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The Magic Toyshop
One night Melanie walks through the garden in her mother's wedding dress. The next morning her world is shattered. Forced to leave the comfortable home of her childhood, she is sent to London to live with relatives she never met: Aunt Margaret, beautiful and speechless, and her brothers, Francie, whose graceful music belies his clumsy nature, and the volatile Finn, who kisses Melanie in the ruins of the pleasure garden. And brooding Uncle Philip loves only the life-sized wooden puppets he creates in his toyshops. The classic gothic novel established Angela Carter as one of our most imaginative writers and augurs the themes of her later creative works.
"Beneath its contemporary surface, this novel shimmers with blurred echoes—from Lewis Carroll, from 'Giselle' and 'Coppelia,' Harlequin and Punch… It leave behind it a flavor, pungent and unsettling" —The New York Times Book Review
"Beneath its contemporary surface, this novel shimmers with blurred echoes—from Lewis Carroll, from 'Giselle' and 'Coppelia,' Harlequin and Punch… It leave behind it a flavor, pungent and unsettling" —The New York Times Book Review
200 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1967
About the author
Angela Carter
178 books3,522 followersBorn Angela Olive Stalker in Eastbourne, in 1940, Carter was evacuated as a child to live in Yorkshire with her maternal grandmother. As a teenager she battled anorexia. She began work as a journalist on the Croydon Advertiser, following in the footsteps of her father. Carter attended the University of Bristol where she studied English literature.
She married twice, first in 1960 to Paul Carter. They divorced after twelve years. In 1969 Angela Carter used the proceeds of her Somerset Maugham Award to leave her husband and relocate for two years to Tokyo, Japan, where she claims in Nothing Sacred (1982) that she "learnt what it is to be a woman and became radicalised." She wrote about her experiences there in articles for New Society and a collection of short stories, Fireworks: Nine Profane Pieces (1974), and evidence of her experiences in Japan can also be seen in The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman (1972). She was there at the same time as Roland Barthes, who published his experiences in Empire of Signs (1970).
She then explored the United States, Asia, and Europe, helped by her fluency in French and German. She spent much of the late 1970s and 1980s as a writer in residence at universities, including the University of Sheffield, Brown University, the University of Adelaide, and the University of East Anglia. In 1977 Carter married Mark Pearce, with whom she had one son.
As well as being a prolific writer of fiction, Carter contributed many articles to The Guardian, The Independent and New Statesman, collected in Shaking a Leg. She adapted a number of her short stories for radio and wrote two original radio dramas on Richard Dadd and Ronald Firbank. Two of her fictions have been adapted for the silver screen: The Company of Wolves (1984) and The Magic Toyshop (1987). She was actively involved in both film adaptations, her screenplays are published in the collected dramatic writings, The Curious Room, together with her radio scripts, a libretto for an opera of Virginia Wolf's Orlando, an unproduced screenplay entitled The Christchurch Murders (based on the same true story as Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures) and other works. These neglected works, as well as her controversial television documentary, The Holy Family Album, are discussed in Charlotte Crofts' book, Anagrams of Desire (2003).
At the time of her death, Carter was embarking on a sequel to Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre based on the later life of Jane's stepdaughter, Adèle Varens. However, only a synopsis survives.
Her novel Nights at the Circus won the 1984 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for literature.
Angela Carter died aged 51 in 1992 at her home in London after developing lung cancer. Her obituary published in The Observer said, "She was the opposite of parochial. Nothing, for her, was outside the pale: she wanted to know about everything and everyone, and every place and every word. She relished life and language hugely, and reveled in the diverse."
She married twice, first in 1960 to Paul Carter. They divorced after twelve years. In 1969 Angela Carter used the proceeds of her Somerset Maugham Award to leave her husband and relocate for two years to Tokyo, Japan, where she claims in Nothing Sacred (1982) that she "learnt what it is to be a woman and became radicalised." She wrote about her experiences there in articles for New Society and a collection of short stories, Fireworks: Nine Profane Pieces (1974), and evidence of her experiences in Japan can also be seen in The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman (1972). She was there at the same time as Roland Barthes, who published his experiences in Empire of Signs (1970).
She then explored the United States, Asia, and Europe, helped by her fluency in French and German. She spent much of the late 1970s and 1980s as a writer in residence at universities, including the University of Sheffield, Brown University, the University of Adelaide, and the University of East Anglia. In 1977 Carter married Mark Pearce, with whom she had one son.
As well as being a prolific writer of fiction, Carter contributed many articles to The Guardian, The Independent and New Statesman, collected in Shaking a Leg. She adapted a number of her short stories for radio and wrote two original radio dramas on Richard Dadd and Ronald Firbank. Two of her fictions have been adapted for the silver screen: The Company of Wolves (1984) and The Magic Toyshop (1987). She was actively involved in both film adaptations, her screenplays are published in the collected dramatic writings, The Curious Room, together with her radio scripts, a libretto for an opera of Virginia Wolf's Orlando, an unproduced screenplay entitled The Christchurch Murders (based on the same true story as Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures) and other works. These neglected works, as well as her controversial television documentary, The Holy Family Album, are discussed in Charlotte Crofts' book, Anagrams of Desire (2003).
At the time of her death, Carter was embarking on a sequel to Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre based on the later life of Jane's stepdaughter, Adèle Varens. However, only a synopsis survives.
Her novel Nights at the Circus won the 1984 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for literature.
Angela Carter died aged 51 in 1992 at her home in London after developing lung cancer. Her obituary published in The Observer said, "She was the opposite of parochial. Nothing, for her, was outside the pale: she wanted to know about everything and everyone, and every place and every word. She relished life and language hugely, and reveled in the diverse."
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September 12, 2024
The Magic Toyshop echoes motifs of many old fairy tales: Sleeping Beauty, The Frog Prince, The Story of the Three Bears, Bluebeard and others.
She is on the threshold of adulthood… Her desires start awakening… She lives among her fantasies…
Suddenly the tragic events snatch her out of her romantic and beautiful world and throw her into the world alien and ugly…
But despite the constant presence of her sinister and despotic uncle some puny joys are still possible…
Evil – hidden and obvious – is all around… Will the hour of reckoning ever come?
She is on the threshold of adulthood… Her desires start awakening… She lives among her fantasies…
Melanie was fifteen years old, beautiful and had never even been out with a boy, when, for example, Juliet had been married and dead of love at fourteen. She felt that she was growing old. Cupping her bare breasts, which were tipped as pinkly as the twitching noses of white rabbits, she thought: ‘Physically, I have probably reached my peak and can do nothing but deteriorate from now on. Or, perhaps, mature.’ But she did not want to think she might not be already perfect.
Suddenly the tragic events snatch her out of her romantic and beautiful world and throw her into the world alien and ugly…
Outside was a weatherless London morning, a mean monotone, sunless, rainless, a cool nothing. This, she thought, was her own climate. No extremes, ever again. Fear no more the heat o’ the sun and all that. She was in limbo and would be for the rest of her life, if you could call it a life, dragging out its weary length with no more great joys or fearful griefs for her, for her blood was running too thin to bear them. And she was only fifteen. It was appalling.
But despite the constant presence of her sinister and despotic uncle some puny joys are still possible…
She could not move or speak. She waited in an agony of apprehension. If it was going to happen, it must happen and then she would know what it was like to be kissed, which she did not know, now. At least she would have that much more experience, even if it was only Finn who kissed her. His hair was marigolds or candle flames. She shuddered to see his discoloured teeth.
Evil – hidden and obvious – is all around… Will the hour of reckoning ever come?
August 18, 2013
Normally, I walk into bookstores with a list. I didn’t, this time. I felt adventurous. The bookstore was enormous; there were rows and rows of shelves, winding so far it seemed endless. Shaking with delight at the sight of this, I had to ask a saleswoman what time they closed, as I was certain I would be there all day. And I had to set an alarm on my watch an hour before closing time so I’d not be rudely jerked out of my book-browsing stupor by the announcements and rush to the counter with an armful of books knowing there was still more to buy. I was young and paranoid I would not live another day. Everything had to be bought at once. And yet how is it that I ended up, that day, walking out of that bookstore with only one book?
Among the shelves I had browsed there was one that drew me to it more than the rest. Down, down at the bottom, where I had to squat to see them (and, later, sit cross-legged to read them), were the books of Angela Carter. My memory is fogged by the years that have passed and it almost lied to me and told me that what initially pulled me towards those books were their colourful, quirky covers. But it wasn’t, as, upon reflection, I remember they were lined together showing only their spines. It was their titles that entranced: Nights at the Circus, The Magic Toyshop, The Bloody Chamber, The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman. And I remember it was in that same order that I saw them.
There was a circus, first, all colour and fun; a magic toyshop, where anything could happen; then, suddenly, there was a bloody chamber — heavens! — and an infernal desire machine — whatever could that be? Instantly, I pulled them out and laid them side by side. What do you know, they had gorgeous covers too.
Something about those titles and covers seemed to reach out and shake something inside me I did not know could be reached out to and shook. I shivered; I was giddy. Who is this woman? Why hadn’t I heard of her? She promised innocence, but there was evil and corruption; that much was evident without even a peak at the blurbs. There were swan-winged women and horse-bodied men; screaming girls in burning castles high atop hills; puppets gone awry in the hands of a cackling man. They seemed like children’s books, but they were not. They were like candy canes in a pool of blood.
And I sat there for a very long time, not reading, simply admiring those books. I was so impressed I was afraid they’d disappoint. I stroked them, flipped through them, put them back on the shelf. I took out The Magic Toyshop. Do I dare? ‘Yes,’ I thought, ‘I dare.’ And without even bothering to get up and find a corner in the bookshop, I let myself fall with a thud on the cold marble floor and began to read. Before long my watch beeped. And it seemed as if I came back to reality with a great big pop! What have I just read? I was partway through by this time. The shop was about to close; I drifted to the counter in a kind of daze, with the book open in front of me, still reading it on my way there. In my engrossment I had completely forgotten to grab all the other books by the author. But I’m glad I didn’t, then. When I finished that book that evening, I had nothing else, and was left to swim in the feelings it stirred in me.
I had never before encountered such an author, who seemed to weave her words with a spider's precision, who shocked you and delighted you all at once. In The Magic Toyshop (the first I read, and always my favourite), I found in the character of Melanie, our heroine, someone who echoed the pains of my youth. Those pains were inexplicable until I met her. But Carter had such a way of putting words to those feelings and making them, even in their nakedness and terror, almost beautiful. And I was not close to Melanie’s age, or even her gender. She broke past all that and found her way to my soul. Holden Caulfield couldn’t hold a candle to her; his angst was too obvious, his manner too rough. He wasn’t a mirror of me.
Melanie was, with her quiet, hidden fears. She was a budding child in a violent, claustrophobic world, in the midst of colours and delights she could never touch: the toys of tyrannical Uncle Philip who seemed to have a life of their own. She and I were Alice, in Wonderland once again, only to find that it made so much sense this time we wished it didn’t. And I shared her pains. I shared her pains. She was not just a character in a book; I cared for her and I wanted to see how her life turned out. If there was hope for her there was hope for me.
Carter’s writing is akin to a Pre-Raphaelite painting; there is such attention to detail in her work that it gives you a vivid, almost claustrophobic sense of setting, so that anything out of logic comes as a shock. They are fairy tales of the Grimm sort, with her own unique touch. Her characters stick; they have many layers; they have a quality to them that is almost unreal. Picking up one of her books is like picking up a fragment of a dream, a dark, hypnotic dream you both want and don’t want to rouse from. Become entrenched in her work as I have and see if you don’t come out of her stories untouched, for better or for worse. Carter died tragically before any of us could say we had enough; and even since her death, she remains queen of the twisted fairy tale.
Among the shelves I had browsed there was one that drew me to it more than the rest. Down, down at the bottom, where I had to squat to see them (and, later, sit cross-legged to read them), were the books of Angela Carter. My memory is fogged by the years that have passed and it almost lied to me and told me that what initially pulled me towards those books were their colourful, quirky covers. But it wasn’t, as, upon reflection, I remember they were lined together showing only their spines. It was their titles that entranced: Nights at the Circus, The Magic Toyshop, The Bloody Chamber, The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman. And I remember it was in that same order that I saw them.
There was a circus, first, all colour and fun; a magic toyshop, where anything could happen; then, suddenly, there was a bloody chamber — heavens! — and an infernal desire machine — whatever could that be? Instantly, I pulled them out and laid them side by side. What do you know, they had gorgeous covers too.
