A review by ghostluvr2000
The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories by Angela Carter
5.0
star rating is based off the bloody chamber alone. i think it is by far the strongest of the collection and i want to focus on the positives so i'm going to be talking about that (i also don't have much to say about the others on first read) but WOWWW. what a good short story like fucking incredible. had me captivated the whole time and when i wasn't reading it i was thinking about it. gothic horror done to perfection <3 (although i would have had her have her head cut off lol)
'his wedding gift, clasped round my throat. a choker of rubies, two inches wide, like an extraordinarily precious slit throat.' 'the white dress; the frail child within it; and the flashing crimson jewels round her throat, bright as arterial blood.' 'and, for the first time in my innocent and confined life, i sensed in myself a potentiality for corruption that took my breath away.' 'i felt myself giddy as if i were on the edge of a precipice; i was afraid, not so much of him, of his monstrous presence, heavy as if he had been gifted at birth with more specific gravity than the rest of us, the presence that, even when i thought myself most in love with him, always subtly oppressed me... no. i was not afraid of him, but of myself. i seemed reborn in his unreflective eyes, reborn in unfamiliar shapes. i hardly recognised myself from his descriptions of me and yet, and yet -- might there not be a grain of beastly truth in them? and, in the red firelight, i blushed again, unnoticed, to think he might have chosen me because, in my innocence, he sensed a rare talent for corruption.' ''there is a striking resemblance between the act of love and the ministrations of a torturer'' 'if i loved him enough to follow him, i should have to die. the atrocious loneliness of that monster!'
also really like this bit from the intro:
'to be the /object/ of desire is to be defined in the passive case.
to exist in the passive case is to die in the passive case -- that is, to be killed.
this is the moral of the fairy tale about the perfect woman.'
'his wedding gift, clasped round my throat. a choker of rubies, two inches wide, like an extraordinarily precious slit throat.' 'the white dress; the frail child within it; and the flashing crimson jewels round her throat, bright as arterial blood.' 'and, for the first time in my innocent and confined life, i sensed in myself a potentiality for corruption that took my breath away.' 'i felt myself giddy as if i were on the edge of a precipice; i was afraid, not so much of him, of his monstrous presence, heavy as if he had been gifted at birth with more specific gravity than the rest of us, the presence that, even when i thought myself most in love with him, always subtly oppressed me... no. i was not afraid of him, but of myself. i seemed reborn in his unreflective eyes, reborn in unfamiliar shapes. i hardly recognised myself from his descriptions of me and yet, and yet -- might there not be a grain of beastly truth in them? and, in the red firelight, i blushed again, unnoticed, to think he might have chosen me because, in my innocence, he sensed a rare talent for corruption.' ''there is a striking resemblance between the act of love and the ministrations of a torturer'' 'if i loved him enough to follow him, i should have to die. the atrocious loneliness of that monster!'
also really like this bit from the intro:
'to be the /object/ of desire is to be defined in the passive case.
to exist in the passive case is to die in the passive case -- that is, to be killed.
this is the moral of the fairy tale about the perfect woman.'