Book Review | ‘Shadow Dance’ by Angela Carter

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angela carter, Annunciation, Bloody Chamber, book review, Evelyn, gothic fiction, literary fiction, Morris, Nights at the Circus, Passion of New Eve, shadow dance, violence

Shadow Dance by Angela Carter

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

“She was a beautiful girl, a white and golden girl, like moonlight on daisies, a month ago. So he stared at her shattered beauty… ‘She is a burning child, a fiery bud’ said Honeybuzzard, before he knifed her.'”

This is a very strange story about a ghastly nymphet called Ghislaine whose beauty verges on the grotesque even before her face gets slashed to pieces by the equally beautiful and androgynous villain Honeybuzzard. I am beginning to see a common theme in Carter’s particular stance on the nature of feminine beauty in that she loves to concoct her characters as a delirious mix of sexual depravity in virginal garbs.

‘Shadow Dance’ is a complex novel where the sexuality of characters are always suspect. The medusa-like Ghislaine (even her name is a monstrosity that smacks of the absinthe-odoured Lautrec ladies) is presented as an insatiable young woman who is forever scarred after a violent sexual attack cruelly orchestrated by two men; Morris, a nondescript antique-dealer who beneath the thin gloss is basically a failure in life and his flamboyant and dangerous sidekick Honeybuzzard.

“In the flickering blue light, Honey’s long, pale hair and high-held, androgynous face was hard and fine and inhuman; Medusa, marble, terrible… She gaped up, baffled, wondering, like the Virgin in Florentine pictures meeting the beautiful, terrible Angel of the Annunciation.” 

The two men are very unlikely friends and partners in crime, however the thing drawing the two together is the very thing that makes them incompatible: total incongruity of character. Morris is the total opposite of Honeybuzzard. Where he is all shy and retiring, Honeybuzzard is all knives and sharp corners. Like the title suggests, there is a very subtle shadow dance that occurs between these two men, they are both too much of one thing and not enough of another and it is through this need that they come into close proximity and tolerate each others intolerable acts. Even more subtle is the sexual tension between the two and the sense of how they can never truly enact the forbidden sexual desire for one another because they are, in a symbolic sense, each other.

Honeybuzzard and Ghislaine were the most interesting characters and I find Carter is at her best when creating the most outrageous personalities. She really does shine as she makes the most incredible habits credible. Ghislaine’s magnificent entrance at the beginning of the novel and Carters exquisite description of her will stay with me for a long while. It was nice to see the initial workings of ‘The Passion of New Eve‘ in this, her first novel; as I think Ghislaine and Honeybuzzard may have been test versions of the Tristesse and Evelyn to come.

Carter is also a master of jerking sympathy out of her readership for the most absurd of reasons. As poisonous as Ghislaine is, we cannot help feeling horror and shock at her attack by the hands of Morris, who was the one who planted the demonic seed of thought into the impressionable mind of Honeybuzzard. In roundabout ways we can decide for ourselves who was more or less to blame for the events of that night and how the aftermath affects not just the victim, but many other innocent bystanders who have no more than a fleeting acquaintance with the main people involved.

The most amazing thing about ‘Shadow Dance’ has to be the detailed descriptions of various degrees of depravity, whether this be in the state of a house or a relationship. Things are always a little bit tainted in Carter’s world and that’s what gives this a very gothic flavour. Everything is in a certain stage of its’ own undoing and even those who think they have finally captured a rag of relative happiness soon have it cruelly torn from them.

I adore authors who are not afraid to put their characters through their paces, who are brutal and precise if the story demands it. Carter cares very much for her characters, which is why she is so careless with them. They are not wrapped in cotton and protected by events, they live them out for us and brings us ‘the taste of pennies’ on our tongue. It’s always a pleasure to read Carter, for she belongs in the rare gallery of women writers such as du Maurier, Atwood and Morrison, who boldly go where no others have been and eke out new, savage pastures for readers to lose themselves in. They bring with them their own brand of femininity, one that tries to cleanse itself of the barbie-coloured optimism, and allows us to glance at the depths of our forbidden selves for a few therapeutic minutes – at the overwhelming burden of our dark ‘life-giving’ gifts and what this means in its terrifying totality.

