Weirdo Writers #3: Angela Carter -- Garbo

Here we are at the third in a series of posts dedicated to a specific group of "weirdo" writers. The first two authors  -- Tanith Lee and Hugh Walpole--  featured in this series, on those who write in the genre known as The Weird, were dabblers in the category. 

But within much of her fiction, the late Angela Cartter delved into this particular form of carefully-crafted story. The British newspaper The  Telegraph, in a thoughtful piece in 2016, described Carter's work and even her writer's persona, as "weird and wonderful."  A scholarly article, in discussing what exactly is Lovecraftian weirdness versus what is considered The New Weird, cites Carter's work as a good example of the full spectrum of this ever-developing genre. 


As noted in both the earlier posts of this "Weirdo Writer" series, childhood trauma is often part of the biographies of authors who work within The Weird. Tanith Lee and Hugh Walpole were both bullied as children; Lee's torments  largely came about because her family moved often and Lee was always the "new girl" at school. Walpole's family lived overseas and he had no one to protect him when tough boys pushed him around at school. 

I don't know what Angela Carter's life was like at home or school, but I do know she was one of the city children evacuated during the Second World War, and she spent much of her childhood living with her mother's mother. Britain in the forties was a constant environment of potential foreign invasion, destruction from falling bombs, and food shortages. Adults were stressed and distracted, and school schedules were constantly adjusted. It was a worrisome time, with little or no sleep for many, in the cities or outside them.   

When speaking of Carter's work overall, critics often cite Carter's feminist outlook. Her female characters are strong, fierce, and hold their own, like the author herself. Carter's first marriage was an unhappy one and without money of her own, she was unable to leave. 

It was her writing which saved her. In 1969 Carter won a major British literary award for the novel Several Perceptions and she used the prize money to move out. And by "out," I mean way out. She spent the next two years living in Tokyo until her divorce was finalized in 1972.

Literary critics often focus on Carter's most  intense books, including the story collection The Bloody Chamber, with its themes of men, women, sexuality, and violence. The current crop of modern dark fairy tales (for example, Damsel by Elana K. Arnold) and neo-Gothic writing (Sarah Waters' The Little Stranger) owes a great deal to Angela Carter's body of work.

When not turning out intense fiction, Carter, the daughter of a journalist, wrote a great deal of nonfiction for magazines and newspapers, and the best of these pieces are collected in Shaking A Leg. Carter died early -- in her fifties -- and yet within her short lifespan she was remarkably prolific. When not writing stories and novels, she was adapting her work for radio, co-writing scripts for original radio programs, and working with stage and screen. Two of her books became movies, and Carter also worked on turning Virginia Woolf's novel Orlando into an opera libretto.

The Magic Toyshop:

The Company of Wolves:

When it comes to The Weird, Carter added to the genre as no other writer did. She wasn't like other people.  Please take a moment now to scroll back to the photo at the top of this post. Just look at Angela Carter's eyes. I think they look like the eyes of someone who literally sees what others do not. Or perhaps they are the eyes of someone who can believe what others cannot.

Perhaps Carter's most out-there, truly Weird story is "The Snow Pavilion." Ann and Jeff VanderMeer thought so, as they included the tale in their massive compendium. I so enjoyed seeing Carter get third billing from the top!

"The Snow Pavilion" starts out as a normal story about normal things. We've got a scalawag of a narrator being really honest about just what he's doing with his life and why. At the moment, he's been at the pub in town and on the way back to a country house, in a borrowed car, he's gotten stuck in a snowbank and has decided to walk till he gets to somewhere with a telephone. He's vexed that he could be cozy and warm, eating and drinking before the fireplace, in the company iof his obliging mistress. He's handsome and a poet, so a comfortable berth hasn't been hard to find. He's hoping, as he reaches the open gates of a substantial estate, that he won't be out in the snow long, as the cuffs of his trouser legs are getting wet. He think it likely that the wealthy homeowners have both a car and a chauffeur and since his mistress is wealthy and privileged -- well, noblesse oblige and all that. 

But of course, because we're talking about a prime example of The Weird here, the grand house is strangely empty. And you know, the title of the story is "The Snow Pavilion," a pavilion being a large empty space with a roof over it. Pavilions are usually something for summertime use, and in the winter, with snow on them, they can look graceful but also a bit dark and bleak. But this combination mansion-pavilion has bright inviting lights shining from each of its many window, and the front door is (of course) open. Our anti-hero steps inside and calls out a very British what-ho-I-say-anyone-about and then. . .


"The Snow Pavilion" is my favorite kind of weird tale, one which stirs up a special kind of "This can't be happening" feeling; this isn't the rgular one, the one in which the off-center happenings seem like dreams or hallucinations. This version of "This can't be happening" is one in which real life events slip into a realm so bizarre that the mind fogs up. Carter's voice blends the sense of things becoming less and less real with an enhancement:  the intense whiteness of a blizzard, which buries familiar landmarks and then all sense of where anyone or anything is.

I once had such a disconcerting feeling in real life. This was in 1988, in a snowy setting yet. I'd come home from work to find that my house was burning down, with six-foot flames shooting from the roof, As in Carter's story, the weather made it all extra strange. The house fire occurred in January in the Midwest, and I was observing the flaming disaster while standing with ankle-deep snow having skidded to the scene on the ice which covered the sidewalks and the roads. Fire and snow at the same time and no one around except me and as single firefighter wetting down the roof of my personal temporarily-empty pavilion. 

There wasn't a hint of anything wrong until I came within sight of my home. I'd been so astonished at turning the corner to see this that without noticing I'd opened the hand holding my key ring. All the keys were lost in a snow bank. Not that I needed the keys any more; the next day I entered my former home by climbing through a blackened cave opening which used to be my bedroom window. Bizarre. One might say weird.

Many of Angela Carter's stories, including "The Snow Pavilion," leave me with that exact feeling. If you've ever had an experience which was both bewildering and astonishing, strangely quiet and yet very intense, then as a reader you will resonate with the happenings within this gem of a story. Angela Carter really had a way with The Weird. 

Next week: Saki

Garbo

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