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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN num: 9780140255287
ISBN number: 0140255281
Label: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 480
Printing Date: August 01, 1997
Publishing house: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Sale Popularity Level: 55104
Studio: Penguin (Non-Classics)
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
From reflections on jazz and Japan through vigorous refashionings of classic fairy tales to stunning snapshots of modern life in all its tawdry glory, Burning Your Boats charts the evolution of Angela Carter's marvelous magic vision in a volume that assembles her considerable legacy of short fiction, including early and previously unpublished stories.
Amazon.com Review:
'Baudelaire, Poe, Dream-Shakespeare, Hollywood, panto, fairy tale: [Angela] Carter wears her influences openly, for she is their deconstructionist, their saboteur.' So writes Salman Rushdie in his introduction to this essential dark fantasy collection, the complete stories (1962-1993) of a master of perfervid prose, dark eroticism, northern Gothic exuberance (think Isak Dinesen), and Grand Guignol imagery. (You may be familiar with Neil Jordan's movie The Company of Wolves, based on one of Carter's tales.) As the New York Times writes, 'There is an archaic cruel streak in many of these stories. Violence is always a possibility; beauty and courage and passion may prevail, but the weak and the timid go to the wall. In this, Angela Carter is true to the material that inspired her. After all, one reason the old fairy tales have survived for hundreds of years is that they do not try to disguise what the world is really like.'
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
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The book of forty-two tales is divided into six sections. The first, Early Work, 1962-6, shows little promise, but highlights the modifier-mania that would seize her career. The Man Who Loved A Double Bass follows the title's theme and ends weakly. A Very, Very Great Lady And Her Son At Home is both banal and dull. The third and final tale, A Victorian Fable (With Glossary), is a classic gimmick tale, in the vein of some of the list stories that a Donald Barthelme would indulge and that Rick Moody would orgasm over. It's told in Cockney rhyming slang, and is less than a page long- the glossary goes on much longer. It's sort of a Jabberwocky about a misogynist. One read, though, is enough to sate. There's nothing needed to learn in a reread, and the actual glossary hangs like a useless appendage- almost like T.S. Eliot's notes for The Waste Land.... Simply put, Angela Carter's writing is far too often gimmicky, and plain old bad. Density of language, as in the above examples, does not equate with depth, and any depth that does occur is incidental and accidental. The writing is banal and unoriginal, as the fairy tales are neither undermined nor seriously recast, and what many apologists see as her strengths, such the incessant need to try to be new, are, in fact, he biggest weaknesses- things which will eventually consign her writing to obscurity, for bad writing is simply bad writing, not quirkiness, and to recognize the difference is to naturally be. Anything else is just acting.
Rated by buyers -
angela carter is one of my newly aquired favorite reads.her poetic insight and humour are matched by none. she is also a feminist, and has a macabre sense of direction in her stories. if you appreciate the fantastical and visually stimulating world of imagination, mixed with sexually-driven directness, try this book. very entertaining. smart but not smug. unique and creative in a world of repetitiveness...i also loved "the infernal desire machines of dr. hoffman" - a novel by carter which delighted me and made me sad to finish reading.
Rated by buyers 
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In 'Notes From the Front Line', Carter said that she was not in the remythologizing business but in the demythologizing business. Anna Katsavos asked Angela Carter what she meant by that. Angela said, 'Well, I'm basically trying to find out what certain configurations of imagery in our society, in our culture, really stand for, what they mean, underneath the kind of semireligious coating that makes people not particularly want to interfere with them.'
Simply stated, Angela Carter has taken icons and myths we were all raised with and given them back to us in a form we know and trust. In stories. Her stories are adult fairy tales; lush, penetrating, uninhibited and dark.
An introduction by Salman Rushdie sets the perfect tone for the reading ahead. It is the closest to gushing the man has ever come. He says, these stories are also a treasure , to savour and to hoard. They begin with her early works, from 1962-6. The Man Who Loved the Double Bass tells the story of a musician in madly love with his instrument. Could he live without her? In the section called Fireworks; Nine Profane Pieces from 1974, Carters work begins an ethereal exploration on of the psyche in achingly beautiful prose. Her ability to write fantastical tableaus is showcased. In The Executioners Daughter, an executioner is told to execute his only son. The setting, itself, becomes a character. In Penetrating to the Heart of the Forest, a brother and sister are nudged into exploring the a dark forest and its hidden fruit tree. The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories is next, featuring writings from 1979. These are fairy tales retold for adults and contains some of the most stunning and psychological erotic written. Black Venus contains writing from 1985 and American Ghosts and Old World Wonders, work from 1993. Uncollected Stories contains work from 1970-81, featuring The Scarlet House, about a woman trapped in a house by a master of Chaos.
These short stories are profane, wise, surreal, unrepentant and brilliant. The Tiger's Bride alone is worth the price of admission in to this magical world.
Rated by buyers -
Having enjoyed the novels of Angela Carter, I decided to give her short stories a try.
Written in the same poetic style, these stories require reading very slowly in order to enoy the language. The dense sybolism requires that you think about each story for a while before proceeding to the next. In fact I would recommend reading only a few at sitting.
Like any author of short stories, Carter wrote a few that failed to draw me in. But these failures only point to the stengths of those that did.
Rated by buyers -
I was very first introduced to Carter in my women's lit class, with "The Company of Wolves," (which still stands as my favorite Carter story). I was shocked that I had never read any of her writing before. A few days later, I went and ordered "Burning your Boats." I haven't been disappointed.
Regardless of whether I enjoy the story (and I must admit, I haven't enjoyed all of them), I cannot help but be blown away by her writing. It literally takes my breath away. She is one of the only authors that has this effect on me. Her retellings of fairy tales leave me in awe.
The more of her I read, the more obsessed I become. She is truly an amazing writer. I constantly ask myself how anyone can be so talented. I just don't understand it. Her writing is nothing short of stunning.
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