The Times described Heroes and Villains as 'an unashamed fantasist, a fabulist of daemonic energy' – and it really is. This is an incredibly loaded book, and every time I’ve tried to review this I’ve ended up word-vomiting a bad fragment of one or one hundred failed essays that could be written about it. This time will be no different (but I’ve hit the ‘fuck it, let’s just get it done’ try). I think the difficulty is down to the fact that rereading the novella I was more aware of what was trying to be achieved here, and I possibly ended up thinking TOO much about it (to the tune of 9 sides worth of unreadable notes) rather than feeling as much this time around. Regardless of all that, this is weird Angela Carter all over: worlds, characters and experiences that are rendered in narrative brutal, dreamy, a door hard to open for some of the prose written as much as it’s an open field of beautiful synesthetic imagery in other places. ‘Sometimes I dream I am an invention […] On the nights I have these dreams, I have been known to wake the entire camp with my screams.’To me Heroes and Villains is a loose companion piece to The Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman and The Passion of the New Eve because of the renegade Doctor Frankenstein figures in each novel who all create a kind of invention that they envisage will bring the world to rights as they see fit. Carter underpins each work with overt symbolism and ideology that is questioned by the protagonists, subtly de-clothed in narrative and also critiqued in how connotations of traditional symbols/thought beliefs are sometimes misguidedly reinforced by the Doctors in their attempts to subvert the order. In Heroes and Villains where there is the possibility in a post-apocalyptic world to start afresh without names, rituals or beliefs of old, it just seems impossible. The people are still so informed by signs and symbols of a destroyed civilisation to escape the ‘crumbling anachronisms’ which still endure (whether understood as they are by Marianne, or not in the case of some Barbarian members) and are carried on. The world presented in this particular novella relies on dichotomies: the Professors cannot live without the Barbarians ‘the other’, needing these tribe to define themselves as upholders of reason and progress; an argument between Donally and Jewel regarding Marianne only serves to reinforce the matriarchal myth of Eve or her foil, the demonic Lilith. I read this great essay (‘Deconstructing the Womb’) which from what I remember said that Carter is wary of using myths to celebrate one’s identity or an experience – she sees it as a potential trap. For example, Marianne as ‘Eve at the end of the world’: using matriarchal myths to elevate the status of womanhood – it doesn’t subvert far more than what it serves to reinforce the view of women as vehicles for future descendants. She uses Marianne’s character, a History Professor’s daughter who “broke things to see what they were like inside” to expose the cracked veneer of the academic world she comes from which assesses and studies the environment around (to the point of madness), as well as mocking the sham superstitious beliefs of the Barbarian tribe when she becomes involved with them. Nevertheless there’s the overwhelming sense of fatality felt by Marianne who is seen by the makeshift-shaman Donally as the tribe’s ‘little holy image’ alongside his protégé Jewel (who is more than compelling whilst he struggles in his role as a social experiment). It’s hard to tell if Marianne jokes about becoming the Tiger Lady of the tribe, because surely she would see it’s kind of the same tyranny Donally imposed: the status quo will essentially remain the same, all there is changed is the face and flavour.If Marianne is made to feel like Miranda, Donally as Prospero, his son taking the surface role of Caliban (but a good fool underneath), then Jewel is a ‘furious invention’ indeed. Too educated for the tribe, yet educated in the wrong way to ever cross worlds like Marianne and Donally to live amongst the professors. He is the only one to survive Donally’s manipulations and teachings, the previous girl and boy died in the progress of being tattooed with stripes. It is because of this that Donally sees Jewel as a son, more of a son