Puss-In-Boots

Puss-In-Boots
Angela Carter
Vintage Books

from the collection The Bloody Chamber

I'm afraid this is a rather lame post, considering the time it has been since my last (much longer!) review. I chose, for some reason, to get stuck into the biggest non-fiction book in the world -- an enormous 1200 page account of the Third Reich, and haven't yet emerged properly. I did have time to read a short story, though, and watch President Obama deliver a fantastic speech. The story I read was by Angela Carter, who is sort of famous, and is now sadly dead. It is, I think, now my favourite short story in all the world.

It is one of 10 stories in her collection, The Bloody Chamber -- that story being more a novelette than a short story. It is a collection that reimagines certain fairy tales and legends -- Beauty and the Beast, werewolf stories and vampire stories, as well as an extremely dark, Bluebeard retelling. Most of the stories are very dark, in fact. Puss-In-Boots is not, and is completely different in language and style. Puss, an accomplished raconteur and user of innuendo, narrates the tale of his master, who falls in love with a beautiful woman who is kept locked up at home by her greedy husband, in a blend of Anglo-Saxon coarseness and Latinate elaboration:

So all went right as ninepence and you never saw such boon companions as Puss and his master; until the man must needs fall in love.


"Head over heels, Puss."


I went about my ablutions, tonguing my arsehole with the impeccable hygienic integrity of cats, one leg stuck in the air like a ham bone; I choose to remain silent. Love? What has my rakish master, for whom I've jumped through the window of every brothel in the city, besides haunting the virginal back garden of the convent and god knows what other goatish errands, to do with the tender passion?

There are, of course, this story being narrated by a cat, moments of philosophy, too:

Performing, as ever after meals, my meditative toilette, I pondered, thus: one, he is in a fair way to ruining us both by neglecting his business; two, love is desire sustained by unfulfilment.

Despite the cynical tone, the story is very funny and quite heart-warming towards the end, too. It's one of those things you can't help but read out loud, enjoying the texture of Carter's strangely juxtaposed words on the lips. A Spanish accent is necessary, since "all cats have a Spanish tinge although Puss himself elegantly lubricates his virile, muscular, native Bergamasque with French, since that is the only language in which you can purr." Even if you only get the collection for this story, and aren't normally interested in retellings of fairy tales, it would be utterly worth it.

For more information:

Amazon UK
Amazon US

(For the Amazon UK link, I have linked to a special offer Vintage Books are doing, where you can buy this collection, and The Complete Grimm Fairy Tales, for £4.99)

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