by Janna Wong
The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter was originally published in the UK in 1979 (1980 in the US). A series of ten short stories, they are freely adapted from fairytales but with a bloody, gothic spin, as Carter admits to being a fan Edgar Allan Poe as well as Gothic horror.
Full disclosure: horror is not really my genre so I probably was not going to fall head over heels in love with this collection of short stories based on children’s fairy tales but retold with a feminist bent. Happily, it wasn’t as difficult a listen as I thought it would be. However, I did find the quality of the stories to be uneven — there were some I loved (“The Bloody Chamber, “Puss-in-Boots,” “The Courtship of Mr. Lyon”) but others (“The Snow Child,” “The Werewolf”) left me cold.
I was enticed to listen by the promise of another great performance by Richard Armitage, who is a favorite narrator. And, he did not disappoint: his narration of “Puss-in-Boots” is truly wonderful. In addition, Emilia Fox’s narration of the opening story, “The Bloody Chamber,” is also excellent.
But, truth be told, I couldn’t wait until I finished this collection. The book just wasn’t for me.