than “the half-wit” he has biologically; Jewel is a masterpiece of an invention which he brands and continues to define, limit (for one he refuses to teach Jewel how to read) and destroy in fear of a rebellion, and in turn, as an usurper son, Jewel tries his luck at destroying Donally too. There’s a part early on in the novella where Marianne asks Jewel if barbarians die of madness, because there is a number of cases where madness has led to suicide and homicide in the towns of the Professors. Jewel answers with a list of physical diseases that the Barbarians die of instead. In some ways that hit me most this time, because I remember in my house that my parents and those around in the neighbourhood at that time didn’t recognise depression as an illness, they just saw it as a middle-class triviality – I guess they saw it as when you’re busy surviving, there’s no time for luxuries like living, I don’t know (because there was a lot of madness there as well). Anyway, the first time you read a book you forget these little lines, but reading the ending with the above conversation in mind, it made it very poignant and depressing. Here’s this boy: ‘everywhere I go I’m doomed to be nothing but an exhibit’ who can’t really find a place in either world, so he falls back on what Donally has made of him whilst fighting Marianne in how she ‘converts him’ by looking at him. There is a lot more you could say regarding orientalism in terms of Barbaric tribe/Jewel, and nothing that Carter romanticises stupidly either in my opinion. Any ‘exotic’ description is immediately pulled down by Jewel or made so overt it becomes a parody. I’d like to see some essays written on that actually. The ties between Donally, Jewel and Marianne become ludicrous at points: all detest the other to the point of wounding each other in some way (whether branding, rape and forced marriage, infidelity and the possible betrayal of tribe), but are magnetically attracted for one reason or a complete lack of reason. The relationships between all three is best described as such: ‘They arrived at the green road and stood looking at one another, in a sudden last uncertainty as to where their true allegiances lay, for the young man and his tutor had the strange attachment of years between them, the girl and her husband the bemused attraction a sense of fatality and the girl and the magician the bond of a common language. And the girl and the young man, also each suffered from the loss of a father.’Dialogue:The dialogue reigns supreme here in my opinion. I showed a bit of dialogue to a friend of mine who found it incredibly unrealistic and I’ve read this opinion a couple of times now “Carter just can’t do dialogue”, but I love it. Honestly. The prose in this book is already riddled with words that all seem to be there for reason and some level of meaning, nothing is left to chance, this is only reflected in the dialogue. Some of which I get, some of which I don’t, but like the sound of (because we’re all prone to fancy like that). One of my favourite exchanges:‘Who do you see when you see me?’ She asked him, burying her own face in his bosom.‘Do you want the truth?’She nodded‘The firing squad.’‘That’s not the whole truth. Try again.’‘Insatiability,’ he said with some bitterness.‘That’s oblique, but altogether too simple. Once more,’ she insisted. ‘One more time.’He was silent for several minutes.‘The map of a country in which I only exist by virtue of the extravagance of my metaphors.’‘Now you’re being too sophisticated. And besides, what metaphors do we have in common?’The closest I’ve ever got to this in real life is “I’ll decimate you” “Not before I devour you.” – I think if I asked someone the same question as above and they replied back with “the firing squad” I’d be compelled to do something ridiculous like marry them – this also goes for Oscar Wilde/Sarah Bernhardt “Mind if I smoke?” “I don’t care if you burn” exchange.Bonus Material: Donally’s Aphorisms-tBOREDOM IS THE HANDSOME SON OF PRIDE -tONENESS WITH DESTINY GIVES STYLE AND DISTINCTION -tMISTRUST APPEARANCES, THEY NEVER CONCEAL ANYTHING -tMEMORY IS DEATH -tOUR NEEDS BEAR NO RELATION TO OUR DESIRES -tTHE WORLD BECOMES A DREAM AND THE DREAM, A WORLD -tI THINK, THEREFORE I EXIST; BUT IF I TAKE TIME OFF FROM THINKING, WHAT THEN?
