
Black Venus
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Narrated by:
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Clare Corbett
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Toby Longworth
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By:
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Angela Carter
About this listen
Extraordinary and diverse people inhabit this rich, ripe, occasionally raucous collection of short stories. Some are based on real people - Jeanne Duval, Baudelaire's handsome and reluctant muse who never asked to be called the Black Venus, trapped in the terminal ennui of the poet's passion, snatching at a little lifesaving respectability against all odds....
Edgar Allen Poe, with his face of an actor, demonstrating in every thought and deed how right his friends were when they said, 'No man is safe who drinks before breakfast'. And some of these people are totally imaginary. Such as the 17th century whore, transported to Virginia for thieving, who turns into a good woman in spite of herself among the Indians, who have nothing worth stealing. And a girl, suckled by wolves, strange and indifferent as nature, who will not tolerate returning to humanity.
Angela Carter wonderfully mingles history, fiction, invention, literary criticism, high drama and low comedy in a glorious collection of stories as full of contradictions and surprises as life itself.
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'I started to write short pieces when I was living in a room too small to write a novel in.' So says Angela Carter of this collection, written during a period living in Toyko. These exotic, sensuous stories represent Carter's first major achievement in the short story form. Lush imaginary forests, a murderous puppet show and an expressionistic vision of Japan: each one instantly conjures an atmosphere, dark and luminous in turn, and from the recognisably daring imagination of one of the great 20th-century stylists.
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Brilliant short story collection, but they are not titles in the chapter list
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'The scar drew her whole face sideways, and even in profile, with the hideous thing turned away, her face was horribly lopsided, skin, features and all, dragged away from the bone. She was a beautiful girl, a white and golden girl, like moonlight on daisies, a month ago.' And yet the men still hover around her, more out of curiosity than lust, and none more so than the wildly seductive, dangerous funny man Honeybuzzard; lithe as a stick of liquorice, he is the demonic puppet master at the swirling centre of the tale.
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I know nothing. I am a tabula rasa, a blank sheet of paper, an unhatched egg. I have not yet become a woman, although I possess a woman's shape. Not a woman, no: both more and less than a real woman. Now I am a being as mythic and monstrous as Mother herself.... New York has become the City of Dreadful Night where dissolute Leilah performs a dance of chaos for Evelyn.
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Excellent
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Shaking a Leg
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Performance
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Nights at the Circus
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acid trip
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Brilliant
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Fireworks
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Overall
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Performance
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'I started to write short pieces when I was living in a room too small to write a novel in.' So says Angela Carter of this collection, written during a period living in Toyko. These exotic, sensuous stories represent Carter's first major achievement in the short story form. Lush imaginary forests, a murderous puppet show and an expressionistic vision of Japan: each one instantly conjures an atmosphere, dark and luminous in turn, and from the recognisably daring imagination of one of the great 20th-century stylists.
-
-
Brilliant short story collection, but they are not titles in the chapter list
- By cristobal on 05-16-24
By: Angela Carter
-
Shadow Dance
- By: Angela Carter
- Narrated by: Kris Dyer
- Length: 6 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
'The scar drew her whole face sideways, and even in profile, with the hideous thing turned away, her face was horribly lopsided, skin, features and all, dragged away from the bone. She was a beautiful girl, a white and golden girl, like moonlight on daisies, a month ago.' And yet the men still hover around her, more out of curiosity than lust, and none more so than the wildly seductive, dangerous funny man Honeybuzzard; lithe as a stick of liquorice, he is the demonic puppet master at the swirling centre of the tale.
By: Angela Carter
-
The Passion of New Eve
- By: Angela Carter
- Narrated by: Piers Hampton
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
I know nothing. I am a tabula rasa, a blank sheet of paper, an unhatched egg. I have not yet become a woman, although I possess a woman's shape. Not a woman, no: both more and less than a real woman. Now I am a being as mythic and monstrous as Mother herself.... New York has become the City of Dreadful Night where dissolute Leilah performs a dance of chaos for Evelyn.
-
-
Excellent
- By Robin H. on 01-29-20
By: Angela Carter
-
Shaking a Leg
- By: Angela Carter
- Narrated by: Antonia Beamish
- Length: 34 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Listening to Shaking a Leg is like spending time with the funniest, wisest friend you've ever had - a person whose breadth of interest ranges from food to feminism to science fiction and everything in between. Bursting with ideas, culturally astute and sparklingly witty, this comprehensive volume of Angela Carter's journalism is the most down-to-earth and entertaining companion to latter 20th-century thought you'll ever need.