Something about those titles and covers seemed to reach out and shake something inside me I did not know could be reached out to and shook. I shivered; I was giddy. Who is this woman? Why hadn’t I heard of her? She promised innocence, but there was evil and corruption; that much was evident without even a peak at the blurbs. There were swan-winged women and horse-bodied men; screaming girls in burning castles high atop hills; puppets gone awry in the hands of a cackling man. They seemed like children’s books, but they were not. They were like candy canes in a pool of blood.
And I sat there for a very long time, not reading, simply admiring those books. I was so impressed I was afraid they’d disappoint. I stroked them, flipped through them, put them back on the shelf. I took out The Magic Toyshop. Do I dare? ‘Yes,’ I thought, ‘I dare.’ And without even bothering to get up and find a corner in the bookshop, I let myself fall with a thud on the cold marble floor and began to read. Before long my watch beeped. And it seemed as if I came back to reality with a great big pop! What have I just read? I was partway through by this time. The shop was about to close; I drifted to the counter in a kind of daze, with the book open in front of me, still reading it on my way there. In my engrossment I had completely forgotten to grab all the other books by the author. But I’m glad I didn’t, then. When I finished that book that evening, I had nothing else, and was left to swim in the feelings it stirred in me.
I had never before encountered such an author, who seemed to weave her words with a spider's precision, who shocked you and delighted you all at once. In The Magic Toyshop (the first I read, and always my favourite), I found in the character of Melanie, our heroine, someone who echoed the pains of my youth. Those pains were inexplicable until I met her. But Carter had such a way of putting words to those feelings and making them, even in their nakedness and terror, almost beautiful. And I was not close to Melanie’s age, or even her gender. She broke past all that and found her way to my soul. Holden Caulfield couldn’t hold a candle to her; his angst was too obvious, his manner too rough. He wasn’t a mirror of me.
Melanie was, with her quiet, hidden fears. She was a budding child in a violent, claustrophobic world, in the midst of colours and delights she could never touch: the toys of tyrannical Uncle Philip who seemed to have a life of their own. She and I were Alice, in Wonderland once again, only to find that it made so much sense this time we wished it didn’t. And I shared her pains. I shared her pains. She was not just a character in a book; I cared for her and I wanted to see how her life turned out. If there was hope for her there was hope for me.
Carter’s writing is akin to a Pre-Raphaelite painting; there is such attention to detail in her work that it gives you a vivid, almost claustrophobic sense of setting, so that anything out of logic comes as a shock. They are fairy tales of the Grimm sort, with her own unique touch. Her characters stick; they have many layers; they have a quality to them that is almost unreal. Picking up one of her books is like picking up a fragment of a dream, a dark, hypnotic dream you both want and don’t want to rouse from. Become entrenched in her work as I have and see if you don’t come out of her stories untouched, for better or for worse. Carter died tragically before any of us could say we had enough; and even since her death, she remains queen of the twisted fairy tale.
June 3, 2020
I really think that when it comes to Angela Carter, it’s not her, it’s me. To say that her prose is enchanting is kind of an understatement: she weaves sensuous and surprising images with words like nobody’s business. She captures subtle yet visceral emotions with dream-like intensity, she finds what can be sexy in the strangest places and offers it to her readers with a wink. But her plots always leave me scratching my head in confusion. In fact, getting to the end of her books feels like being pulled out of a very vivid dream by a nasty alarm clock, just at the moment when you thought this surreal, baroque thing was going to come together.
I first read “The Magic Toyshop” a few years ago, in what I now refer to as my anxious patch: my anxiety disorder was completely out of control for a couple of years, and I virtually forgot everything I read during that period. So I remembered reading this book, but I couldn’t remember what the story was, or anything about the characters – and I had been meaning to re-read it, if only so my brain would actually know what happens in Ms. Carter’s first novel.
On paper, this book might as well have been written especially for me: it blends together mythology, fairy tales, a Dickensian story about orphans, a tale of sexual awakening. It’s easy to hate Melanie, but be honest: when you were fifteen, weren’t you also nothing but a walking pile of angst and hormones? I was. How insufferable we must have all been. But despite the “good on paper” premise, there was something lacking for me to fall in love with it.
On a warm summer night, Melanie feels romantic and tragic, and takes advantage of her parents’ absence to put on her mother’s wedding dress and stroll in the garden, under the moonlight. Alas, she locks herself outside and wrecks the dress in the process of sneaking back inside. While she expects punishment, the news she wakes up too is much worse that she could have imagined: her parents died in a horrible accident, leaving Melanie and her two young siblings, Jonathon and Victoria, orphans. Their only remaining family is an eccentric uncle, Philip, who lives in London and runs a toy shop, and they are quickly packed up and shipped over to stay with him, his mute wife Margaret and his brothers-in-law, Francie and Finn.
For a long time, Melanie barely sees her uncle, who works obsessively in his workshop, creating live-sized puppets and putting on elaborate and disturbing performances with his work. But one day, after one his puppets is destroyed, uncle Philip decides that Melanie will take part in his next show, his version of the story of Leda and the swan.
Carter is known for digging up the sexual subtext of fairy tales and exposing it, so if you know anything about the legend of Leda and the swan, you have an idea of where this is going. Except it didn't quite worked for me: the pace of the second half was very rushed, with everything happening very fast, giving me the feeling that this was either a short story that had gone on too long or a novel that had lost a few chapters. The characters are interesting, but given no room to breathe or grow - and then ending is a strange revelation on top of an abrupt conclusion that left me wondering where the rest of the story had gone.
Read it for the very sensual prose, but don't expect the story to make much sense. If you want sexy magical realism that also has a decent plot, check out Heather O'Neill's work, which I find much more satisfying.
I first read “The Magic Toyshop” a few years ago, in what I now refer to as my anxious patch: my anxiety disorder was completely out of control for a couple of years, and I virtually forgot everything I read during that period. So I remembered reading this book, but I couldn’t remember what the story was, or anything about the characters – and I had been meaning to re-read it, if only so my brain would actually know what happens in Ms. Carter’s first novel.
On paper, this book might as well have been written especially for me: it blends together mythology, fairy tales, a Dickensian story about orphans, a tale of sexual awakening. It’s easy to hate Melanie, but be honest: when you were fifteen, weren’t you also nothing but a walking pile of angst and hormones? I was. How insufferable we must have all been. But despite the “good on paper” premise, there was something lacking for me to fall in love with it.
On a warm summer night, Melanie feels romantic and tragic, and takes advantage of her parents’ absence to put on her mother’s wedding dress and stroll in the garden, under the moonlight. Alas, she locks herself outside and wrecks the dress in the process of sneaking back inside. While she expects punishment, the news she wakes up too is much worse that she could have imagined: her parents died in a horrible accident, leaving Melanie and her two young siblings, Jonathon and Victoria, orphans. Their only remaining family is an eccentric uncle, Philip, who lives in London and runs a toy shop, and they are quickly packed up and shipped over to stay with him, his mute wife Margaret and his brothers-in-law, Francie and Finn.
For a long time, Melanie barely sees her uncle, who works obsessively in his workshop, creating live-sized puppets and putting on elaborate and disturbing performances with his work. But one day, after one his puppets is destroyed, uncle Philip decides that Melanie will take part in his next show, his version of the story of Leda and the swan.
Carter is known for digging up the sexual subtext of fairy tales and exposing it, so if you know anything about the legend of Leda and the swan, you have an idea of where this is going. Except it didn't quite worked for me: the pace of the second half was very rushed, with everything happening very fast, giving me the feeling that this was either a short story that had gone on too long or a novel that had lost a few chapters. The characters are interesting, but given no room to breathe or grow - and then ending is a strange revelation on top of an abrupt conclusion that left me wondering where the rest of the story had gone.
Read it for the very sensual prose, but don't expect the story to make much sense. If you want sexy magical realism that also has a decent plot, check out Heather O'Neill's work, which I find much more satisfying.
August 20, 2024
-Fiction
-Fantasy, Gothic, Classic
-The parents of a girl passed away and now she and her siblings have to go live with her uncles that own a toyshop and they’re a bunch of weirdos, basically
-Well, I’d say it’s quite fast to read but a bit hard to understand. The plot doesn’t really have a main focus point? Idk how to explain it. It just has no purpose.
-The characters are weird af, I didn’t like them. Except for the main character; I’m neutral about her
-Unfortunately there’s romance but it’s so weird, it’s incest and also p3doph1l1c
-Stand-Alone
-Idk wtf I just read
-What an innocent premise
-“I think I want to fall in love with you, but I don’t know how.” 💀
-Plot: 3/5
-Characters: 2.5/5
-Fantasy, Gothic, Classic
-The parents of a girl passed away and now she and her siblings have to go live with her uncles that own a toyshop and they’re a bunch of weirdos, basically
-Well, I’d say it’s quite fast to read but a bit hard to understand. The plot doesn’t really have a main focus point? Idk how to explain it. It just has no purpose.
-The characters are weird af, I didn’t like them. Except for the main character; I’m neutral about her
-Unfortunately there’s romance but it’s so weird, it’s incest and also p3doph1l1c
-Stand-Alone
-Idk wtf I just read
-What an innocent premise
-“I think I want to fall in love with you, but I don’t know how.” 💀
-Plot: 3/5
-Characters: 2.5/5
October 10, 2019
3.5
I loved this book until its end. I don’t know how else I might’ve ended it, but I felt pulled out of the nightmare I was enjoying once the end arrived.
Before that ending, I was treated to a panoply of literary antecedents that already live inside my head: Frances Hodgson Burnett’s Sara Crewe; Lewis Carroll's Alice and the chess Queen; Dickensian anthropomorphic rooms and household items; Bluebeard; Beauty and the Beast; Roman mythology; and more. Carter doesn't hide her references, but she doesn’t use them unnecessarily either. They fulfill a deep, subconscious need in the Id (personified to the extreme in the main character's youngest sibling)—in the same manner of unvarnished fairytales.
Perhaps I loved most of this because my brain works the same way as Carter’s, which might be a scary thing to contemplate though I find it exciting as this is the first book of hers I’ve read (only her second novel) and it won’t be my last.
*
I know I write “perhaps” too much (see the above paragraph, and probably all my other reviews) so I was particularly drawn to this passage:
*
P.S. I don't know why the word "magic" is in the title.
I loved this book until its end. I don’t know how else I might’ve ended it, but I felt pulled out of the nightmare I was enjoying once the end arrived.
Before that ending, I was treated to a panoply of literary antecedents that already live inside my head: Frances Hodgson Burnett’s Sara Crewe; Lewis Carroll's Alice and the chess Queen; Dickensian anthropomorphic rooms and household items; Bluebeard; Beauty and the Beast; Roman mythology; and more. Carter doesn't hide her references, but she doesn’t use them unnecessarily either. They fulfill a deep, subconscious need in the Id (personified to the extreme in the main character's youngest sibling)—in the same manner of unvarnished fairytales.
Perhaps I loved most of this because my brain works the same way as Carter’s, which might be a scary thing to contemplate though I find it exciting as this is the first book of hers I’ve read (only her second novel) and it won’t be my last.
*
I know I write “perhaps” too much (see the above paragraph, and probably all my other reviews) so I was particularly drawn to this passage:
’If all my perhapses came home to roost, I’d be feeding the pig in my Galway smallholding this very minute.’
Flocks of brown-feathered perhapses flapped ragged, witless wings against the windows. She could hear their clucking and squawking. But this one sad, wet hen fluttered inside the house. A miracle.
*
P.S. I don't know why the word "magic" is in the title.
January 23, 2019
2 Stars as per the pages I read.
I remember wanting to love it. This was my first read of 2019 and to think that it did nothing but dull my senses and make me wanna stay away from books. Thank God I left it for a while to try and start another.
There are a total of 9 chapters here, but after tasting the first 2, I am not sure I could digest the rest.
This was so weird. We read about Melanie-the weird girl who does nothing but look at herself in the mirror all day long and keeps discovering her body. Believe me, I still read on. I didn't like her much, and the fact that this was all about her, didn't help at all! Neither was there much connection of the characters with each other. Then came the sudden blow, the death of her parents. Why? Because she wore a stupid wedding dress. That was so, so, so weird. And she already knew that they'd be dead because of that. And surprise: I still read more, even when I was so annoyed. Then came her Uncle who owns a Magic Toyshop, and who'll now take care of the three siblings. I stopped before the Uncle entered the story. I couldn't get attached to the characters and I didn't really care about the plot, or anything. The writing didn't pull me in either. In the end, I decided to give this a little space and try reading it later, but with so many great reads that followed, I don't really want to torment myself again.