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Book Review | ‘Marvels’ by Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross

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alex ross, civil war, comic books, frankenstein, greek mythology, Human Torch, john milton, kurt busiek, mark millar, Marvel, mary shelley, paradise lost, prometheus, science fiction, victor frankenstein, violence

Marvels by Kurt Busiek

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Here’s yet another graphic novel with an explosive cast, another ‘alternative’ view on superheroes. But unlike Millar’s ‘Civil War’, the ‘Marvels’ creators Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross get the art AND the storyline spot on. This time the story actually works and I think that may have something to do with the fact that not only are they putting the reader firmly in the place of ‘helpless spectator’, but cementing this angle with a narrator who (by default) is in that situation too.

Meet Phil Sheldon, a rookie photojournalist who recounts first-hand experiences and close encounters with the ‘otherly race’. Sheldon is unique in that he witnessed the initial advent of these synthetic gods and takes us not only through their creation and evolution, but also conveys the hopes and fears their presence triggered among mankind. Initially hailed and feared as gods, they are later reviled, and then supported as heroes only to fall yet again in the eyes of the public. This is a complex story to tell, especially from the perspective of your average American citizen who is struggling with his own inner demons.

As a character Sheldon was extremely likeable. I found that he added credibility from both a professional and private stance. Him being a photojournalist meant we really COULD look at things through a ‘lens’ of sorts, and experience what the average person would feel if a world full of unruly superheroes was our everyday reality. Too many graphic novels glorify superheroes; make them the safe, good guys. At least here there is a questioning of motives and a look at the destruction that they leave in their wake and what this really means for normal people.

Other aspects of the book I applaud is the literary nod in the direction of Mary Shelley, as Busiek cleverly parallels the legendary creation of Frankenstein’s monster with that of ‘The Human Torch’. The panels are artfully done, and the short history of ‘The Human Torch’ really does strike a mixed chord of terror, pity and sympathy.

Using ‘The Human Torch’ was a stroke of genius, as the little known second title of ‘Frankenstein’ is in fact ‘The Modern Prometheus’. For those that don’t know, Prometheus is famous in Greek myth as the man who stole fire from the gods and was duly punished for his transgression. Needless to say, this ties in very nicely with the Busiek’s ‘homage’ to Shelley and also (maybe I’m reading too much into it) Milton’s Paradise Lost, as angel’s are purported to be made of ‘holy fire’, which makes ‘The Human Torch’ the perfect character to use.

I don’t want to give away the story too much, but it is definitely worth a read. I was especially amused by a section at the back of the book that showed how the creators captured poses by using models (usually themselves, family and friends) to make the characters more realistic. The colour scheme suited the 1950’s feel of the story/ setting giving it a retro effect that I thoroughly enjoyed.

One thing: I would dearly like to know what happened to the alien-faced girl. She was a great character and I still feel very sorry for her, but she just disappeared from the story without a trace. Very frustrating. Please, if anybody knows about her, let me know!

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Book Review | ‘The Room’ by Hubert Selby Jr.

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book review, hubert selby jr, Pulitzer Prize, the room, violence

The Room by Hubert Selby Jr.

My rating: 3 of 5 stars/ 5 of 5 stars

WARNING: Contains explicit language/ gratuitous sexual violence/ torture scenes. Adults Only.

I have put off writing about this book for as long as I possibly could for different reasons. The first issues from a very genuine difficulty I have of expressing myself when I really like a book – an experience that, I am sorry to say, is becoming harder to come by. The other reason (which applies to this particular book) is that due to the way it’s written, I feel it deserves two separate reviews: one for story, and another detailing Selby’s own unusual ‘homegrown’ writing style. This is why I gave the novel two ratings; 3/5 for story and 5/5 for technique. Why only three for the story you ask? Well, sometimes people skip pages to get around what I call ‘authors waffle’. You get this in almost every book, including Pulitzer prize-winners. The other reason is because of extreme graphic violence; violence that is convincingly and almost lovingly written. Selby’s novel falls into the latter category.

