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Angela Carter and the Fairytale. Edited by Danielle M. Roemer and Cristina Bacchilega. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2001. 269pp. Illus. $19.95 (pbk). ISBN 0-8143-2905-5
In their introduction, Roemer and Bacchilega tell us that this collection of cross-disciplinary writings brings together contributions from "international scholars across disciplines who were actively thinking about Carter's magic." Their intention is to "intervene in the debate surrounding Carter's texts ... by providing more information ... seeking ways to shake easy labels from her work ... placing international perspectives in conversation with one another ... opening the way for further research."
Although the editors claim that the volume has "no one thesis," two overarching themes are suggested by this collection. First is the duality obvious in all of Carter's work: polarity of opinion, love/hate, but also the contrast between the decorative and the practical in her work, the imprecise and the rigorous. The mixture of the material and the ethereal in Carter's tales is one of their more fertile aspects. Second is the perception of Angela Carter as an icon; the examination as much of the myth that surrounds her as of those myths that she re-fashioned into intricate, decorative, yet practical objets d'art. This approach is implicit rather than explicit. The inclusion of fiction, of interviews and of Elise Bruhl's and Michael Garner's educational research, reveals the book's true subject: Angela Carter as a subject for discussion in herself, as much a cultural phenomenon as the fairytale. Can one re-write Angela Carter?
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