Let me know what you thought about this one, and if you loved it, should it be given another chance?
I remember wanting to love it. This was my first read of 2019 and to think that it did nothing but dull my senses and make me wanna stay away from books. Thank God I left it for a while to try and start another.
There are a total of 9 chapters here, but after tasting the first 2, I am not sure I could digest the rest.
This was so weird. We read about Melanie-the weird girl who does nothing but look at herself in the mirror all day long and keeps discovering her body. Believe me, I still read on. I didn't like her much, and the fact that this was all about her, didn't help at all! Neither was there much connection of the characters with each other. Then came the sudden blow, the death of her parents. Why? Because she wore a stupid wedding dress. That was so, so, so weird. And she already knew that they'd be dead because of that. And surprise: I still read more, even when I was so annoyed. Then came her Uncle who owns a Magic Toyshop, and who'll now take care of the three siblings. I stopped before the Uncle entered the story. I couldn't get attached to the characters and I didn't really care about the plot, or anything. The writing didn't pull me in either. In the end, I decided to give this a little space and try reading it later, but with so many great reads that followed, I don't really want to torment myself again.
Let me know what you thought about this one, and if you loved it, should it be given another chance?
November 12, 2020
This is a dark, strange, wonderful book. Angela Carter’s writing is vivid, I was immersed in the story of 15yo Melanie and her younger brother and sister as they are orphaned and move from a big country house to the outskirts of London and the miserable, Dickensian toyshop of their uncle. It seems a Victorian world, gothic in atmosphere yet it’s contemporary (). It’s a coming of age story full of Carter’s usual obsessions. There’s lots of allusions to art and poetry and literature. There’s no magic here, more bursts of weird horror, the imagery is violent and powerful . The shocking ending is inevitable yet left me wanting more.
I first discovered Angela Carter many years ago, I’m unsure how I missed this one but it was great to return and discover that her writing has not lost its power.
I first discovered Angela Carter many years ago, I’m unsure how I missed this one but it was great to return and discover that her writing has not lost its power.
December 10, 2023
Reread, think I read this first in 2020. I still find her way of writing very intruiging and beautiful altough now I find some of the content, characters and way of describing to be problematic. But I might try and reread another book by hers I've borrowed from the library
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Wow... Just wow, the book had me hooked from the very first page, it was so dark and twisted yet so beautiful told. It's been a long time since I feelt so mesmerized by a book that I had to read it slowly and just didn't want it to end. It's a great sadness that my bookapp only have one more book by her, I want to read all her books!
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Wow... Just wow, the book had me hooked from the very first page, it was so dark and twisted yet so beautiful told. It's been a long time since I feelt so mesmerized by a book that I had to read it slowly and just didn't want it to end. It's a great sadness that my bookapp only have one more book by her, I want to read all her books!
November 28, 2017
". . . Uncle Philips, all clock-work, might rush out and savage her. This possibility seemed real and awful. All her laughter was snuffed out. She was hallucinated; she felt herself not herself, wrenched from her own personality, watching this whole fantasy from another place; and, in this staged fantasy, anything was possible. Even that the swan, the mocked up swan, might assume reality itself and rape this girl in a blizzard of white feathers. The swan towered over the black-haired girl who was Melanie and who was not."
“.....‘You overacted,’ he said to Melanie and cuffed her with the back of his hand. ‘You were melodramatic. Puppets don’t overact. You spoiled the poetry’”
This is relatively early Carter, and she is just beginning to spread her wings...but what gorgeous wings they are!
Second time reading this one, and even more impressed this time round. Not exactly subtle (puppets/masks etc), but who cares. Lovely inversion/subversion of 19thc romance novels, full of fairy tale tropes but with that sexy Carter-twist. Pure pleasure to read.
December 12, 2018
Beyond Austerity
This novel, Angela Carter's second, took a long time to get off the ground. Only 120 pages in (60% of the way through) does it start to build any dramatic tension or apparent narrative direction. Then, only in the last chapter of 20 pages do we see what the novel is really all about. Fortunately, by that time, Carter had partially won me over again, although this is probably my least favourite work of hers.
The novel seems to be set in the early fifties, when England was just emerging from wartime austerity. There is a new sense of optimism in the air, although it's not yet tethered to the swinging sixties.
The New Found Land of My Body
Melanie, the protagonist, is just 15, going on 16. She has two younger siblings, Jonathan and Victoria. Their father is a writer, and Mummy was initially keeping Daddy company on what Victoria calls a "lecher tour" in America. Meanwhile, the children are cared for by their beloved housekeeper, Mrs Rundle (who was "fat, old and ugly and had never, in fact, been married"). They live in a red-brick house ("with Edwardian gables") in the country, "with a bedroom each and several to spare". Melanie had grown up with "the smell of money", even if she was too young to recognise it.
Melanie is just starting to discover herself and her body:
Mummy's Wedding Dress
Even when she goes to church, she is preoccupied with the flesh:
She puts on her mother's wedding dress and imagines herself a (virgin) bride:
When she returns, she receives a telegram telling her that her parents have died. She holds herself responsible, because she dressed up in her mother's dress. It's now that the children move to London to live with their Aunt Margaret and Uncle Philip (Flower), who live in a house above his toyshop. They also take care of Aunt Margaret's brothers, Finn and Francie Jowle. Finn works in the toyshop, and Francie plays the fiddle at weddings, parties and dances.
The Silence of Women
This all happens in the first forty pages. Another eighty pages paints a picture of the almost Dickensian life they lead together. They eat tinned peaches, tinned beans, tinned sardines. Melanie forms a bond of sorts with Finn (her uncle), a Peeping Tom and "an ex-bog-trotter slum-kid", and they share her first kiss ("is there something wrong with me that I felt such a blankness?"). Aunt Margaret warns her about Uncle Philip:
This is intimidating for Melanie, because she, like Angela Carter herself, is just finding her voice, and doesn't want to remain silent.
The Beast of the Apocalypse
For all the magic of the toyshop, life under Uncle Philip is puritanical and oppressive, even if he has a "shaggy, walrus moustache...[which] made him look like Albert Schweitzer, but not benevolent."
Melanie thinks of Uncle Philip as "the Beast of the Apocalypse". She thinks of their new home as Bluebeard's Castle. Finn describes it as a madhouse, and Melanie a crazy house:
Even in the creative world of a puppet-maker, Uncle Philip is patronising, paternalistic and patriarchal. He makes a puppet in the form of a swan, which he intends to use in a performance of Leda and the Swan, starring Melanie. However, it becomes clear that his intention is to symbolically rape Melanie and take her innocence. "It was a grotesque parody of a swan...Its wings waved because Uncle Philip was pulling the strings...Almighty Jove in the form of a swan wreaks his will."
A Challenge to Authority in a Wild Surmise
Inevitably, Melanie and Finn challenge Uncle Philip's authority: "we shall all walk out on him together, while he grovels on the floor...Time to be gone."
Ultimately, "everything is gone...Nothing is left but us."
There is a new start in a new world:
SOUNDTRACK:
Pulp - "Common People"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuTMW...
Robyn Hitchcock and the Venus 3 - "The Authority Box"
https://youtu.be/csYi2y43jew
This novel, Angela Carter's second, took a long time to get off the ground. Only 120 pages in (60% of the way through) does it start to build any dramatic tension or apparent narrative direction. Then, only in the last chapter of 20 pages do we see what the novel is really all about. Fortunately, by that time, Carter had partially won me over again, although this is probably my least favourite work of hers.
The novel seems to be set in the early fifties, when England was just emerging from wartime austerity. There is a new sense of optimism in the air, although it's not yet tethered to the swinging sixties.
The New Found Land of My Body
Melanie, the protagonist, is just 15, going on 16. She has two younger siblings, Jonathan and Victoria. Their father is a writer, and Mummy was initially keeping Daddy company on what Victoria calls a "lecher tour" in America. Meanwhile, the children are cared for by their beloved housekeeper, Mrs Rundle (who was "fat, old and ugly and had never, in fact, been married"). They live in a red-brick house ("with Edwardian gables") in the country, "with a bedroom each and several to spare". Melanie had grown up with "the smell of money", even if she was too young to recognise it.
Melanie is just starting to discover herself and her body:
"The summer she was fifteen, Melanie discovered she was made of flesh and blood. O, my America, my new found land. She embarked on a tranced voyage, exploring the whole of herself, clambering her mountain ranges, penetrating the moist richness of her secret valleys, a physiological Cortez, da Gama or Mungo Park. For hours she stared at herself, naked, in the mirror of her wardrobe; she would follow with her finger the elegant structure of her rib-cage, where the heart fluttered under the flesh like a bird under a blanket, and she would draw down the long line from breast-bone to navel (which was a mysterious cavern or grotto), and she would rasp her palms against her bud-wing shoulderblades. And she would writhe about, clasping herself, laughing, sometimes doing cartwheels and handstands out of sheer exhilaration at the supple surprise of herself now she was no longer a little girl."
Mummy's Wedding Dress
Even when she goes to church, she is preoccupied with the flesh:
"Please God, let me get married. Or, let me have sex...Or at least, let me remember that I had sex."
"Since she was thirteen, when her periods began, she had felt she was pregnant with herself, bearing the slowly ripening embryo of Melanie-grown-up inside herself for a gestation time the length of which she was not precisely aware."
She puts on her mother's wedding dress and imagines herself a (virgin) bride:
"I shall go down
Into the garden.
Into the night."
When she returns, she receives a telegram telling her that her parents have died. She holds herself responsible, because she dressed up in her mother's dress. It's now that the children move to London to live with their Aunt Margaret and Uncle Philip (Flower), who live in a house above his toyshop. They also take care of Aunt Margaret's brothers, Finn and Francie Jowle. Finn works in the toyshop, and Francie plays the fiddle at weddings, parties and dances.
The Silence of Women
This all happens in the first forty pages. Another eighty pages paints a picture of the almost Dickensian life they lead together. They eat tinned peaches, tinned beans, tinned sardines. Melanie forms a bond of sorts with Finn (her uncle), a Peeping Tom and "an ex-bog-trotter slum-kid", and they share her first kiss ("is there something wrong with me that I felt such a blankness?"). Aunt Margaret warns her about Uncle Philip:
"No make-up, mind. And only speak when you're spoken to. He likes, you know, silent women."
This is intimidating for Melanie, because she, like Angela Carter herself, is just finding her voice, and doesn't want to remain silent.
The Beast of the Apocalypse
For all the magic of the toyshop, life under Uncle Philip is puritanical and oppressive, even if he has a "shaggy, walrus moustache...[which] made him look like Albert Schweitzer, but not benevolent."
Melanie thinks of Uncle Philip as "the Beast of the Apocalypse". She thinks of their new home as Bluebeard's Castle. Finn describes it as a madhouse, and Melanie a crazy house:
"How could she, Melanie, have ever guessed her uncle would be a monster with a voice so loud she was afraid it would bring the roof down and bury them all?"
Even in the creative world of a puppet-maker, Uncle Philip is patronising, paternalistic and patriarchal. He makes a puppet in the form of a swan, which he intends to use in a performance of Leda and the Swan, starring Melanie. However, it becomes clear that his intention is to symbolically rape Melanie and take her innocence. "It was a grotesque parody of a swan...Its wings waved because Uncle Philip was pulling the strings...Almighty Jove in the form of a swan wreaks his will."
A Challenge to Authority in a Wild Surmise
Inevitably, Melanie and Finn challenge Uncle Philip's authority: "we shall all walk out on him together, while he grovels on the floor...Time to be gone."
Ultimately, "everything is gone...Nothing is left but us."
There is a new start in a new world:
"At night, in the garden, they faced each other in a wild surmise."
SOUNDTRACK:
Pulp - "Common People"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuTMW...
Robyn Hitchcock and the Venus 3 - "The Authority Box"
https://youtu.be/csYi2y43jew
October 1, 2022
Angela Carter managed to capture in this novel the awakening of young girl's sexuality. That time in-between, when the desire and curiosity about her changing body and guys, the romantic erotism that is so far removed from the real act itself, coexist with innocence and need for her childhood teddy bear to cuddle when going to sleep and Winnie-the-Pooh book for comfort.
It's about that moment, when a girl finally notices how the world works and who controls it. And her place in it and expectations from her sex. A very female book that I would argue could be only written by a woman.
