Literary reviews by Tim Love.
Warning: Rather than reviews, these are often notes in preparation for reviews that were never finished, or pleas for help with understanding pieces. See Litref Reviews - a rationale for details.

Friday, 8 October 2004

"Love" by Angela Carter (Vintage, 1997)

The novel was written in 1969. The 8 page Afterword suggests what might have happened subsequently to the characters. She looked back on the work as a "feat of male impersonation". There were flashes of the Carter I'm more used to, but for the most part it's a realistic treatment of people with behaviour/mental problems. The first 30 pages proceed without a break. I noted only 2 intrusions - on p.62 there's a paragraph about Lazzaro Spallanzani's experiments with copulating toads, and on p.96 there's a sentence about Haitian female demons. I feel there should have been more intrusions or none at all - it makes the author seem lacking in ideas.

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