He certainly has a way of getting inside the twisted mind of a convict and make a reader feel like an accomplice to all those terrible fantasies. While I’m not the type to shy away from violence, everyone has a limit, and I found myself being quite severely tested. As it goes, I am still debating as to whether it really was necessary to go as far as he did in some instances, and maybe it’s this ongoing debate that made me sit on the fence with my rating.

But my own pedantic shortcomings aside, I am still going to try to explain how I feel about this book.

At first glance, the premise is no different to other prison-based novels. A small-time criminal is jailed for a petty crime and begins to await his hearing. However, the similarities cease here, as Selby’s stance to imprisonment culminates around notions of ‘inaction’ rather than action. His approach is in the vein of intuitive story-telling, bordering on what might be called the writer’s version of ‘method acting’. This is definitely not a character-based plot, as the narrative is driven by the concept of thought and the ‘organic’ direction it may take in a setting severely limited in the psychological and physical sense. This makes Selby seem very unsympathetic towards his characters, yet like all good writers he knows that this kind of detachment is vital. It leaves him free to use his cast to the full cause of the story.

Having said this, what is the ‘organic’ direction of thought in a prison cell? Selbys answer to this is very clear, as he cultivates an intensely inbred narrative that continually reflects and refracts back into itself. A man in a six by four cell cannot go anywhere. His past is behind him, his present is without stimulation and his future is uncertain. The inertia and weight of waiting turns all actions to the depths of the psyche and what lies there. Like a plant that becomes stunted and pale through lack of sunlight, so does the protagonist, as he turns inward to stagnate in his own turmoil. Time is a torture as he populates his days with past memories and elaborate revenge fantasies embellished with all sorts of sexual and physical degradation.

‘Well, anyway, time has to pass. But sometimes its so goddamn long. Sometimes it just seems to drag and drag and weigh a ton. And hang on you like a monkey. Like its going to suck the blood out of you. Or squeeze your guts out. And sometimes it flies. Just flies. And is gone somewhere, somehow, before you know it was even here. As if time is only here to make you miserable. Thats the only reason for time.”

A great example of the mounting frustration and rage that grows throughout the narrative is illustrated in the form of a pimple. Selby returns to this symbol to indicate first annoyance, alarm and finally total internal destruction followed by resignation. At the end the prisoner finds his shameful release by eventually popping it. The emotional breakdown that follows is a great example of how resourceful a writer Selby is.

“He leaned closer and touched the red spot with a finger tip. The beginning of a pimple. He squeezed it, then lowered his hands. Why bother? Itll just bruise the skin. I/ll wait until it comes to a head… if it doesn’t just disappear first.”

Selby’s novel also brings up the concept of ‘think crime’, as all the grotesque things dreamed up by the prisoner puts the notion of guilt in a different perspective. The mind is a flexible thing, susceptible to impressions, but is the ‘thought’ of a terrible crime equal to the crime made manifest? Does thinking about it make you guilty? One could be forgiven at being shocked by the base examples of imaginary rape and torture; yet the quality of these daydreams are so vivid they give the impression of having happened on some scale,an imaginary sphere, which in this claustrophobic world is often more real than reality itself.

There is only one other aspect that surpasses the terror factor of the fantasies, and that is the awful realisation that man is capable of thinking awful things, and that if Selby could do it, so could we. The character; stripped as he is of identity, is still a human creation. In this abstraction of humanity, the reader finds a shocking alternative to notions of innocence. Throughout the novel the name of the protagonist is unknown and his crime is stated as a small offence. His mind however gives us the impression of a monster.

This begs the question, ‘how much is a person’s thoughts are oriented by their environment and how much by their innate capacity for evil? Maybe it is this underlying question that made Selby dedicate it ‘with love, to the thousands who remain nameless and know.’ The thousands of inmates, whose identities are either forgotten by time or erased by the prison regime; the thousands who know exactly where the mind goes when it is also closed off like a prison.

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