But it's also one of her earliest novels and it shows. She has many thoughts that combined make for not a very cohesive and polished work.
It's about that moment, when a girl finally notices how the world works and who controls it. And her place in it and expectations from her sex. A very female book that I would argue could be only written by a woman.
But it's also one of her earliest novels and it shows. She has many thoughts that combined make for not a very cohesive and polished work.
October 27, 2023
If Shirley Jackson wrote A Series of Unfortunate Events…
January 17, 2022
'I think I want to be in love with you but I don't know how.'
A darkly eccentric and Gothic coming of age story; bizarre and disturbing, repulsive and enchanting. The Magic Toyshop is a malevolent fairy tale.
Melanie is a clever, neurotic, bored, beautiful teenager. A bourgeois virgin, perhaps some of us may recognize our younger selves yearning to leave childhood behind, posing in front of mirrors, maybe even imagining ourselves as an artist's lover. (Then again, maybe not.) Following a nocturnal transgression involving her mother's wedding dress, Melanie learns of her parents' death and, along with her two younger siblings, is shunted off to live with their brooding uncle, whom they have never met. Things get messy, culminating in an incident where Uncle Phillip has Melanie mock-raped by a mechanical puppet swan. Yup.
Angela Carter leaves no room for ambiguity. I deeply admire her brutal honesty and frankness; her bold descriptions certainly left me mildly uncomfortable but also in awe at the sheer power of her writing. Rich in metaphor and allegory, this is genuinely one of the most intelligent novels I have ever read.
Carter's character relationships are constructed so masterfully. In particular, Melanie’s turbulent relationship with Finn: the two are constantly poised amid the sizzling conflict of repulsion and something vaguely akin to attraction, it's a brilliantly written dynamic. Melanie's former fantasies of her 'phantom bridegroom' are entirely obliterated, and her realizations are deeply moving. I so deeply appreciate Carter's ability to evoke such strong emotion, especially in time with Melanie's changing attitudes.
The ending is stunningly ambiguous. A simultaneously shocking and delighting novel - Angela Carter’s done it again.
(Also, did anyone get ‘A Series of Unfortunate Events’ vibes?!!)
A darkly eccentric and Gothic coming of age story; bizarre and disturbing, repulsive and enchanting. The Magic Toyshop is a malevolent fairy tale.
Melanie is a clever, neurotic, bored, beautiful teenager. A bourgeois virgin, perhaps some of us may recognize our younger selves yearning to leave childhood behind, posing in front of mirrors, maybe even imagining ourselves as an artist's lover. (Then again, maybe not.) Following a nocturnal transgression involving her mother's wedding dress, Melanie learns of her parents' death and, along with her two younger siblings, is shunted off to live with their brooding uncle, whom they have never met. Things get messy, culminating in an incident where Uncle Phillip has Melanie mock-raped by a mechanical puppet swan. Yup.
Angela Carter leaves no room for ambiguity. I deeply admire her brutal honesty and frankness; her bold descriptions certainly left me mildly uncomfortable but also in awe at the sheer power of her writing. Rich in metaphor and allegory, this is genuinely one of the most intelligent novels I have ever read.
Carter's character relationships are constructed so masterfully. In particular, Melanie’s turbulent relationship with Finn: the two are constantly poised amid the sizzling conflict of repulsion and something vaguely akin to attraction, it's a brilliantly written dynamic. Melanie's former fantasies of her 'phantom bridegroom' are entirely obliterated, and her realizations are deeply moving. I so deeply appreciate Carter's ability to evoke such strong emotion, especially in time with Melanie's changing attitudes.
The ending is stunningly ambiguous. A simultaneously shocking and delighting novel - Angela Carter’s done it again.
(Also, did anyone get ‘A Series of Unfortunate Events’ vibes?!!)
June 12, 2024
A few years ago, I read Angela Carter's final novel, 'Wise Children' ~ a marvelous reading experience; one that I recall fondly from time to time:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
This earlier novel - from 24 years earlier, to be exact - lives rather in the shadow of the author's later work. ~ which is to say it's darker (at least darker than 'Wise Children')... and its title is something of a misnomer. You would be hard-pressed to find any magic in this toyshop.
The potential for magic is very much in evidence. After all, we're still, for the most part, in a toyshop. But the surface whimsy of the atmosphere masks something decidedly Dickensian. ~ mainly as the novel progresses.
The story begins in a lighter tone as it introduces us to the interior world of precocious, 15-year-old Melanie. We can quickly deduce that Melanie is, at heart, a free spirit on the cusp of womanhood. As such, she's restless:
Uncle Philip is - well, awful. Just an awful, mean-spirited person. Though not, say, deformed like The Phantom of the Opera, the two characters share a love of artistic beauty which exists in stark contrast to their hollow natures.
The reading of this novel would be a more dismal affair were it not for the real magic involved: Carter's writing. 'TMT' may not be effervescent and joyous in the way that 'Wise Children' is - but the writing is still wondrous in the way it can draw the reader in. It's like Carter's way of making the best of a bad situation.
The novel - particularly by way of its carefully realized secondary characters - served to remind me of how compelling and fiercely human Carter's work can be. All told... this is largely somewhat gothic stuff put, strangely, elegantly on display.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
This earlier novel - from 24 years earlier, to be exact - lives rather in the shadow of the author's later work. ~ which is to say it's darker (at least darker than 'Wise Children')... and its title is something of a misnomer. You would be hard-pressed to find any magic in this toyshop.
The potential for magic is very much in evidence. After all, we're still, for the most part, in a toyshop. But the surface whimsy of the atmosphere masks something decidedly Dickensian. ~ mainly as the novel progresses.
The story begins in a lighter tone as it introduces us to the interior world of precocious, 15-year-old Melanie. We can quickly deduce that Melanie is, at heart, a free spirit on the cusp of womanhood. As such, she's restless:
Melanie prayed: 'Please God, let me get married. Or, let me have sex.' She had given up believing in God when she was thirteen. One morning, she woke up and He wasn't there.~ as well as receptive to whispers of sensuality:
She examined the wedding dress more closely. It seemed a strange way to dress up just in order to lose your virginity.Carter's heroine regularly presents her longings through a prism of erotic innocence:
His breast rose up from the pyjama top like the prow of a boat cresting a wave.It's not long into the novel, however, before tragedy strikes, leaving Melanie and her younger siblings orphans - and in the care (though you can't call it that) of their puppeteer uncle, Philip.
Uncle Philip is - well, awful. Just an awful, mean-spirited person. Though not, say, deformed like The Phantom of the Opera, the two characters share a love of artistic beauty which exists in stark contrast to their hollow natures.
The reading of this novel would be a more dismal affair were it not for the real magic involved: Carter's writing. 'TMT' may not be effervescent and joyous in the way that 'Wise Children' is - but the writing is still wondrous in the way it can draw the reader in. It's like Carter's way of making the best of a bad situation.
The novel - particularly by way of its carefully realized secondary characters - served to remind me of how compelling and fiercely human Carter's work can be. All told... this is largely somewhat gothic stuff put, strangely, elegantly on display.
June 3, 2020
“In this staged fantasy, anything was possible.”
The Magic Toyshop was not what I expected. Where at the start there is a promise of a gothic horror story of poor orphans falling prey to their cruel uncle, the tale actually is more a coming-of-age story sprinkled with horror. Not bad either, because the author kept me on edge the whole time.
Angela Carter is known for writing eerie fairy tales with feminist characters and magical elements, and “The Toyshop” being one of her first works it fits right in. The first thing we namely learn about our main character Melanie, a teenage girl of 15, is how she’s studying her changing body and discovering her own sexual desires.
I liked this ‘flesh’ aspect because it grounded Melanie (who’s imaginative mind often ran far) and it kept the story in the real world. When Melanie and her siblings get to live in the Toyshop, there are so many mentions of life-size puppets, midnight music and strange smiling cousins that you needed a anchor.
But although I liked Melanie and I loved the descriptive writing style, the plot itself wasn’t so strong. Many of the characters stayed quite flat – brother Jonathan especially annoyed me – and remained stuck in their ‘role’. Therefore the lovestory between Finn and Melanie didn’t move me so much: Finn just didn’t interest me.
The puppetshow with the Swan however – that scene was dark and full with erotic tension. It reminded me of Little Red Riding Hood and it’s sexual interpretation of a wild man devouring a young maiden (think about it).
The ending sadly went up in lackluster flames, but The Magic Toyshop has made me interested to read more from Angela Carter. Let’s see what other dark tales she has to tell.
The Magic Toyshop was not what I expected. Where at the start there is a promise of a gothic horror story of poor orphans falling prey to their cruel uncle, the tale actually is more a coming-of-age story sprinkled with horror. Not bad either, because the author kept me on edge the whole time.
Angela Carter is known for writing eerie fairy tales with feminist characters and magical elements, and “The Toyshop” being one of her first works it fits right in. The first thing we namely learn about our main character Melanie, a teenage girl of 15, is how she’s studying her changing body and discovering her own sexual desires.
I liked this ‘flesh’ aspect because it grounded Melanie (who’s imaginative mind often ran far) and it kept the story in the real world. When Melanie and her siblings get to live in the Toyshop, there are so many mentions of life-size puppets, midnight music and strange smiling cousins that you needed a anchor.
But although I liked Melanie and I loved the descriptive writing style, the plot itself wasn’t so strong. Many of the characters stayed quite flat – brother Jonathan especially annoyed me – and remained stuck in their ‘role’. Therefore the lovestory between Finn and Melanie didn’t move me so much: Finn just didn’t interest me.
The puppetshow with the Swan however – that scene was dark and full with erotic tension. It reminded me of Little Red Riding Hood and it’s sexual interpretation of a wild man devouring a young maiden (think about it).
The ending sadly went up in lackluster flames, but The Magic Toyshop has made me interested to read more from Angela Carter. Let’s see what other dark tales she has to tell.
November 4, 2016
I was lucky to discover Angela Carter’s writing at a very young age, not long after I had started to read grown-up books.
I spotted a book named ‘The Magic Toyshop’ on a paperback carousel in the library. What was such a thing doing on the shelves for grown-ups? And why did it have a dark green cover, that looked like a classic, but not the sort of classic I had ever seen before?
I picked the book up, I began to read, and what I read was extraordinary. It was like nothing I had read before and it did things that I didn’t know books could do. After that I read every book by Angela Carter that I could lay my hands on, and I picked up more of those books with dark green covers – Virago Modern Classics – hoping to find more intriguing books and more oh so special authors.
And so it was Angela Carter who set me on a path of picking up books bearing unknown titles and unfamiliar author names, hoping to find more magic ….
I had nothing new to read for Angela Carter Week, but I had lots of books that I might revisit, to see what I might find in them with more experience of books and of life behind me. It seemed natural to start again with that first book, to revisit ‘The Magic Toyshop’.
At its heart is a simple story. Melanie is fifteen years-old and she has a lovely life; her parents are happy and successful, she and her siblings are much loved, and they have a beautiful home in the country. But Melanie’s parents are killed in an accident and the three children are sent to live with unknown relations …
But it is clear from the start that this will be a coming of age story like no other.
Melanie’s sexuality is awakening. She is drawn to her mother’s wedding dress, to put it on, to go outside. But she finds herself locked out and she has to shed the dress, bundle it up, climb the apple tree to get back inside.
“She parcelled up the dress and stuck it in the fork of the tree. she could carry it up with her and put it away again in the trunk and no one would know it had been worn if they did not see the blood on the hem, and there was only a little blood. The cat put its head on one side and turned it sequin regard on the parcel; it stretched out its paddy paw and stroked the dress. Its paw was tipped with curved, cunning meat hooks. It had a cruel stroke. There was a ripping sound.”
And when she wakes the next morning she learns that her parents are dead.
Angela Carter painted that scene gloriously, in such rich colours, and there was so much that you could read into it. The whole story was like that; a coming of age story twisted into the most profound, dark, gothic drama.
Melanie found herself in a dilapidated house where her tyrannical uncle ruled over his mute, cowed wife, and her two young brothers. It was a magic toyshop, but it was also a house ruled by fear. Melanie had to learn to live with that, with dirt and poverty, with her feelings for her aunt’s brother, Finn.
Sometimes she was drawn to him – as he was to her – and sometimes she was repulsed by him.
Conflicts and contradictions like that were threaded through the story.
