I loved this book! It was one of my top ten from last year, and I wrote a long post about it that lj ate twice and gave up. I think it was mostly about the demon lover and the female hero in fairy tale tradition?
Prepare for some TL:DR.
Obviously there's the thread of masculine evil* throughout the stories, but there is a distinct absence of the classical hero, because for the most part the women are the focus of the story, and the good men to some extent take on the traditional role of the heroine. Like the virgin soldier in 'The Lady of the House of Love' who unknowingly 'saves' the girl with his pure heart while planning to swoop in and save her in a suitably masculine, heroic manner. Or the blind boy in 'The Bloody Chamber' whom the heroine loves for his innocence, but is unable to save her from physical danger (because her mother swoops in and does that. So cool).
What interests me is the potential for evil ('corruption') lies as much in the women as in the men:
"I was not afraid of him; but of myself. I seemed reborn in his unreflective eyes, reborn in unfamiliar shapes. I hardly recognized myself from his descriptions of me and yet, and yet--might there not be a grain of beastly truth hi them? And, in the red firelight, I blushed again, unnoticed, to think he might have chosen me because, in my innocence, he sensed a rare talent for corruption." (The Bloody Chamber)
And the innocent (ignorant) heroine is subverted anyway, when the girl in 'The Bloody Chamber' 'kn[ows] enough for what [she] saw in that book to make [her] gasp', or when the girl in Tiger Bride declares that she would rather sleep with the Beast (in a windowless room, with her face covered) than let him see her naked, then there's the wife in Puss-in-Boots whose first words 'onstage' are when her husband is dead and she has secured the keys, upon which she becomes an unexpectedly authoritative figure, fires her maid(?) and declares the young man will be her second husband. And this is after the 'love a of a good woman' trope has already been subverted, first by Puss telling the man to write her letter saying that she will save him with her love, and by her reply being that she 'loves virtue too much' to deny him - as long as he's not old and/or ugly.
* The casual violence used in the imagery related to the men is deeply disturbing, we have the Erl-King (did you think of the Forbidden Game when you read this one?)describing taking off the POV character's clothes as 'skin(ning) the rabbit',the Tiger licking the bride's skin off her, the Marquis 'impaling' his bride, and others I've probably forgotten.
Maybe I should post that entry about the Bloody Chamber, if lj doesn't thwart me again.
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Sat, Jun. 21st, 2008 11:41 am (UTC)Prepare for some TL:DR.
Obviously there's the thread of masculine evil* throughout the stories, but there is a distinct absence of the classical hero, because for the most part the women are the focus of the story, and the good men to some extent take on the traditional role of the heroine. Like the virgin soldier in 'The Lady of the House of Love' who unknowingly 'saves' the girl with his pure heart while planning to swoop in and save her in a suitably masculine, heroic manner. Or the blind boy in 'The Bloody Chamber' whom the heroine loves for his innocence, but is unable to save her from physical danger (because her mother swoops in and does that. So cool).
What interests me is the potential for evil ('corruption') lies as much in the women as in the men:
"I was not afraid of him; but of myself. I seemed reborn in his unreflective eyes, reborn in unfamiliar shapes. I hardly recognized myself from his descriptions of me and yet, and yet--might there not be a grain of beastly truth hi them? And, in the red firelight, I blushed again, unnoticed, to think he might have chosen me because, in my innocence, he sensed a rare talent for corruption." (The Bloody Chamber)
And the innocent (ignorant) heroine is subverted anyway, when the girl in 'The Bloody Chamber' 'kn[ows] enough for what [she] saw in that book to make [her] gasp', or when the girl in Tiger Bride declares that she would rather sleep with the Beast (in a windowless room, with her face covered) than let him see her naked, then there's the wife in Puss-in-Boots whose first words 'onstage' are when her husband is dead and she has secured the keys, upon which she becomes an unexpectedly authoritative figure, fires her maid(?) and declares the young man will be her second husband. And this is after the 'love a of a good woman' trope has already been subverted, first by Puss telling the man to write her letter saying that she will save him with her love, and by her reply being that she 'loves virtue too much' to deny him - as long as he's not old and/or ugly.
* The casual violence used in the imagery related to the men is deeply disturbing, we have the Erl-King (did you think of the Forbidden Game when you read this one?)describing taking off the POV character's clothes as 'skin(ning) the rabbit',the Tiger licking the bride's skin off her, the Marquis 'impaling' his bride, and others I've probably forgotten.
Maybe I should post that entry about the Bloody Chamber, if lj doesn't thwart me again.