This book is described as a retelling of a number of children’s fairytales, such as Little Red Riding Hood, Beauty and the Beast, and Puss in Boots, in a manner that is more adult, more sensual, and more feminist. The premise sounded fun. I was wondering if we’d get to see Little Red Riding Hood set in the modern world, or what Beauty and the Beast might be like without magic. Instead, I was disappointed to find that most of these were the same fairy tales you’ve heard a million times, but with a bit more violence, or a bit more sex, or a female heroine instead of a man.
It feels like a waste of an excellent premise. There’s so much you could do with classic fairytales, retold in a modern and adult fashion, but this book seems to do the bare minimum. Most of the stories are told through narration, with little dialog (the foreword said Angela Carter was not confident writing dialog), and there aren’t enough changes from the classical fairytales to make these stories interesting to an adult. Adding a boob here or a dismemberment there does not suddenly make me want to read children’s stories.
Below are brief summaries of the short stories in this book, and my take on them.
SPOILER WARNING: these contain summaries of the stories, including spoilers.
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The Bloody Chamber. A retelling of the Bluebeard fairy tale, with the twist that the girl is rescued by her mother rather than her father and brothers (a minimal nod to feminism, I guess). The scenes with the mirrors and lily flowers is lovely, but the rest is entirely uninteresting.
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The Courtship of Mr Lyon. A retelling of Beauty and the Beast. I guess the twist here is that it’s set in modern times (e.g., with cars), but that has no meaningful impact on the story.
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The Tiger’s Bride. Another retelling of Beauty and the Beast. However, the twist here is that the woman also turns out to be a beast, and encourages the man to embrace his true nature (rather than turning into a handsome man). It’s a clever twist, but I found the way the story was written to be off-putting.
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Puss in boots. A retelling of the fairytale of the same name, but with a lot more sex, and different tricks employed by the cat. The writing in this one was more playful, and the cats are cute, so this is one of the few stories I enjoyed in this book.
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The Erl King. A retelling of a folktale of the same name. It’s a weird and creepy story.
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The Snow Child. I guess this is a retelling of some folktale of the same name, but I’ve never heard of it. It features necrophilia that seems to come out of nowhere, so it’s a total WTF story.
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The Lady of the House of Love. It seemed like a mix between Sleeping Beauty and Dracula, with the twist that the vampire is a woman who preys on men (I guess another minimal nod to feminism).
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The Werewolf. A retelling of Little Red Riding Hood, with the twist that the wolf doesn’t eat the grandma, but that the grandma has always been the wolf (or rather, a werewolf). It feels like a one-liner joke: vaguely amusing for a bit, and then you forget about it.
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The Company of Wolves. First, some weird stories about wolves, followed by another retelling of Little Red Riding Hood. In this one, the twist is that when Red Riding Hood realizes the wolf has eaten her grandma, Red Riding Hood strips naked and seduces the wolf (is that feminism too?).
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Wolf Alice. Supposedly some sort of mix of Little Red Riding Hood and Through the Looking Glass. A strange story of a girl raised by wolves slowly discovering her humanity.
I’m not sure why this book is so famous and well-regarded. Maybe it was more original or edgy when it first came out in the late 70s? Maybe I’m missing essential context for enjoying it? Or maybe I’m just not the target audience?
