating, there was definite comma abuse going on. I overuse commas myself and even I thought there were way too freakin' many. And secondly, I'm also a big fan of big words but only when it feels right and the writing flows. Vocabulary choices should enhance the story, not burden the reader. There were a couple of stories that I thought were real gems, but overall I wasn't thrilled.

( Here's a list of the ten stories, the tales they were based on and what I thought of them: )

care for a rollo, sweet xena?

Article that phinnia shared, which deserves to be reproduced here in its entirety:

The English actress Emma Thompson has stepped in to protest about an up-and-coming British actress, of seemingly perfect proportions, being required by an American film company to lose weight for her next role. Hayley Atwell may be the latest muse of Woody Allen, starring in his new film Cassandra's Dream, but she didn't measure up for Miramax Films, who are behind the big-screen remake of Brideshead Revisited.

Having been cast as Julia Flyte, the gilded scion of an aristocratic family played in the original TV series by Diana Quick, the 25-year-old Londoner was asked to shed a few pounds.

Thompson, who appears in the remake as Lady Marchmain (opposite Michael Gambon in the old Laurence Olivier role as Lord Marchmain), learned of Atwell's predicament when she invited her to dinner at her home.

Says Atwell: "I went round to Emma's one night and she was getting very angry that I wasn't eating all the food she was giving me. I told her why and she hit the roof." The no-nonsense Thompson was so outraged that she called the producers the next day and threatened to resign from the film if they forced Atwell to lose weight. Faced with Thompson - a two-times Oscar winner - on the warpath, Miramax Films swiftly relented.