Angela Carter painted vivid pictures in rich colours, picking out the strangest details. Those pictures are utterly compelling, but they are also disturbing, and sometimes repellent.
The most dramatic pictures of all were of her uncle, his life-sized puppets, and the puppet shows he drew first his family and then Melanie into:
“Red plush curtains swung to the floor from a large, box-like construction at the far end of the room. Finn, masked, advanced and tugged a cord. The curtains swished open, gathering in swags at each side of a small stage, arranged as a grotto in a hushed, expectant woodland, with cardboard rocks. Lying face-downwards in a tangle of strings was a puppet five feet high, a sulphide in a fountain of white tulle, fallen flat down as if someone had got tired of her in the middle of playing with her, dropped her and wandered off. She had long, black hair down to the waist of her tight satin bodice.”(/i>
In the end something broke. It had to.
Melanie had tried to change things. But there were some things that she didn’t know, that she didn’t understand.
‘The Magic Toyshop’ touches on some difficult subjects, but the images, the ideas, the symbolism, the eccentricity are just so wonderful. It’s untidy though, not a book for those with delicate sensibilities, who like things neat and tidy.
But I can’t pick this book apart. I loved it the first time I read it and I still love it now.
The best way I have to explain its appeal is to confess that I typed ‘Alice’ instead of ‘Melanie’ more than once, because Melanie’s situation seemed so much like Alice’s when she tumbled down the rabbit hole.
It sounds mad, and yet it works ….
I spotted a book named ‘The Magic Toyshop’ on a paperback carousel in the library. What was such a thing doing on the shelves for grown-ups? And why did it have a dark green cover, that looked like a classic, but not the sort of classic I had ever seen before?
I picked the book up, I began to read, and what I read was extraordinary. It was like nothing I had read before and it did things that I didn’t know books could do. After that I read every book by Angela Carter that I could lay my hands on, and I picked up more of those books with dark green covers – Virago Modern Classics – hoping to find more intriguing books and more oh so special authors.
And so it was Angela Carter who set me on a path of picking up books bearing unknown titles and unfamiliar author names, hoping to find more magic ….
I had nothing new to read for Angela Carter Week, but I had lots of books that I might revisit, to see what I might find in them with more experience of books and of life behind me. It seemed natural to start again with that first book, to revisit ‘The Magic Toyshop’.
At its heart is a simple story. Melanie is fifteen years-old and she has a lovely life; her parents are happy and successful, she and her siblings are much loved, and they have a beautiful home in the country. But Melanie’s parents are killed in an accident and the three children are sent to live with unknown relations …
But it is clear from the start that this will be a coming of age story like no other.
Melanie’s sexuality is awakening. She is drawn to her mother’s wedding dress, to put it on, to go outside. But she finds herself locked out and she has to shed the dress, bundle it up, climb the apple tree to get back inside.
“She parcelled up the dress and stuck it in the fork of the tree. she could carry it up with her and put it away again in the trunk and no one would know it had been worn if they did not see the blood on the hem, and there was only a little blood. The cat put its head on one side and turned it sequin regard on the parcel; it stretched out its paddy paw and stroked the dress. Its paw was tipped with curved, cunning meat hooks. It had a cruel stroke. There was a ripping sound.”
And when she wakes the next morning she learns that her parents are dead.
Angela Carter painted that scene gloriously, in such rich colours, and there was so much that you could read into it. The whole story was like that; a coming of age story twisted into the most profound, dark, gothic drama.
Melanie found herself in a dilapidated house where her tyrannical uncle ruled over his mute, cowed wife, and her two young brothers. It was a magic toyshop, but it was also a house ruled by fear. Melanie had to learn to live with that, with dirt and poverty, with her feelings for her aunt’s brother, Finn.
Sometimes she was drawn to him – as he was to her – and sometimes she was repulsed by him.
Conflicts and contradictions like that were threaded through the story.
Angela Carter painted vivid pictures in rich colours, picking out the strangest details. Those pictures are utterly compelling, but they are also disturbing, and sometimes repellent.
The most dramatic pictures of all were of her uncle, his life-sized puppets, and the puppet shows he drew first his family and then Melanie into:
“Red plush curtains swung to the floor from a large, box-like construction at the far end of the room. Finn, masked, advanced and tugged a cord. The curtains swished open, gathering in swags at each side of a small stage, arranged as a grotto in a hushed, expectant woodland, with cardboard rocks. Lying face-downwards in a tangle of strings was a puppet five feet high, a sulphide in a fountain of white tulle, fallen flat down as if someone had got tired of her in the middle of playing with her, dropped her and wandered off. She had long, black hair down to the waist of her tight satin bodice.”(/i>
In the end something broke. It had to.
Melanie had tried to change things. But there were some things that she didn’t know, that she didn’t understand.
‘The Magic Toyshop’ touches on some difficult subjects, but the images, the ideas, the symbolism, the eccentricity are just so wonderful. It’s untidy though, not a book for those with delicate sensibilities, who like things neat and tidy.
But I can’t pick this book apart. I loved it the first time I read it and I still love it now.
The best way I have to explain its appeal is to confess that I typed ‘Alice’ instead of ‘Melanie’ more than once, because Melanie’s situation seemed so much like Alice’s when she tumbled down the rabbit hole.
It sounds mad, and yet it works ….
November 28, 2021
What an odd little novel! Melanie, 15, is orphaned (along with her two younger siblings), and they are all sent to live with her uncle, his wife, and the wife's two brothers. Uncle Phillip is basically an ogre. He makes toys for a living, and every now and then puts on a private puppet show for his family. These puppets are his pride and joy, and he subjects his family to bizzare, short shows with these elaborately made creatures. He is a brute: violent, rude, and altogether domineering. His wife, the meek Aunt Margaret, is mute. As the book winds down, turns out she's having an affair with one of her brothers. Melanie, meanwhile, explores a relationship with the other brother as the book unfolds.
The plot jerks around from plot point to plot point, in not a very organized or coherent way. The writing, to me, seems uncertain. Carter tries a whole lot of things at once--flights of gothic fancy (a random dismembered hand, an accidental destruction of a wedding dress) coupled with a burgeoning love story, all set against the backdrop of a grief that seems very quickly forgotten. I never quite trusted Carter; the novel seemed rather amateurish in its plotting and in its dips in and out of a sort of magical realism. The book also ends abruptly and with no real sense of closure. Characterization, too, was uneven--most were drawn fairly well, but then Uncle Philip was entirely evil, with no apparent motivation, and Jonathan, Melanie's younger brother, depicted as totally emotionally absent, again for nor particular reason or for any ends. Still, the book kept me intrigued, and I know it was one of Carter's earlier works (1967).
I read about half of "The Bloody Chamber" (1979) recently, too, perhaps Carter's most famous colelction of stories. "The Bloody Chamber" is the gem of the lot, a retelling of Bluebeard. Carter's particular blend of the gothic and the female is compelling and new (her unusual but appropriate diction is perhaps the strongest force of interest here). "Puss-in-Boots" was far too in love with its own cleverness and archness. "The Company of Wolves" also tried too hard, in my opinion, although it contains some nice reversals from the original Little Red Riding Hood story.
My overall feeling on Angela Carter--it's cool that she did something a bit unusual and contemporary with the Gothic, but stylistic experiments which don't pan out too well seem to riddle her work.
The plot jerks around from plot point to plot point, in not a very organized or coherent way. The writing, to me, seems uncertain. Carter tries a whole lot of things at once--flights of gothic fancy (a random dismembered hand, an accidental destruction of a wedding dress) coupled with a burgeoning love story, all set against the backdrop of a grief that seems very quickly forgotten. I never quite trusted Carter; the novel seemed rather amateurish in its plotting and in its dips in and out of a sort of magical realism. The book also ends abruptly and with no real sense of closure. Characterization, too, was uneven--most were drawn fairly well, but then Uncle Philip was entirely evil, with no apparent motivation, and Jonathan, Melanie's younger brother, depicted as totally emotionally absent, again for nor particular reason or for any ends. Still, the book kept me intrigued, and I know it was one of Carter's earlier works (1967).
I read about half of "The Bloody Chamber" (1979) recently, too, perhaps Carter's most famous colelction of stories. "The Bloody Chamber" is the gem of the lot, a retelling of Bluebeard. Carter's particular blend of the gothic and the female is compelling and new (her unusual but appropriate diction is perhaps the strongest force of interest here). "Puss-in-Boots" was far too in love with its own cleverness and archness. "The Company of Wolves" also tried too hard, in my opinion, although it contains some nice reversals from the original Little Red Riding Hood story.
My overall feeling on Angela Carter--it's cool that she did something a bit unusual and contemporary with the Gothic, but stylistic experiments which don't pan out too well seem to riddle her work.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 8, 2011
Having just finished Carter's 'The Bloody Chamber,' her retellings of traditional fairy tales, I thought I'd read something else by her in order to have a basis for comparison.
The Magic Toyshop is, firstly, much more horrific and disturbing than the cute cover of this edition would lead one to expect. It's full of over-the-top elements of gothic grotesquerie - I can almost imagine the author, while writing, gleefully exclaiming, "oh yes! I know what will make this Even Worse!!!" - but it's very well written, and therefore emotionally very effective, even while one is saying, "well, that's a Bit Much!" Upon finishing it, I was left with a creeping, disturbed feeling - which is the sign of a good horror novel.
However, I did have the same issue with it as I did with the stories in 'The Bloody Chamber,' which is that the characters are both emotionally opaque and oddly passive. Even when dramatic events occur, the reader doesn't get the sense that decisions have been made that set those events in motion. Instead, there is a sense that it was inevitable that events would unfold the way they did; that the characters do not have free will. Carter is too good a writer for this to be unintentional; perhaps it reflects her world view. Personally, however, I find it bothersome.
The Magic Toyshop is, firstly, much more horrific and disturbing than the cute cover of this edition would lead one to expect. It's full of over-the-top elements of gothic grotesquerie - I can almost imagine the author, while writing, gleefully exclaiming, "oh yes! I know what will make this Even Worse!!!" - but it's very well written, and therefore emotionally very effective, even while one is saying, "well, that's a Bit Much!" Upon finishing it, I was left with a creeping, disturbed feeling - which is the sign of a good horror novel.
However, I did have the same issue with it as I did with the stories in 'The Bloody Chamber,' which is that the characters are both emotionally opaque and oddly passive. Even when dramatic events occur, the reader doesn't get the sense that decisions have been made that set those events in motion. Instead, there is a sense that it was inevitable that events would unfold the way they did; that the characters do not have free will. Carter is too good a writer for this to be unintentional; perhaps it reflects her world view. Personally, however, I find it bothersome.
July 18, 2017
Angela Carter has thrust me into an uncomfortable world of orphans, incest, anger, mad uncles , suggestions of paedophilia and more. Strange though it sounds this book published in 1967 handled it all in a sensitive way.
The story begins with Melanie a 15year old girl exploring her body and her sexuality, then after the door closes fast behind her, when she goes for a midnight walk in her mother's wedding dress, ends up climbing naked up the apple tree to get back into her room.
Circumstances lead to Melanie and her brother and sister having to go and live with her vile Uncle Philip her mother's brother. He is a toy maker and the owner of the toy shop above which they all come to live.
We discover that he makes puppets of life size but they are not for sale but for his personal use to put on sinister performances for his wife and her 2 brothers who also live with them. Melanie is forced to be in one of the shows 'acting' with a Swan puppet.....
Magical realism is a popular genre for lots of people including myself but until now I'd not read any of this authors work. I do have another of hers on my book case and will definitely be reading it later this year.
The story begins with Melanie a 15year old girl exploring her body and her sexuality, then after the door closes fast behind her, when she goes for a midnight walk in her mother's wedding dress, ends up climbing naked up the apple tree to get back into her room.
Circumstances lead to Melanie and her brother and sister having to go and live with her vile Uncle Philip her mother's brother. He is a toy maker and the owner of the toy shop above which they all come to live.
We discover that he makes puppets of life size but they are not for sale but for his personal use to put on sinister performances for his wife and her 2 brothers who also live with them. Melanie is forced to be in one of the shows 'acting' with a Swan puppet.....
Magical realism is a popular genre for lots of people including myself but until now I'd not read any of this authors work. I do have another of hers on my book case and will definitely be reading it later this year.
