The Bloody Chamber

At the weekend, I picked up The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter. Its previous owner had given up halfway—it was a clear trudge. I know this because their endpoint was signalled by a dog-eared page (how uncouth!), and the extent of creased corners preceding their abandonment bears witness to how slowly they moved through it. I also know this because that owner was me, roughly twenty years ago. I studied this relic of the past with disbelief. Who was this person I used to be? Besides the shedding of a grubby second-hand jacket, I would never, now, vandalise a book nor, to my detriment, would I desert one partway. I have struggled for nine months, wading through words I care not for, for no rational reason.

In discovering this historical testimony, so much came flooding back. The Bloody Chamber was scent and song, hurling me into old shoes. Younger Me was arguably saner, and certainly more nonchalant. She would never waste her time on anything, or—I remember now—anyone she didn’t like. She had purposely, actively shed her innate neatness, her need for perfection. I even recall the day she defied herself—it was survival instinct: those traits didn’t serve her. She was strong. I wondered: was she, maybe, a better version of me?

I reread the title story (it is a book of shorts), and that’s when the romanticising of Younger Me abruptly ceased. For, please. For the love of all that is holy, how on earth was she so wholly blind to the beauty in which Carter carves a sentence? Fair enough to not enjoy it—though I do—but to not, at the very least, see its merit? That’s disappointing. Embarrassing, even. The child must have struggled to digest anything too literary. An unrefined palate and an underdeveloped mind. Zero appreciation for the craft. A tacky tart in hotpants. “That was the fashion then”. Whatever. Go read Twilight and shut up.

So, you see, I’ve come full circle. Carter showed me my pitfalls and my progress. A sum of my parts to ponder. And, true to form, and as it has always been, I pummelled my personality to the ground and chinked my own glass in equal measure. As you were, Zoe.