The Bloody Chamber & Other Stories

by Angela Carter

[Jo]

2.5 Stars.

Originally published on Once Upon a Bookcase.

The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter, a collection of (mostly) fairy tale retellings, is a book I have been recommended over and over since I first became interested in fairy tale retellings. It was always highly praised, so I have been really eager to read it for a long time. However, I have finished the book feeling like I've missed something, because I don't really see what all the fuss is about.

And I'm pretty sure I have missed something. The Bloody Chamber is a literary book, and there's always more to literary stories than just a straight story. There's always symbolism, or something being said in the text that has a deeper meaning. But I have never been a person who has been able to see those things for myself, I can only see them once they have been pointed out to me. It doesn't matter that I know there's more to read there - as is specifically mentioned in the introduction by Helen Simpson - if I can't see it, I can't see it. All I read were stories not too dissimilar from the original stories I know, written in a style I didn't much care for.

I made the mistake of starting the introduction before reading the stories, not realising that it would spoil certain things in the stories. So the titular story, The Bloody Chamber, didn't have the shocking affect on me it would have had I not known what was coming. However, I had started the introduction, and before it got into discussion the specific stories, it mentioned that these stories aren't retellings, but new stories. Simpson quotes Carter herself saying, "'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 and to use it as the beginnings of new stories.'" (p vii- viii) So my heart sunk; I was expecting retellings, and that isn't what I would be getting. However, I think Carter and I have a different opinion of what "retelling" means, because most of these stories are recognisable as retellings of Bluebeard, Beauty and the Beast, Puss-in-Boots (Carter's story actually has the same title!), Little Red Riding Hood, and Grimm's original Snow White.

Once I realised the introduction spoiled the stories (whyyyy?), I decided to read the stories, and after each story, flick back to the intro to see what it said about that particular story. The intro is in the vein of literary criticism, so sometimes it pointed out something I hadn't thought about, other times it didn't say very much at all. What I found surprising is that Carter chose to retell Beauty and the Beast and Little Red Riding Hood more than once; for Beauty and the Beast we have The Courtship of Mr Lyon and The Tiger's Bride, and for Little Red Riding Hood we have The Werewolf, The Company of Wolves and Wolf-Alice, and each time, and rather than be spread out throughout the book, with other stories interspersed, they would come one after the other. It was interesting to see the different direction Carter chose to take the stories, each ending differently, and I'm sure there something different she was trying to say with each story, but it was lost to me.

I would like to discuss some of the stories in more detail, but I can't do so without spoiling the stories, so don't read if you've yet to read this book. I know these are retellings, but they don't always end the way you would expect, so it's better to skip this bit if you don't want to know.

The titular story The Bloody Chamber is a retelling of Bluebeard. It's the longest in the collection, at 42 pages long. To be honest, I felt it dragged. It starts off with the new bride and the Marquis travelling to his castle, but on the train ride, the bride reminisces over what led up to their marriage, and to be honest, it wasn't very interesting. I just didn't care. Because of the intro, I knew this story was a Bluebeard retelling, and so I was eager to get to the good bit, where she discovers his dead wives and that he killed them, and the danger she was in, and finding out why the Marquis killed his wives. However, we don't. There is no explanation as to why he kills them. He only decides he wants to kill his new bride after she finds the torture chamber where his wives bodies are kept. And the new bride feels it's clear this was all a set up, he wanted her to find the room so he could kill her, but why he wants to kill her or any of them I don't know! I mean, he kills because he likes it, but why does he like it? It's just unexplained and feels unfinished to me. The intro talks about how in the original story by Charles Perrault, the bloody chamber is meant to represent the womb, as it was a time when a lot of women died in childbirth, but that in Carter's version, instead "the menace is located [...] in darker side of heterosexuality, in sadomasochism and the idea of fatal passion," (p xiii) which I think is pretty judgemental of her, to be honest. It insinuates that the Marquis gets off on killing people, but why does he, you know? For me, these things need to be looked into deeper. I'm always going to dislike the villain, but I need to understand the villain's motivations.

