Advantages: A Colourful, vibrant, rich novel
Disadvantages: the author's lack of moral conduct

...Angela Carter's Wise Children is the life story of show businesses Chance Sisters. Dora Chance, twin sister of Nora, narrates throughout the story. She tells their colourful life tale upon the commencement of the twin's seventy- fifth birthdays. The story is set mainly in England. The twins spend a great deal of their lives based at their childhood home in Brixton, South London. I think Angela Chance has chosen this setting to exaggerate and highlight the twin's illegitimacy. The North and South divide of social London were very clear at the time of the books setting. The "Right side of the tracks is the North and the wrong side, the South. There is to be no overlapping of borders, as the sides are very definitely separated by the river. At the time of the twin's births, there was a huge stigma attached to being illegitimate... Read review

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Advantages: Extrodinary plot; original concept
Disadvantages: I wouldn't agree with all of the chracters actions

...Ouch! As all men reading around the country, cross their legs and wince at the thought! Those of a nervous disposition would be well advised not to read Angela Carter’s The Passion of New Eve. But then again…you should! By now, you must know what a surreal taste in literature I have. Generally, the more surreal, the better. This novel didn’t disappoint me and gave a good balance between fantasy and reality with a number of themes that crop up. British born Evelyn arrives in New York amidst an America that is on the brink of civil war. He sees first hand, a barricade being built around Harlem, rats infesting the city, murders, muggings and the violence from vigil-anti groups like the “angry women”: feminism at its ugliest. He is then enchanted by Leilah, a prostitute, who he misogynistically... Read review

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Advantages: Great selection of short stories from around the world
Disadvantages: Can be a bit Gory

...Angela Carter's book of fairytales is an interesting mix of stories from around the globe including Europe, Africa, Asia, and America and provides an interesting insight into the social systems or beliefs of the times. However these are not the happily ever after children's versions that we are may be more used to, but tales with a much darker side. These tales are definitely not for children as some of the tales can be either risqué or quite gory and there isn't a guarantee of a happy ending. One thing I found interesting was the similarities in many of the tales although they originate from completely different parts of the world. An example of this was how many of the tales focused on a daughter/niece/stepdaughter who is always extremely beautiful and therefore hated by jealous stepmothers/sisters/aunts who then try to get rid... Read review

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Advantages: Frankness, great feminist approach to Sade's books
Disadvantages: It's a critical approach; you may agree or disagree with it

...THE SADEIAN WOMAN: An Exercise in Cultural History by Angela Carter (1979) THE SADEIAN WOMAN is divided into five sections: three of which are dedicated to each of Sade's novels JULIETTE and JUSTINE and his play PHILOSOPHY IN THE BEDROOM, in addition to a preface and a finale. Sade, after whom sadism was named, is definitely a controversial writer; he tortured, mutilated, and cannibalized his characters in the name of lust. His vilest "vengeance" was directed towards pregnant women and that's why he was condemned by many readers. However, the fact remains that most of his protagonists are females, and this certainly applies to the three books which Carter examines in her study. The question is: did Sade have a pattern in mind, or was he simply one of the many misogynists in the eighteenth century? We always want to believe... Read review

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Advantages: Those infernal machines
Disadvantages: Ooh are those machines infernal

...on it always stops exactly where it started. Our hero is Desiderio (get it?) – the unrequited lover of Albertina, daughter of Doc Hoffman. He alone will survive and get to witness what old Hoffy’s Desire Machines really are, and diabolical they will surely be. Desiderio travels through this landscape of clouds, meeting the good, the damaged and the clinically insane along the way. What is real and what is imagined is by definition an irrelevant aside – it brings to mind Blake’s Doors of Perception; could Doctor Hoffman’s dreams in fact be liberating? If the structure of reason itself could be crippled, could we survive, and if we could, would we know it? Angela Carter plays with concepts the way little boys play with their greens. (Good God, what did you think I was going to say?!) Her writing is beautiful... Read review

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Advantages: A joyful celebreation of life
Disadvantages: It ends...

...Wise Children, like all Angela Carter's novels, is very, very, very hard to quantify. The novel itself is a minefield of clichés, stock characters and contrived situations waiting to happen. My point being: this never happens. Ever. Not at all. This does not seem possible. Contextualisation: knowing the name and not much else I picked up the novel second hand, having read the first few pages in the shop. I was enjoying it but there was the niggling thought in the back of my mind: this book could get annoying. But I knew it would take 30 or forty pages to find out and so what was there to lose. What indeed? I bought it. Wise Children, on the surface, is the tale of Dora and Nora Chance (known in their 'glory days' of music hall / vaudeville as the Lucky Chances), bastard offspring of Thespian Sir Melchior Hazard, one... Read review

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Advantages: Funny, scandalous, happy ending
Disadvantages: Structure leaves a lot to be desired - you might get lost

...I bought this book '3 for £1' from a charity shop having only vaguely heard of Angela Carter, but when faced with a bunch of books I have no idea how to choose from, I usually go for the prettiest cover, or the author with the nicest name. In this case, having found 2 books, and faced with a shelf of unknown authors, I went with the one who shared a name with my mother. Awh. The Author Wise Children was Angela Carter's last novel before she died of cancer, aged 51. It is full of references to the works of Shakespeare that surrounded her childhood, introduced by her mother, and the Hollywood films her father took her to see. She was born in 1940 and during the war lived with her grandmother in Yorkshire who introduced her to the feminism that pervades many of her books. The Bloody Chamber, for example, is one of her... Read review

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Advantages: great ensight to carters own veiws
Disadvantages: changing of time fames can be quite heavy

...Angela Carters narrative Wise Children novels explores many themes and expresses many of her veiws. It is clear through her writting that she was a feminst thgouh the dominance of the male characters. Without giving away the novels main theme, the text explores, carnivalesque, magic realism, feminism, illegitimacy and legitimacy and the decline of the british empire through the characters. It amazes me hoe Carter can express so much in so little pages! The novel is written in so much depth and there is so much to be analysed from the text, that it gives the reader so much detail about Carter herself! There is also a comical element throughout the novel, which adds a sense of style and enjoyment. Although tricky to get into at first, when the novel progresses more detail is given and it becomes easier to undrstand. A great read for those... Read review

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