January 6, 2020
«La habitación estaba llena de las vidas desconocidas de otras personas. La marca de una quemadura en el mantel tenía su propia historia secreta (…)»
Reseña en español | Review in English (below)
La lectura de La Juguetería Mágica de Angela Carter me ha supuesto un suplicio y una vida entera. Tengo la sensación que he tardado más de un mes en leer esta novela y que, a fin de cuentas, me ha aportado muy pocas cosas. Después de tratar de analizar objetivamente mi problema con este libro, he llegado a la sencilla conclusión que las expectativas puestas en esta historia fueron demasiado grandes para una novela que, a mi juicio, no es para disfrutar, sino para analizar y estudiar, repensar y leerla desde diferentes perspectivas (Freud, Foucault, feminismo, marxismo…) y sacarle jugo a cada uno de los símbolos que aparecen. Y no abordé su lectura de esa forma. Aunque tampoco me apetecía, para qué engañaros.
Y aún así, al terminar de leer tuve que sentarme enfrente del ordenador y buscar respuestas a todos los pre-análisis de la obra a los que fui dándoles vueltas. Es cierto que La Juguetería Mágica es prácticamente una obra gótica, muy victoriana, y que tiene un no-espacio temporal que da muchísimo juego –incluso con referencias a Alicia en el País de las Maravillas–. Estamos a finales de los años 60 pero este Londres bien puede ser el de hace cincuenta o cien años. Y la narrativa de la autora, aunque me arrepiento de no haber leído este libro en su idioma original, es maravillosa: tiene un punto de flujo de conciencia, modernismo y realismo mágico con los que ya estoy predispuesta a que me guste el estilo.
Y por esa creación atemporal y por la narrativa dejo su puntuación en 5/10. No me ha gustado ni la historia ni el tema central (ese supuesto despertar sexual de una adolescente), ni los personajes, ni el ritmo del relato ni el final. Demasiado simbolismo, demasiada ironía en retratar una sociedad patriarcal y unos personajes demasiado malvados para que me llegase a gustar del todo una lectura de la que no sabía absolutamente nada –mea culpa– pero que me habían recomendado con demasiado hincapié.
Como siempre os digo: quizás a vosotrxs sí os guste. Creo que merece la pena darle una oportunidad, al menos para descubrir a una autora británica con un estilo muy peculiar.
———————————————
Reading The Magical Toyshop by Angela Carter has been (almost) a nightmare and a terrible burden. I have felt that it had taken me more than a month to read this novel and that, in the end, it was of no value. After finished the reading, I tried to impartially analyze my main problem with the book, and I have come to the simple conclusion that the expectations put on it were too high for a story that, in my opinion, is not to simply enjoy, but to analyze and study, to rethink and read from different perspectives (Freud, Foucault, feminism, Marxism…), and most importantly, to get the most out of its symbolism. And that was not my approach.
Even so, when I finished reading it, I had to sit in front of my computer and search for answers to all the pre-analysis and questions I already had. It is true that The Magic Toyshop is basically a Victorian gothic novel, with a temporary non-space that causes a lot of debate –we can even see references to Alice's in Wonderland–. Actually, we are in the late 1960s, but this fictional London may well be that of fifty or even a hundred years ago. One of the things I most enjoyed was the narrative, and although I regret not having read it in its original language, it is, either way, wonderful: with a bit of flow of consciousness, modernism and magical realism. It was my perfect cup of tea.
But I cannot lie and the thing is that I haven't liked the story or the main theme –that supposed sexual awakening of a fifteen-year-old girl–, nor the characters, nor the rhythm and neither the end. Too much symbolism, too much irony in portraying an extremely patriarchal society and characters too evil for me to come to like to some extent a story of which I knew absolutely nothing, but that it was recommended to me with too much emphasis.
As I always said: maybe you would like it. I truly think it's worth giving it a try to, at least, discover a British writer with a very peculiar style.
September 10, 2021
The Magic Toyshop (1967)
Author: Angela Carter
Rating: 2.5/5 stars
Angela Carter, what warrants your many accolades? Films, novels, operas, plays, poems, short stories! Read this and "The Bloody Chamber" back to back and was a little disappointed by this one, comparatively. She undoubtedly has a way with words- a talent for choosing the best combination of them and putting them together to sound marvelous, but her talent definitely shines in some areas more than others.
Oh where to begin,
many-medium oeuvre,
such eclectic offerings!
I was immediately drawn in by the title. "The Magic Toyshop". I see whimsical tales of magical realism. Alas, they say not to base a book on it's cover! One of Carter's earlier publications, I found this to be a little too eerie for me. Unsettling; subtly scary. Do not get me wrong- I love a good psychological thriller. But I felt cheated here, not least by the many loose ends and the end of the book. Limited location- a house in South London. Melanie, our protagonist, has been moved there with her brother and sister after the unexpected deaths of her parents. She is to live with her Uncle Philip, mute Aunt Margaret, and her brothers Francie and Finn. Philip turns out to be one scary dude. Abusive, conniving, dark, and straight up evil as soon evidenced by his schemes. Ironically, he owns a toyshop and puts on puppet shows. These shows, however, are a far cry from those that delight young children. (Think Aronofsky's film "Black Swan"- especially since Philip has an eerie thing for swans). He physically and sexually abuses all that live with him and Margaret cannot understand why her aunt is still there. Eventually, spurred on by Melanie's presence and failed puppet shows, Finn begins to rebel. The book reaches the climax when Uncle Philip unexpectedly returns home to find his home and its inhabitants in full revolt.
Loose Bluebeard retell,
dark, deranged, and disturbing-
enter the nightmare.
Carter's strongest talent is her ability in description. She can take a room and articulate on it for a few pages, allowing readers to see precisely what she is seeing, painting the images before our eyes. She does the same in describing the intangible internal thoughts of characters; in describing a physical altercation between enemies; in giving us a play-by-play in a sex scene. Everything is tactile by her pen. Now, mostly, this is awesome- when, of course, she is describing items of interest. Inevitably, though, she describes uninteresting aspects in the story (every reader has things they are not interested in, pages on the basement of a cellar, paragraphs on the contents of a pantry, describing armor, articulation on a girl's wardrobe, and how long can you really write about the color of a snowscape?) in such excruciating detail that, although it may look and sound lovely, detract from the flow of the story and are, frankly, an annoyance to have to get through and quite the distraction. The worst part is that it can transport the reader away from the cozy immersion she drew the reader into earlier. Which is one of the best things about reading- being lured into a whole different world and staying in it for the length of the book. Carter does this with such aptitude; such grace, it makes it all the worse when these dull passages interfere. And I'm not sure what to call it, absurdism, fantasy, magical realism, science fiction, surrealism, all of the above? I closed the book a tad disoriented.
Turning the last page,
was more confused than amused;
more relieved than pleased.
#Haibun #ReviewPoem #arson #aunt #childabuse #comingofage #domesticabuse #British #childabuse #comingofage #deathofparent #gothic #horror #houseascharacter #incest #London #magicalrealism #mirror #mute #occult #orphan #pagetoscreen #pagetostage #puppet #retelling #secretpassage #sexuality #siblings #torture #uncle
Author: Angela Carter
Rating: 2.5/5 stars
Angela Carter, what warrants your many accolades? Films, novels, operas, plays, poems, short stories! Read this and "The Bloody Chamber" back to back and was a little disappointed by this one, comparatively. She undoubtedly has a way with words- a talent for choosing the best combination of them and putting them together to sound marvelous, but her talent definitely shines in some areas more than others.
Oh where to begin,
many-medium oeuvre,
such eclectic offerings!
I was immediately drawn in by the title. "The Magic Toyshop". I see whimsical tales of magical realism. Alas, they say not to base a book on it's cover! One of Carter's earlier publications, I found this to be a little too eerie for me. Unsettling; subtly scary. Do not get me wrong- I love a good psychological thriller. But I felt cheated here, not least by the many loose ends and the end of the book. Limited location- a house in South London. Melanie, our protagonist, has been moved there with her brother and sister after the unexpected deaths of her parents. She is to live with her Uncle Philip, mute Aunt Margaret, and her brothers Francie and Finn. Philip turns out to be one scary dude. Abusive, conniving, dark, and straight up evil as soon evidenced by his schemes. Ironically, he owns a toyshop and puts on puppet shows. These shows, however, are a far cry from those that delight young children. (Think Aronofsky's film "Black Swan"- especially since Philip has an eerie thing for swans). He physically and sexually abuses all that live with him and Margaret cannot understand why her aunt is still there. Eventually, spurred on by Melanie's presence and failed puppet shows, Finn begins to rebel. The book reaches the climax when Uncle Philip unexpectedly returns home to find his home and its inhabitants in full revolt.
Loose Bluebeard retell,
dark, deranged, and disturbing-
enter the nightmare.
Carter's strongest talent is her ability in description. She can take a room and articulate on it for a few pages, allowing readers to see precisely what she is seeing, painting the images before our eyes. She does the same in describing the intangible internal thoughts of characters; in describing a physical altercation between enemies; in giving us a play-by-play in a sex scene. Everything is tactile by her pen. Now, mostly, this is awesome- when, of course, she is describing items of interest. Inevitably, though, she describes uninteresting aspects in the story (every reader has things they are not interested in, pages on the basement of a cellar, paragraphs on the contents of a pantry, describing armor, articulation on a girl's wardrobe, and how long can you really write about the color of a snowscape?) in such excruciating detail that, although it may look and sound lovely, detract from the flow of the story and are, frankly, an annoyance to have to get through and quite the distraction. The worst part is that it can transport the reader away from the cozy immersion she drew the reader into earlier. Which is one of the best things about reading- being lured into a whole different world and staying in it for the length of the book. Carter does this with such aptitude; such grace, it makes it all the worse when these dull passages interfere. And I'm not sure what to call it, absurdism, fantasy, magical realism, science fiction, surrealism, all of the above? I closed the book a tad disoriented.
Turning the last page,
was more confused than amused;
more relieved than pleased.
#Haibun #ReviewPoem #arson #aunt #childabuse #comingofage #domesticabuse #British #childabuse #comingofage #deathofparent #gothic #horror #houseascharacter #incest #London #magicalrealism #mirror #mute #occult #orphan #pagetoscreen #pagetostage #puppet #retelling #secretpassage #sexuality #siblings #torture #uncle
December 14, 2021
god, this book makes my brain Itch.
(october 2016)
i think the first time i read the magic toyshop, i was too young, younger than melanie and easily overwhelmed by the cloying, claustrophobic fear of a too-small world governed by a vast, fleshy puppet-master. then i found it compelling, but deeply confusing and vaguely repulsive. i still do.
but now, coming back to it with a mind full of thoughts about houses and freud's uncanny as the unhomely, and fascinated by the tidal flow towards and away from a warm domesticity that both comforts and threatens to engulf, i'm struck by its gentler aspects. i can't help but think, maybe with more biographical inclination than is healthy, about its tortured relationship to motherhood; the true mother, the mother melanie imagines herself to have symbolically killed and who is more than anything else an absence, aunt margaret, the mother-substitute who feeds and loves with an aggressive hunger that is literally unspeakable, and melanie herself, who imagines her future as a string of children demanding access to her womb. i'm not sure that i've pulled these strands of thought into anything meaningful, but i feel them very strongly and don't want to lose them.
(october 2016)
i think the first time i read the magic toyshop, i was too young, younger than melanie and easily overwhelmed by the cloying, claustrophobic fear of a too-small world governed by a vast, fleshy puppet-master. then i found it compelling, but deeply confusing and vaguely repulsive. i still do.
but now, coming back to it with a mind full of thoughts about houses and freud's uncanny as the unhomely, and fascinated by the tidal flow towards and away from a warm domesticity that both comforts and threatens to engulf, i'm struck by its gentler aspects. i can't help but think, maybe with more biographical inclination than is healthy, about its tortured relationship to motherhood; the true mother, the mother melanie imagines herself to have symbolically killed and who is more than anything else an absence, aunt margaret, the mother-substitute who feeds and loves with an aggressive hunger that is literally unspeakable, and melanie herself, who imagines her future as a string of children demanding access to her womb. i'm not sure that i've pulled these strands of thought into anything meaningful, but i feel them very strongly and don't want to lose them.
August 2, 2019
"El verano en que cumplió quince años, Melanie descubrió que era de carne y hueso"
De un tiempo a esta parte Angela Carter se encuentra entre mis autoras favoritas. Es quien mejor plasma el descubrimiento de la sexualidad sin recurrir en sus textos a escenas remotamente obscenas u ordinarias.
