May Reading Wrap-Up

I’ll come straight out and say it – May was a really bad reading month for me. I got around to reading a total of 4 books this month, 5 if you include the one I’m part way through and only one of those was a book on my May TBR so I didn’t do very well on the reading front this month, but I endeavor to do better in June. I am going away twice later this month so if all goes to plan I’ll be able to catch up on plane journeys a little bit!

But without further ado, the books that I did get around to reading were:

1. Hey Nostradamus by Douglas Coupland. This was the one and only book on my May TBR and this was on my TBR because I recently ‘rediscovered’ Douglas Copland’s writing after reading Life After God and fell in love, again. I picked up this and powered through it with much the same sense of wonder and appreciation for his wit and his dark humor and I just loved this book. This follows for separate peoples perspectives on a high school shooting and looking into questions of faith and guilt and regret. It’s just a very thought provoking, creative look at the human condition and human emotions and how they’re often very complex and I gave it a 4 stars.
2. I then read a short story collection – The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories by Angela Carter. I bought and read this first back in college, my second year I think, on a recommendation from my English teacher and I don’t really know why but I somehow figured I’d read this a second time this month. I must have been feeling the dark, Gothic vibe and if you like that kind of thing OR if you’re particularly into Gothic poetry then I’d recommend. If anything, I’d say this was more like a poetry anthology than a short story collection. Carter’s writing is very heavy and decorative and quite politically charged so maybe read this if you’re in the mood for dark, heavy, symbolic, ornate.
3. Immortality by Milan Kundera. The third book I read this month was Immortality. I picked this up for a bit of a funny reason. So basically, after I read The Body by Hanif Kureishi I was really enjoying reading about mortality and aging and looking back at life and wasted opportunity and the brevity of youth and it almost hit me more than it ever really has that I’m getting older all the time. Weird I KNOW, but true. So when I spotted this in the charity shop I picked it up straight away and I actually really enjoyed it even though it terrified me. Rather than being specifically about mortality, as I assumed, this was actually about legacy, and the idea of building a history that stays around once you’re gone. So Kundera looks at art for example and loads of different aspects of manifestations of the self and our memories. Again, a very heavy philosophical book but a really good one all the same!
4. Then for the best book I’ve read in SUCH a long time: Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer. I’ve had my eyes on this for the longest time, and when I saw this was half price on Amazon with free shipping it was pretty much a no brainer for me. I read this in about 12 hours flat and I just loved it. I may have vested interests because I eat a vegan diet and it’s something I’m very passionate about, but I really do feel that this is required reading for all humans capable of eating anything at all. Part informative non-fiction, half memoir and a small part animal-eating dictionary, ‘Eating Animals’ builds upon and challenges our cultural associations with food, questioning why our beliefs are as staunch as they sometimes are and suggesting ways in which we might aim to revise our ethical considerations. Foer looks specifically at factory farming; the mass production of animal products, animal rights or the disturbing lack thereof and the institutionalized cruelty often at play across the US – the mass cruelty and abuse we prefer to turn away from. It’s grizzly, hard to hear stuff. Yet what Foer has achieved with ‘Eating Animals’ stands far apart from the ‘exacting force’ of pro-vegetarian activism (perhaps supposed by many upon reading the title) and instead digs to the core of dietary ethics, in(conveniently) mapping a complex moral and ethical debate with a mild-mannered objectivity. It’s just so incredible, I couldn’t sing its praises enough.
5. And the book I’m part way through, well, half way through is The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. This is another book that’s been on my radar for a while and I’m finally reading it. I read A Thousand Splendid Sun’s by the same author and even though that was a very long time ago, it remains one of my favourites. I can’t really say much about this as I’m not finished, but so far it’s very sad but I’m enjoying it a lot.

So that’s all for my May Reading Wrap-up. Despite not having read very much, I was happy with the things I did read and I can’t really say I didn’t enjoy anything, which is good. Keep an eye out for my June TBR, which will be up shortly and let me know what you got around to reading this month! H x

The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter | Book Review

The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories

First a disclaimer: I’m very nervous to undersell such a clever, enchantingly unique gem of a book yet figuring out where to start with this review is a formidable task. So long it’s been since I’ve read a short story collection of this caliber, I really want to do well by Carters clear ambition. Yet however spell-binding this collection may be, and however ornate Carter’s narratives, I can’t help but hold back on a few points. These shorts are commendable, yes, but untarnished? I’m not so sure.

From the first retelling of Bluebeard, Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories outlines a clear aim, to reshuffle the traditional perspectives on the ideologies and values of folklore and traditional mythology. So powerfully political and sexually charged, Carter’s collection in this way rears its head unapologetically, embellishing such familiar stories and settings with a uniquely challenging voice.

Throughout, Carter maintains an elaborate penmanship, often very complex and at times a little convoluted. It’s on this point that I’m divided, for on the one hand, I appreciate Carter’s flamboyant, almost poetic descriptions, but on the other it often feels as though the strong political intent is compromised. That said, the lyrical quality of her writing, so peppered with Gothic symbolism and raw eroticism, contributes to the collections bewitching effect.

Primal and atmospheric in tone, her collection delves confidently into themes of gender theory and morality, sexual liberation, agency and lust, thus shattering established understanding and reclaiming traditional fairy tale telling with a force that had me marveling at each pages end. Carter’s female characters especially are portrayed as strong and powerful and with each short Carter manipulates our own deeply embedded, and often misguided perceptions of gender roles, sending forth familiar heroines to shrug the shackles of folklore with a distinct feminist angle. It is in this sense at once so deeply sensual and sophisticated, yet it retains the hard edges of depravity and violent sexual desire that sets this work aside stylistically.

Thematically, while so well intended, I didn’t enjoy the stories very consistently – I hated a few whilst some I enjoyed a lot more. I feel that in many places, the true ambition contained within this little book fell short of recognized, or else was lost on me as I tried to keep up with a spiraling narrative, tangled with long sentences and elaborately punctuated passages. Final verdict? A very clever, valuable book, yet one from which I hoped to have taken that bit more satisfaction.

3.5/5