With the two Beauty in the Beast retellings, I did find it interesting how in one the Beauty transforms the Beast, and in the other, the tiger-man transforms the girl. What I did find odd, though, was how the tiger-man in The Tiger's Bride, who won the girl when gambling with her father, wanted to see her naked and then would send her back to her father. There is something so perverse in that, to me. I mean, sure, if she just took her clothes off, she would have been sent home - if the tiger-man was telling the truth - but it's so wrong. You can take your clothes off and let me look at you, and then you can go home, or you'll stay here until you do. Practically imprisoned with no escape. I mean... it's gross and wrong. And then when she finally does show him, for what reason I cannot understand, (she saw him without his clothes on and fully understood he was a tiger, so now she'll take her clothes off and show him her boobs? Why? And then when she can practically leave and go back home, she decides to stay and fully strip for him. Again, why?), he turns her into a tiger by licking her. And I didn't get it. Why? How? I know this story is meant to be saying more than I'm reading, but I'm not getting it.

Then there is The Snow Child, the shortest of the lot, which is more inspired by Snow White than a retelling of Snow White. It takes from the original, the one by the Grimms, how a queen wanted a daughter with skin as white as snow, lips red as blood, and hair as black as ebony. In The Snow Child, it's a Count who, when out on a ride with his wife, see the snow, wants a girl with skin as white as snow, with lips as red as the blood in a hole in the snow, and hair as black as the raven's feather he finds. Note he wants a girl not a daughter. Then a girl who has all of these things appears - "she was the child of his desire" (note she is a child, and that desire can have more than one meaning), and he puts her on their horse, and they continue off riding. The man's wife, who is jealous of this girl and wants to get rid of her, keeps trying to get her to do things for her that would be dangerous, but the Count, realising it's dangerous, always stops her. With each request, an item of the woman's clothes flies off her body and on to the girl. Symbolism of her being replaced? I don't know. But please remember that she is a child. Until the Countess asks for a rose from a bush, which the Count allows, but the girl pricks her finger on a thorn, bleeds, screams and dies. So what does the count do? Crying, he rapes her body. This story is super short, and for me, is the most disturbing. She is a child, and as a inspired by Snow White, the child is meant to be his daughter. It's incestuous and abusive and disgusting! The Count is a paedophile! And I do not understand this story!

The most interesting, to me, is Wolf-Alice, which is a retelling of a medieval version of Little Red Riding Hood, where a woman has a baby, abandons her in the woods, and is then raised by wolves. When she is found later by nuns, and they try to tame her, she still feels herself a wolf, and rebels against who they force her to be. This is the one story I didn't know, and so the one I found most interesting, as I had no idea where it would lead. But I do think it odd that the nuns decided to leave her in the care of a werewolf Duke who robs graves to feed on the bodies. Strange. But a really interesting story. If there was anything to read into that, though, again, it was lost on me.

There was also The Lady of the House of Love, which was also interesting! Not a retelling this time, but a vampire story. It was sad and melancholic, a vampire lady who hates how she has to feed, but has to feed nonetheless. I didn't understand her death, though, how the man sucking the blood from her finger lead to her death. I'd like to have known what happened while he was unconscious. Someone opened those curtains and let the sunlight in, and I don't understand how the vampire could have opened them all and not died. A little confusing, but interesting!

Having written this review, and thinking about each story, I think my thoughts on it have slowly changed. There are stories that are interesting, though mostly disturbing on a huge scale. I liked the images and phrases that were repeating in the stories; roses, blood, snow, "the bloody chamber" and "pentacle of virginity". I did notice these things, but, again, if it meant anything, I'm none the wiser. Still, an interesting collection of retellings, but I have to say I did prefer Deirdre Sullivan's Tangleweed and Brine.