Carter's post apocalyptic fantasy is one of the novels listed in Pringle's '100 Greatest SF Novels' and has been well-received by critics, academics and readers since its first publication.Carter's own desire for this novel was to create a gothic novel, albeit set in the future.Structurally it is pretty standard fare. the Campbell model holds up well here. Marianne is a young girl, living in a post-nuclear disaster America in an enclave of academics. Outside the fence, tribes of feral humans lead nomadic lives, while Marianne's life is fairly comfortable, punctuated by occasional attempted raids by the tribes.One day, having been punished for some minor transgression by being locked out on a balcony of the enclave's tower, she witnesses a raid by outsiders and sees her brother killed by a wild boy around the same age as herself. At this point their eyes meet and the boy flees.Some time later a servant goes mad and murders her father, the professor, and when another raid is in progress, she hides one of the raiders and later escapes with him to live the nomadic life. One must invite comparisons with, for instance, 'Riddley Walker', Edgar Pangborn's 'Davey' and Stewart's 'Earth Abides'This novel concentrates on the relationship between Marianne and Jewel, her kidnapper-cum-rescuer, and their relationship with some archetypal figures within the tribal community.This, like 'Riddley Walker' is a dense and literary work, about which much has been written on the style, structure and the archetypal figures which the characters represent, but the novel at its heart is a complex love story. The central relationship begins and ends with death and has a fair degree of drama inbetween.From my point of view it seems that many of the characters exist in insular worlds, unwilling or unable to engage in listening to, or taking advice from, others.The 'mystic' figure in the tribe is isolated by personal choice, since he is the Spiritual leader of the tribe and can conjure 'magic' so a certain distance would be more or less expected.The overall effect is one of bleak poignancy. Other post-apocalyptic novels tend to give some kind of hope for the future but here there is a pervading sense of nihilism. The tribe move from deserted ruin to deserted ruin, littering the building with detritus and human waste, before destroying the building and moving on. Perhaps this, if anything, is the metaphor for humanity within the novel.
What do You think about Heroes And Villains (1991)?
Oh, this one really pushes some buttons. People expecting a proper post-apocalyptic adventure are disappointed. People are distressed with the problematic central "romance". Anyone expecting anything like the clear categories of the title are certainly going to be somewhat put out. But amid cynical reflections on the collapse of civilization -- the grim struggles of those who have cast it off, and the erosion of purpose in the hold-outs behind their walls -- what Angela Carter seems to be attempting is some kind of deep analysis of problematic relationships themselves. The tyrannies of need and desire. It's going to be frustrating because people make decisions with which they themselves can only be frustrated all the time. Though not to say that this isn't imperfect -- she hasn't here reached her later streamlined state of clarity of word and purpose, and the long slow tangle of emotions as the relationship runs its course leads to a little circularity. Though I'm not bothered by the sci-fi aspects at all. To my mind this is not adventure being bogged down, but an exploration of dismal relationship movements granted a strange and inventive metaphorical landscape to unfold in. Which is to say that the imperfections do nothing to diminish my general obsession with Carter right now.Oh, also, there are many covers of this, but the 80s penguin reprint I've got is gorgeous and gets it exactly right:
—Nate D
I think it's the way Angela Carter allows her characters to have flawed intellectual standpoints and conversations about their highly charged emotions in Heroes and Villains that makes it so good. It's that understanding of the chasm between what you feel and what you think that feeling means. The strangest things happen, and everyone puts a layer of their own thought over these events, but what is ritual to one person might well be trauma to another. Words, however carefully chosen, can't bridge this gap.
—Aliya Whiteley
This is another early effort from Angela Carter, and I have to say that it's not one of my favorites. It's post-apocalyptic and very weird. I found it hard to relate to ANY of the characters and all the perspectives just seemed to be missing something. The writing and thematic qualities are all there, but the characters themselves bog down the storytelling if that makes a lick of sense.Once again her descriptions of poverty and filth are somewhat gag inducing, but... realistic. I think that's what makes Carter the superb writer that she is, no matter how surreal or fantastical the story, it is always grounded in reality. Realism is the thread that holds all her work together... even when that work revolves around a burnt out, post-nuclear shell of a world.
—Nomad
