Angela Carter: The Bloody Chamber

 It strikes me as a little odd that I don't have a lot to say about this groundbreaking and important work.  In fact, that's largely what I have to say about it: that it was important and groundbreaking.  If I didn't know better, however, I would assume that it was one of the author's early works.  It is vivid, engrossing, and wildly passionate.  Her strengths are on full display: creating a mood, scene, and images that work together to create the equivalent of a painting on the page.  Nonetheless, the additional elements that one might expect of a mature writer are somewhat lacking: clarity, flow, thematic development, cohesion . . . the impression is very much that of a gifted young writer with a great deal of promise, but room for growth.  One wonders if she ever took the themes that she obsessed over in this mid-career work any further, and lived up to its potential.  I'm very certain that it is worth reading her later works to find out.