Ese es el caso de "La juguetería mágica" que comienza con un primer capítulo cargado de inocente erotismo y de ingenuidad. La joven protagonista descubre por primera vez su nuevo cuerpo, lo explora confirmando cada cambio que éste está sufriendo, se entusiasma con cada nueva forma de su propio ser y se siente mágica.
Las palabras de la Carrter están cargadas de evocadora sensualidad independientemente de la escena que se esté describiendo en cada momento, es como comer las primeras fresas de la temporada y sentir cómo el jugo cae por la barbilla y se desliza por el cuello hasta la camisa, donde dejará una mancha roja difícil de quitar. Pero a este breve aunque intenso momento de gozo le sigue la oscuridad: la repentina muerte de los padres cambia la vida de Melanie de una forma drástica y cruel. En apenas unas horas la joven tendrá que asumir que todo aquello que ella pensaba que estaba garantizado era un espejismo, que la vida es muy frágil: de la noche a la mañana tiene que asumir la responsabilidad de cuidar de sus hermanos, asumir que es huérfana y que el mundo es cruel con los huérfanos, abandonar su casa en la campiña inglesa para irse a vivir con el hermano de su madre, quien vive en una casa miserable en el sur de Londres y fabrica con sus propias manos juguetes que a ella le dan pavor... pero allí conocerá a su sufrida aunque entrañable tía y a los hermanos de ésta, tres irlandeses con el pelo rojo como el fuego que serán la única luz en su nuevo mundo de oscuridad.
"La juguetería mágica" es un relato tan luminoso como sobrecogedor, una aventura tan aterradora como fascinante. Y estos son adjetivos que suelo poner a todo lo que he leido, hasta ahora, de Angela Carter. Paladear cada palabra, cada frase, la construcción de cada párrafo son tambien cosas frecuentes que le suceden al lector cuando leen a esta mujer. Una maravilla.
De un tiempo a esta parte Angela Carter se encuentra entre mis autoras favoritas. Es quien mejor plasma el descubrimiento de la sexualidad sin recurrir en sus textos a escenas remotamente obscenas u ordinarias.
Ese es el caso de "La juguetería mágica" que comienza con un primer capítulo cargado de inocente erotismo y de ingenuidad. La joven protagonista descubre por primera vez su nuevo cuerpo, lo explora confirmando cada cambio que éste está sufriendo, se entusiasma con cada nueva forma de su propio ser y se siente mágica.
Las palabras de la Carrter están cargadas de evocadora sensualidad independientemente de la escena que se esté describiendo en cada momento, es como comer las primeras fresas de la temporada y sentir cómo el jugo cae por la barbilla y se desliza por el cuello hasta la camisa, donde dejará una mancha roja difícil de quitar. Pero a este breve aunque intenso momento de gozo le sigue la oscuridad: la repentina muerte de los padres cambia la vida de Melanie de una forma drástica y cruel. En apenas unas horas la joven tendrá que asumir que todo aquello que ella pensaba que estaba garantizado era un espejismo, que la vida es muy frágil: de la noche a la mañana tiene que asumir la responsabilidad de cuidar de sus hermanos, asumir que es huérfana y que el mundo es cruel con los huérfanos, abandonar su casa en la campiña inglesa para irse a vivir con el hermano de su madre, quien vive en una casa miserable en el sur de Londres y fabrica con sus propias manos juguetes que a ella le dan pavor... pero allí conocerá a su sufrida aunque entrañable tía y a los hermanos de ésta, tres irlandeses con el pelo rojo como el fuego que serán la única luz en su nuevo mundo de oscuridad.
"La juguetería mágica" es un relato tan luminoso como sobrecogedor, una aventura tan aterradora como fascinante. Y estos son adjetivos que suelo poner a todo lo que he leido, hasta ahora, de Angela Carter. Paladear cada palabra, cada frase, la construcción de cada párrafo son tambien cosas frecuentes que le suceden al lector cuando leen a esta mujer. Una maravilla.
October 28, 2023
4.5 stars
Definitely not light reading, despite the title. The Magic Toyshop is a novel of domestic horror about coming of age in an abusive home. There is some light magical realism and violence that is both actual and metaphorical.
The novel follows Melanie- a teen girl who is orphaned along with her siblings and becomes the ward of her estranged uncle who terrorizes his household as an iron-fisted patriarch. They move from a beautiful home with many nice things to a poor area of London in a shabby apartment above the toyshop the uncle owns. Also living there are his painfully thin wife who has been mute since their wedding day, and her two brothers. One of whom is at once repellant and strangely attractive to Melanie. The minute details of the narrative create an oppressive and creepy atmosphere, sometimes pierced by lighter moments. But really this is a novel about abuse and survival- the ways that people cope and try to find joy even while they are heavily under someone's control. And even if the ways they do that are sometimes questionable too. And how much poverty and abuse can curtail what seems possible for a child's future, narrowing their options and making them likely to stay in a similar circumstance. It's dark and comes with lots of content warnings, but it's also very effective and well-written.
Content warnings include physical, emotional and psychological abuse of children and adults, incest, more mild sexual abuse of a teenager (does not extend to actual sex)
Definitely not light reading, despite the title. The Magic Toyshop is a novel of domestic horror about coming of age in an abusive home. There is some light magical realism and violence that is both actual and metaphorical.
The novel follows Melanie- a teen girl who is orphaned along with her siblings and becomes the ward of her estranged uncle who terrorizes his household as an iron-fisted patriarch. They move from a beautiful home with many nice things to a poor area of London in a shabby apartment above the toyshop the uncle owns. Also living there are his painfully thin wife who has been mute since their wedding day, and her two brothers. One of whom is at once repellant and strangely attractive to Melanie. The minute details of the narrative create an oppressive and creepy atmosphere, sometimes pierced by lighter moments. But really this is a novel about abuse and survival- the ways that people cope and try to find joy even while they are heavily under someone's control. And even if the ways they do that are sometimes questionable too. And how much poverty and abuse can curtail what seems possible for a child's future, narrowing their options and making them likely to stay in a similar circumstance. It's dark and comes with lots of content warnings, but it's also very effective and well-written.
Content warnings include physical, emotional and psychological abuse of children and adults, incest, more mild sexual abuse of a teenager (does not extend to actual sex)
March 26, 2023
4/5 star
In this novel, Angela Carter portrays the dangers of fantasizing about marriage and the consequences of having them. She tips on ideas about being an adult and not being skeptical when the frightening reality hits. Like The Bloody Chamber, she criticizes the concept of binding females and how that can diminish them. Same as her short stories, the novel delivered lots of Carter’s philosophies. And it provided tons of metaphorical sentences in poetic techniques.
The Magic Toyshop combined self-awareness with marriage illusions from the perspective of a 15 years old “Melanie” who has delusional ideas and fantasies. She idealizes the concept of staying between living as a child and becoming a woman. While Melanie struggles with her ideology, she searches for her true individuality by preserving the relationships and losing herself among the surrounding men. Each character was unusual in their actions in this novel. They were unique in their approach to normality.
The book correspondingly reflects on our perception of the world and how our ideas influence our way of seeing the world.
Overall, I enjoyed it. And It stood out for its distinctive tones. I was so intrigued by the events and the route the tale had seized me. Even though it was slow-paced, I appreciated the slowness in contemplating getting more from everything.
In this novel, Angela Carter portrays the dangers of fantasizing about marriage and the consequences of having them. She tips on ideas about being an adult and not being skeptical when the frightening reality hits. Like The Bloody Chamber, she criticizes the concept of binding females and how that can diminish them. Same as her short stories, the novel delivered lots of Carter’s philosophies. And it provided tons of metaphorical sentences in poetic techniques.
The Magic Toyshop combined self-awareness with marriage illusions from the perspective of a 15 years old “Melanie” who has delusional ideas and fantasies. She idealizes the concept of staying between living as a child and becoming a woman. While Melanie struggles with her ideology, she searches for her true individuality by preserving the relationships and losing herself among the surrounding men. Each character was unusual in their actions in this novel. They were unique in their approach to normality.
The book correspondingly reflects on our perception of the world and how our ideas influence our way of seeing the world.
Overall, I enjoyed it. And It stood out for its distinctive tones. I was so intrigued by the events and the route the tale had seized me. Even though it was slow-paced, I appreciated the slowness in contemplating getting more from everything.
May 14, 2016
For some reason this book couldn't keep my attention very well and actually made me groggy. Apart from that this is foremost a story about a trio of siblings whose parents die and have to move in with an estranged uncle and his strange family. Nothing in this book is beautiful or happy. There's domestic violence and poverty and general uncleanliness. Not sure why this is titled The Magic Toyshop as nothing is magical and the toy shop is where much of the trouble happens. It had a weird abrupt ending that left me asking what the point of this novel was. Not sure if I'll be trying another of Carter's novels.
October 29, 2023
While this features the great writing and rich themes I've come to expect from Angela Carter, I found the plot to be underbaked. I think in general my conclusion for this author is that her work shines in short stories rather than novels
October 3, 2023
3.5 stars
This early Angela Carter definitely reads like a precursor to The Bloody Chamber, and particularly the title story, with its evocation of Bluebeard and a young heroine caught up in her own voluptuousness. Elsewhere, in its depiction of grim and greasy London, it prefigures Nights at the Circus
But it’s a more conventional novel (if highly gothic) and as such, not so successful than either of those.
Fifteen year old Melanie is having her summer of self discovery (mostly looking at herself naked in a mirror) when her parents suddenly die and she is sent to South London to work in her tyrannical uncle’s toyshop, alongside his mute wife and her two Irish brothers, one of whom is attractive to Melanie but very dirty (his grime, greasiness and decaying molars are dwelt on repeatedly). She goes for walks at the ruins of the National Exhibition, where a statue of Queen Victoria lies face-down in the dirt, and is eventually pulled in to help with her uncle’s puppet show… and that’s about all.
It was interesting to watch the development of Carter’s style, which is so linguistically rich in later works (after passing through a slightly hysterical period with The Passion of New Eve). There’s some good writing here, and a sense of energy, but Carter the prose wizard isn’t much here, barring in a few striking and strange descriptions like: “His voice was thick and coarse like a peasant salami.”
This early Angela Carter definitely reads like a precursor to The Bloody Chamber, and particularly the title story, with its evocation of Bluebeard and a young heroine caught up in her own voluptuousness. Elsewhere, in its depiction of grim and greasy London, it prefigures Nights at the Circus
But it’s a more conventional novel (if highly gothic) and as such, not so successful than either of those.
Fifteen year old Melanie is having her summer of self discovery (mostly looking at herself naked in a mirror) when her parents suddenly die and she is sent to South London to work in her tyrannical uncle’s toyshop, alongside his mute wife and her two Irish brothers, one of whom is attractive to Melanie but very dirty (his grime, greasiness and decaying molars are dwelt on repeatedly). She goes for walks at the ruins of the National Exhibition, where a statue of Queen Victoria lies face-down in the dirt, and is eventually pulled in to help with her uncle’s puppet show… and that’s about all.
It was interesting to watch the development of Carter’s style, which is so linguistically rich in later works (after passing through a slightly hysterical period with The Passion of New Eve). There’s some good writing here, and a sense of energy, but Carter the prose wizard isn’t much here, barring in a few striking and strange descriptions like: “His voice was thick and coarse like a peasant salami.”
September 28, 2019
I used to have this fallacy that I like Angela Carter only with my brain – I used to think that she was a writer whose works provided the perfect pretext for any enthusiastic English major student to talk about symbols, metaphors, intertextuality and all kinds of gender-stuff. I really liked both of her books I read so far (this one, which I first read during my university years as compulsory reading, and The Bloody Chamber, which I read a couple of years later, just because I wanted to read it), but I liked both of them only in and with my mind – I didn’t love them because I thought they were much too cold. Anyway, I re-read The Magic Toyshop, and I no longer have this fallacy – now I love Angela Carter with all my being.
I guess I mentioned a couple of times already that I love coming-of-age novels, and without the least bit of planning, I always happen to read a coming-of-age novel every two or three months, because I like (and need) to re-learn (or re-experience) what it’s like to grow up. And The Magic Toyshop can also be classified as a coming-of-age novel (of sorts), but it’s completely different from any other teenager-novel I know. The coming-of-age novels I know usually concentrate on the changes that happen to a young person’s mind when he’s growing up (even if these novels also deal with first dates and first kisses). But The Magic Toyshop is such an incredibly bodily novel that I find it breathtaking and scary even as a grown-up.