By: Angela Carter
-
Nights at the Circus
- By: Angela Carter
- Narrated by: Adjoa Andoh
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This Audible Exclusive recording of Angela Carter's iconic novel, Nights at the Circus, is brought to you by celebrated actress and voice artist, Adjoa Andoh. It is described by Carter herself as a 'psychedelic Dickens.' A compelling and thought provoking novel which heralds a new age, we're introduced to the unique and mesmerizing character of Sophi Fevvers and her illustrious wings....
-
-
acid trip
- By Adrienne Lewis on 04-19-21
By: Angela Carter
-
Wise Children
- By: Angela Carter
- Narrated by: Tracey Ullman
- Length: 9 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Angela Carter's last book, Wise Children, was written and published whilst she was dying from cancer, in 1991. Transcending her physical deterioration in admirable fashion, Carter made this a most life-affirming novel, in support of the vitality of 'otherness.' This Audible exclusive production, expertly read by Tracey Ullman, stands in celebration of a legendary author known for the richness of her imagination, wit and feminist insight.
-
-
Brilliant
- By Anonymous User on 10-15-20
By: Angela Carter
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Beautiful and ever relevant
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Pandora's Jar
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The tellers of Greek myths—historically men—have routinely sidelined the female characters. When they do take a larger role, women are often portrayed as monstrous, vengeful or just plain evil—like Pandora, the woman of eternal scorn and damnation whose curiosity is tasked with causing all the world’s suffering and wickedness when she opened that forbidden box. But, as Natalie Haynes reveals, in ancient Greek myths there was no box. It was a jar . . . which is far more likely to tip over.
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The Golden Age Continues
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Elric of Melniboné
- Volume 1: Elric of Melnibone, The Fortress of the Pearl, The Sailor on the Seas of Fate, and The Weird of the White Wolf
- By: Michael Moorcock, Neil Gaiman - Foreword
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- Length: 24 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
It is one of the most well-known and well-loved fantasy epics of the twentieth century: the story of Elric, emperor of the dying kingdom of Melniboné. For a hundred centuries the Melnibonéans have ruled from the Dragon Isle of Imrryr. Now, after years of corruption and decadence, Elric’s amoral cousin Prince Yyrkoon, the brother of his beloved Cymoril, sets his eyes on the Ruby Throne. Elric must face his treacherous cousin not as a warrior but as a sorcerer king once again in league with the ancient gods of Melniboné, the Chaos Lords, and thus sealing his inexorable fate.
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Skip the first chapter, it's not Moorcock.
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By: Michael Moorcock, and others
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Daughter of Fortune
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Orphaned at birth, Eliza Sommers is raised in the British colony of Valparaíso, Chile, by the well-intentioned Victorian spinster Miss Rose and her more rigid brother Jeremy. Just as she meets and falls in love with the wildly inappropriate Joaquín Andieta, a lowly clerk who works for Jeremy, gold is discovered in the hills of northern California. By 1849, Chileans of every stripe have fallen prey to feverish dreams of wealth. Joaquín takes off for San Francisco to seek his fortune, and Eliza, pregnant with his child, decides to follow him.
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An adventure to the California Gold Fields of 1849
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By: Isabel Allende
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Our Wives Under the Sea
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Leah is changed. Months earlier, she left for a routine expedition, only this time her submarine sank to the sea floor. When she finally surfaces and returns home, her wife Miri knows that something is wrong. Barely eating and lost in her thoughts, Leah rotates between rooms in their apartment, running the taps morning and night. As Miri searches for answers, desperate to understand what happened below the water, she must face the possibility that the woman she loves is slipping from her grasp.
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Has stayed with me…
- By Maryanne T. on 10-05-22
By: Julia Armfield
What listeners say about Black Venus
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
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- cristobal
- 05-16-24
Brilliant book, BUT they don’t name the short stories in the chapter list
I love Angela Carter’s short stories. I cannot tell you the level of thrilled I was when they became available on Audible. The stories are great, the performances are excellent. That said, this is a book of short stories, each story a chapter. Do they show the chapter titles? No, no they don’t. Which is just ridiculous. Her short story books are not meant to be read straight through. It is so irritating that it takes this wonderful book and brings the rating down. It’s like having a cookbook without listing the names of the recipes. A couple of her short story collections here on Audible are like this. The Bloody Chamber is not.
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