Angela Carter
Paperback | Pages: 240 pages Rating: 3.94 | 7206 Users | 607 Reviews
Present Books In Favor Of Wise Children
| Original Title: | Wise Children |
| ISBN: | 014017530X (ISBN13: 9780140175301) |
| Edition Language: | English |
Narration Supposing Books Wise Children
Well, sheeet (that's the way the British say the Americans say it). Back to the library. This has to be one of the most slowest moving vaguely interesting books I've ever read. Or not read. I'm on page 80 after about two weeks of intermittent baths. This is the written version of an oral history told by a seventy-five year-old bastard ex-chorus girl (usually on the left line) about her family and her famous actor father who wouldn't acknowledge her or her twin sister.As far as I can tell, there is no actual plot. We're just sitting in her house with her twin sister and their not-quite Step-mother, Wheelchair (a nick-name, clearly) and reminiscing on her birthday, the eve of an invitation to a party at her father's house. Oh, and at some point their half-brother comes in to say his lover, their adopted-ish daughter, has gone missing, which gives us a whole new branch of the family to tangent on.
Don't get me wrong; the prose is interesting but dense; it's quite florid, with a few Britishisms and anachronisms to tangle me up. But it's also been charmingly pointless. Not that I object. If I met this woman at work, I'd totally stop into her room and listen to her... if I had time. But otherwise, I'd be edging one foot towards the door.
There are loads of Shakespeare references--and I suspect the whole thing is supposed to be just a bit of a Shakespeare farce--especially as their dad and grandparents are famous actors in their time. And, of course, the sisters are twins, which Shakespeare never could resist, either. The language is ribald, with loads about drunken-but-loving Grandma and knickers and the old knobby bits. Kind of amusing--I guess--but mostly just exhausting.
Here's the beginning of Chapter Two (there are five chapters in the book):
"One, two, three, hop! See me dance the polka. Once upon a time, there was an old woman in splitting black satin pounding away at an upright piano in a room over a haberdasher's shop in Clapham High Street and her daughter in a pink tutu and wrinkled tights slapped at your ankles with a cane if you didn't pick up your feet high enough. Once a week, every Saturday morning, Grandma Chance would wash us, brush us and do up our hair in sausage curls. We had long, brown stockings strung up to our liberty bodices by suspenders. Grandma Chance would take firm hold of one hand of each of us, then--ho! for the dancing class; off we'd trot to catch the tram.
We always took the tram from Brixton to Clapham High Street. The stately progress of the tram, occupying by right of bulk and majesty the centre of the road, not veering to the left n or right upon its way but sometimes swaying every now and then with a sickening lurch, like Grandma, coming home from the pub.
One, two, three, hop."
Be Specific About Appertaining To Books Wise Children
| Title | : | Wise Children |
| Author | : | Angela Carter |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Deluxe Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 240 pages |
| Published | : | January 1st 1993 by Penguin (first published June 13th 1991) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Magical Realism. Historical. Historical Fiction. European Literature. British Literature |
Rating Appertaining To Books Wise Children
Ratings: 3.94 From 7206 Users | 607 ReviewsArticle Appertaining To Books Wise Children
Angela Carter's name came off the magical realism list, however this book does not seem to fall into that genre. As it was not what I expected, the pleasant surprise I felt for the story was a nice bonus.The book chronicles the life of un-parented twin sister starlettes from London in the 40's and 50's as reminisced from the present day. The girls' mother died in childbirth and their father, a famous Shakespearean actor turned cabaret and eventually media star, never acknowledges his children asThere is something wonderful about an Angela Carter novel. A certain charm. A feeling of a warm blanket that you pull over yourself and then the cat jumps on it and sticks her claws into your leg. That sort of feeling. Wise Children is Carters last novel and is a love song and dance to the theater and Shakespeare. Many of the plot devices that Carter uses are adapted from Shakespeare, for instance the constant use of twins. There are so many twins (or are there?) in this novel. For you must
Im not a fan of what I think of as theatrical novels. An admittedly huge generalization this, but overly vivid characters, outrageous plots, and paeans to acting and theaters typically dont absorb me. I think of Angela Carters Wise Children as a theatrical novel, as I do Robertson Davies Deptford Trilogy. Both Wise Children and the Deptford Trilogy absorbed me despite not being to my taste: high praise for fiction. Angela Carter fills Wise Children with wonderful characters: the irrepressible
Well, sheeet (that's the way the British say the Americans say it). Back to the library. This has to be one of the most slowest moving vaguely interesting books I've ever read. Or not read. I'm on page 80 after about two weeks of intermittent baths. This is the written version of an oral history told by a seventy-five year-old bastard ex-chorus girl (usually on the left line) about her family and her famous actor father who wouldn't acknowledge her or her twin sister. As far as I can tell, there
A hilarious tour-de-force spanning a century of the history of theatre and a family's life, told in a remarkably convincing voice. I could have done without the bonus incest; it didn't seem to serve any point.
I probably spent the longest time reading this book compared to all the other books I read due to the complexity and complicatedness of its plot and the unsettlingly eccentric cast of characters. What an experience! A clever book deploying magical realism and saturated with parodies that left me feeling accomplished and simultaneously dizzy upon reading it. I despised it so much but I loved it just as much, which was why I had to finish reading it.
3.5 starsWise Children was one of those weird books where, when I was reading it I was enjoying it, but when I wasnt, I didnt really feel like picking it up. Theres such a huge cast of characters that it was quite hard to keep track of whos who and what relationships they have, and once when I checked the character list at the back, it spoiled a plot twist for me! A bit annoying..But as I say, I did enjoy it when I got into the flow of it! The narrator is one of many sets of twins in this book,
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