Flesh and the Mirror: Essays on the Art of Angela Carter

by Lorna Sage (Editor)

This distinguished volume of essays commemorates the work of acclaimed writer Angela Carter. Here, renowned writers and critics including Margaret Atwood, Robert Coover, Hermione Lee, and Marina Warner discuss the novels, stories and, polemics that made Carter one of the most spellbinding writers of her generation.

Genres: Nonfiction, Essays, Literary Criticism

358 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1994

About the author

The eldest child of Valma and Eric Stockton, she was named after Lorna Doone [1]. Sage was born at Hanmer, Flintshire, Wales, and educated at the village school, then at the Girls' High School in Whitchurch, Shropshire. Her childhood in the late 1940s and early 1950s is recalled in her last book Bad Blood. Sage became pregnant when she was 16 but was able to continue her education and won a scholarship to read English at Durham University, only after the university changed its admission rules to allow married couples to study there. Sage went on to receive an MA from Birmingham University for a thesis on seventeenth century poetry.

All of her academic career was spent at the University of East Anglia, where she was Professor of English Literature from 1994. She edited The Cambridge Guide to Women's Writing in English (1999) which has become a standard work. In the Preface she wrote: "In concentrating on women's writing...you stress the extent and pace of change, for the scale of women's access to literary life has reflected and accelerated democratic, diasporic pressures in the modern world".

Reviews

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I ordered this book to accompany research into The Magic Toyshop. From the introduction through the collected essays featured Carter’s excellent as a writer, teacher and playwright/ Dramatist is shown. Each paper gives insights into her books and views. Her surprising twists of the fairy tale genre and her move to film adaptation. She raises, as all good writers should , more questions than answers we question our beliefs, our society and who we are . We gain further insight into Carter. Though this maybe monotonous in some parts and highly academic in others it is worth a read for the fuller picture of Carter. As I’ve read only a handful of plays I’d recommend you read quite a few as this book deconstructs these books and movies so spoilers a head. Recommended for Carter lovers and academics alike

[Karin Schott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Carter's work speaks to me. Her writing is layered and rich. Her mind and creativity are boundless. It is a loss for the world that we don't have her feminist thinking in these times.

I am a relatively new reader of Carter's. I found her work during a semester of exploration of the fairy tale. I have dipped into the Virago collection of Fairytales, The Bloody Chamber, and Saints and Strangers. But I have never read her novels. They are on the nightstand, waiting.

In Carter's work, I found a kindred spirit who broke conventions, question hierarchy's and avenues to power. This collection of essays opens her work to greater scrutiny. Some of the essays explore particular stories of Carter's that I have not read yet. I think I have found the key to guiding my reading for the year 2022.

[coco's reading · Rating 3 out of 5]

Marking this as read even though there was one essay I physically couldn't make myself finish, it was so boring and academic and not about Carter. This collection started out super strong, with some fascinating analyses and interpretations of Carter's fiction and nonfiction and her relationship with literature. The second half definitely suffered though: several essays didn't have an overall point and read as if the authors were stretching their subject out just to have a full chapter.

[T]here's no doubt that now we have no single agreed set of standards or values to define what counts as great literature.

"I write overblown, purple, self-indulgent prose—so fucking what?"

[Jo]

+ Margaret Atwood, "Lambs running with lions"

[James Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Distinguished Literary criticism which is illuminating, charming, inquisitive and sincere.

[Fre · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this one for my uni thesis on Angela Carter...self explanatory!

[GirlOfTheCrowd · Rating 5 out of 5]

A provoking and inspired collection of essays that explore Carter's work with insight and clear enthusiasm. A definite must-read for anyone interested in Carter; her fictions may elude neat outcomes but these writers aid exploration and analysis not by providing answers, but by asking the right questions.

[Pamster · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read a few essays and will go back to it. Margaret Atwood's piece on The Bloody Chamber as Angela's response to de Sade was awesome.

[Eg · Rating 1 out of 5]

The story Flesh and the Mirror shows greatly the power of imaginatio that can reshape the whole city and ''mirrors are ambigious things".