The novel’s protagonist is Melanie, who, during the 15th summer of her life, slowly realizes that she’s no longer a girl – she’s an almost-woman now. Melanie spends the last innocent-idyllic summer of her life with discovering herself and her body, and with day-dreaming about a perfect man – a phantom bridegroom who will step out of a fairy tale (or a glossy magazine) one day and to whom she will lose her virginity (or better to say: she won’t lose her virginity to him – she will give it to him, gently, in between fluffy-white pillows and cool sheets). Melanie’s daydreams and her games of make-believe are weightless, and they are without consequences, but everything changes when – because of the sudden death of her parents – Melanie and her younger siblings are forced to move to one of their late mother’s relatives, Uncle Philip. Philip is a toy-maker, and he’s the owner of the titular magic toyshop. However, he isn’t your typical benevolent, jovial uncle – instead, he’s a ruthless tyrant who terrorizes his family in every imaginable way. And his toyshop isn’t your typical Disneyland-like, merrily-magical place – instead, it’s a place where magic is dark and destructive; where the toys are so lifelike and perfect that it’s just too uncanny; and where human beings are forced to act as if they were lifeless toys.
And it is here, in Uncle Philip’s magic toyshop that Melanie – who grew up as a spoiled child, and whose days so far have been filled with the dreams and concerns of a child – starts to learn about the nature of the „real” reality – she’s forced to learn about this. Partly because Philip doesn’t let her stay in her childhood world any longer, and he uses Melanie to act out his dark and violent fantasies on/with her (not literally, but metaphorically – but in his world, metaphors and symbolic deeds carry way more weight and meaning than any real act). And partly because Melanie gets to know Philip’s family: being accepted into the family circle of Philip’s wife, Margaret, and Margaret’s younger brothers, she observes and experiences such intense, passionate, undisguised, both enticing and repulsive feelings and relations that all her childish ideas about life, emotions and – most importantly – about physical attractions and repulsions are shattered for good.
In just a couple of months, Melanie learns that sexuality isn’t always like the way she imagined – it’s not necessarily pure-beautiful-nice. In the course of her coming-of-age, Melanie has to realize that it may easily happen that the other is filthy, or less-than-gentle, and she has to realize that the (possible) future/consequence of having to raise a herd of unruly kids in a dingy, murky flat, as the wife of a grumpy man is always already present – even when she and Margaret’s brother, Finn have kissed only once.
Finn, by the way, isn’t the oh-so-strong man of a romantic novel; he’s not a man who can make a woman swoon by simply looking at her. Oh no – Finn’s presence and his clumsy-yet-knowing advances aren’t so deeply unsettling and uncomfortable for Melanie because he’s – say – frighteningly masculine – but simply because he’s real, and he’s unlike any phantom bridegroom out of a magazine Melanie used to dream about. (Actually, Finn repeatedly scorns Melanie for speaking as if she were quoting from a women’s magazine, for instance, when Melanie tells him something like this: „I’d love to be in love with you, but I don’t know how to do it.”)
I have to add, though, that there’s hardly any actual physical intercourse in the novel, but every single detail (the objects, the settings, the food, the toys) carries a whole lot of erotic potential – to the extent that it’s unsettling even for an adult, let alone for a 15 year-old girl, who’s a virgin. (I don’t know if all of Angela Carter’s novels are this physical-sensual. All I know is that The Bloody Chamber is also like this.)
But despite all its darkness, this is an extremely vivid, exuberant, vibrant novel. And above all: it’s beautiful. And now I don’t see it as the work of a cold-headed genius – but simply as the work of a genius.
I guess I mentioned a couple of times already that I love coming-of-age novels, and without the least bit of planning, I always happen to read a coming-of-age novel every two or three months, because I like (and need) to re-learn (or re-experience) what it’s like to grow up. And The Magic Toyshop can also be classified as a coming-of-age novel (of sorts), but it’s completely different from any other teenager-novel I know. The coming-of-age novels I know usually concentrate on the changes that happen to a young person’s mind when he’s growing up (even if these novels also deal with first dates and first kisses). But The Magic Toyshop is such an incredibly bodily novel that I find it breathtaking and scary even as a grown-up.
The novel’s protagonist is Melanie, who, during the 15th summer of her life, slowly realizes that she’s no longer a girl – she’s an almost-woman now. Melanie spends the last innocent-idyllic summer of her life with discovering herself and her body, and with day-dreaming about a perfect man – a phantom bridegroom who will step out of a fairy tale (or a glossy magazine) one day and to whom she will lose her virginity (or better to say: she won’t lose her virginity to him – she will give it to him, gently, in between fluffy-white pillows and cool sheets). Melanie’s daydreams and her games of make-believe are weightless, and they are without consequences, but everything changes when – because of the sudden death of her parents – Melanie and her younger siblings are forced to move to one of their late mother’s relatives, Uncle Philip. Philip is a toy-maker, and he’s the owner of the titular magic toyshop. However, he isn’t your typical benevolent, jovial uncle – instead, he’s a ruthless tyrant who terrorizes his family in every imaginable way. And his toyshop isn’t your typical Disneyland-like, merrily-magical place – instead, it’s a place where magic is dark and destructive; where the toys are so lifelike and perfect that it’s just too uncanny; and where human beings are forced to act as if they were lifeless toys.
And it is here, in Uncle Philip’s magic toyshop that Melanie – who grew up as a spoiled child, and whose days so far have been filled with the dreams and concerns of a child – starts to learn about the nature of the „real” reality – she’s forced to learn about this. Partly because Philip doesn’t let her stay in her childhood world any longer, and he uses Melanie to act out his dark and violent fantasies on/with her (not literally, but metaphorically – but in his world, metaphors and symbolic deeds carry way more weight and meaning than any real act). And partly because Melanie gets to know Philip’s family: being accepted into the family circle of Philip’s wife, Margaret, and Margaret’s younger brothers, she observes and experiences such intense, passionate, undisguised, both enticing and repulsive feelings and relations that all her childish ideas about life, emotions and – most importantly – about physical attractions and repulsions are shattered for good.
In just a couple of months, Melanie learns that sexuality isn’t always like the way she imagined – it’s not necessarily pure-beautiful-nice. In the course of her coming-of-age, Melanie has to realize that it may easily happen that the other is filthy, or less-than-gentle, and she has to realize that the (possible) future/consequence of having to raise a herd of unruly kids in a dingy, murky flat, as the wife of a grumpy man is always already present – even when she and Margaret’s brother, Finn have kissed only once.
Finn, by the way, isn’t the oh-so-strong man of a romantic novel; he’s not a man who can make a woman swoon by simply looking at her. Oh no – Finn’s presence and his clumsy-yet-knowing advances aren’t so deeply unsettling and uncomfortable for Melanie because he’s – say – frighteningly masculine – but simply because he’s real, and he’s unlike any phantom bridegroom out of a magazine Melanie used to dream about. (Actually, Finn repeatedly scorns Melanie for speaking as if she were quoting from a women’s magazine, for instance, when Melanie tells him something like this: „I’d love to be in love with you, but I don’t know how to do it.”)
I have to add, though, that there’s hardly any actual physical intercourse in the novel, but every single detail (the objects, the settings, the food, the toys) carries a whole lot of erotic potential – to the extent that it’s unsettling even for an adult, let alone for a 15 year-old girl, who’s a virgin. (I don’t know if all of Angela Carter’s novels are this physical-sensual. All I know is that The Bloody Chamber is also like this.)
But despite all its darkness, this is an extremely vivid, exuberant, vibrant novel. And above all: it’s beautiful. And now I don’t see it as the work of a cold-headed genius – but simply as the work of a genius.
March 9, 2023
— 𝐁𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰 —
𝐓𝐢𝐭𝐥𝐞: The Magic Toyshop
𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬: N/A
𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫(𝐬): Angela Carter
𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞: Fantasy
𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐏𝐮𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐡𝐞𝐝: 1st August 1996
𝐑𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠: 4/5
”She was too young, too soft and new, to come to terms with these wild beings whose minds veered at crazy angles from the short, straight, smooth lines of her own experience.”
The Magic Toyshop by Angela Carter is a poignant, enthrallingly dark piece consisting of adjective and metaphorical heaven.
The narrative is beautiful. Which makes the story all the more shocking. The storyline follows a curiously gross structure where three young children suddenly become orphaned and have to go and live with their previously estranged Uncle, mute Auntie, and dirty cousins. Melanie is our protagonist; and we see her maudlin story and setting through her naive, fifteen year old eyes, it is strangely becoming, and although the general story had an unpleasant undertone, I would wholeheartedly read it again.
The magical realism was powerful and frightening. The toys are given a creepy life force of their own and flung themselves sporadically throughout the narrative. The temperature of the fable plummeted around the half way mark, ironically at the point when Melanie falls in love with her adoptive family. What was a warm, tepid, languidly written account of her unfamiliar new life, became a fiery, freezing force full of spitting anger and misplaced love. The relationship between Finn and Melanie was as disturbing as it was touching.
A painstakingly attentive approach was taken on even the most minor of details. Everything about this book was designed meticulously to draw in the reader, then to stall, and to shock them. The title 'The Magic Toyshop' is nostalgically endearing, the newly instated guardian being a 'toy maker' signifies sentiment and twinkle-in-the-eye jolliness, even the name of the toymaker; Philip Flower, contains a harmless charm. All of these small characteristics lulled me into a false sense of security as I was forced to witness cruel rage after cruel rage; savage beatings and disgustingly crude language directed at small children. Even the symbolic swan, which would conventionally signify pure, innocuous grace, is twisted into a smothering vengeful machine. I was entranced by the tense prose, the continuous battle between emotion and reason, and the guileless introspection from Melanie. I loved this book in a morbidly curious, staring into a burning fireplace whilst wearing a dark satin robe and drinking blood red wine kind of way.
𝑲𝒂𝒚𝒍𝒆𝒊𝒈𝒉 @ 𝑾𝒆𝒍𝒔𝒉 𝑩𝒐𝒐𝒌 𝑭𝒂𝒊𝒓𝒚
🧚♀️🤍
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𝐓𝐢𝐭𝐥𝐞: The Magic Toyshop
𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬: N/A
𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫(𝐬): Angela Carter
𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞: Fantasy
𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐏𝐮𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐡𝐞𝐝: 1st August 1996
𝐑𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠: 4/5
”She was too young, too soft and new, to come to terms with these wild beings whose minds veered at crazy angles from the short, straight, smooth lines of her own experience.”
The Magic Toyshop by Angela Carter is a poignant, enthrallingly dark piece consisting of adjective and metaphorical heaven.
The narrative is beautiful. Which makes the story all the more shocking. The storyline follows a curiously gross structure where three young children suddenly become orphaned and have to go and live with their previously estranged Uncle, mute Auntie, and dirty cousins. Melanie is our protagonist; and we see her maudlin story and setting through her naive, fifteen year old eyes, it is strangely becoming, and although the general story had an unpleasant undertone, I would wholeheartedly read it again.
The magical realism was powerful and frightening. The toys are given a creepy life force of their own and flung themselves sporadically throughout the narrative. The temperature of the fable plummeted around the half way mark, ironically at the point when Melanie falls in love with her adoptive family. What was a warm, tepid, languidly written account of her unfamiliar new life, became a fiery, freezing force full of spitting anger and misplaced love. The relationship between Finn and Melanie was as disturbing as it was touching.
A painstakingly attentive approach was taken on even the most minor of details. Everything about this book was designed meticulously to draw in the reader, then to stall, and to shock them. The title 'The Magic Toyshop' is nostalgically endearing, the newly instated guardian being a 'toy maker' signifies sentiment and twinkle-in-the-eye jolliness, even the name of the toymaker; Philip Flower, contains a harmless charm. All of these small characteristics lulled me into a false sense of security as I was forced to witness cruel rage after cruel rage; savage beatings and disgustingly crude language directed at small children. Even the symbolic swan, which would conventionally signify pure, innocuous grace, is twisted into a smothering vengeful machine. I was entranced by the tense prose, the continuous battle between emotion and reason, and the guileless introspection from Melanie. I loved this book in a morbidly curious, staring into a burning fireplace whilst wearing a dark satin robe and drinking blood red wine kind of way.
𝑲𝒂𝒚𝒍𝒆𝒊𝒈𝒉 @ 𝑾𝒆𝒍𝒔𝒉 𝑩𝒐𝒐𝒌 𝑭𝒂𝒊𝒓𝒚
🧚♀️🤍
♡ bookstagram • twitter • blog ♡
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