Synopses & Reviews
Wise Children follows the fortunes of the Chance twins, Dora and Nora, taking in the story of their show business family -- the Hazards -- over the past century. Born illegitimately, spurned by their father Melchior and brought up by their landlady, Mrs Chance, Dora and Nora learn to dance, and begin to forge a career, “two girls pounding the boards”. After the post-war decline of their careers they are reduced to performing in nude revues, while the latest generation of Hazards rise to fame as stars of television. Angela Carter's witty and bawdy new novel celebrates the magic of over a century of show business.
Review
"One of the century's best writers." Sunday Times (UK)
About the Author
Angela Carter was born in 1940. She read English at Bristol University, and was Creative Writing Fellow at Sheffield University from 1976-78. She also lived and worded in Japan, the United States and Australia.
Carter’s first novel was Shadowdance, published in 1965. Many of her books have won awards including The Magic Toyshop (1967, John Llewellyn Rhys Prize), Several Perceptions (1968 Somerset Maugham Prize), and Nights at the Circus (James Tait Memorial Prize). She also wrote theree volumes of short stories (now collected as Burning Your Boats), scripts for Radio, and The Sadeian Woman: An Exercise in Cultural History.
Angela Carter died in 1992.
Reading Group Guide
Wise Children follows the fortunes of the Chance twins, Dora and Nora, taking in the story of their show business family -- the Hazards -- over the past century. Born illegitimately, spurned by their father Melchior and brought up by their landlady, Mrs Chance, Dora and Nora learn to dance, and begin to forge a career, “two girls pounding the boards”. After the post-war decline of their careers they are reduced to performing in nude revues, while the latest generation of Hazards rise to fame as stars of television. Angela Carter's witty and bawdy new novel celebrates the magic of over a century of show business.
1. Dora, as the novel's narrator, has a very distinctive world-view. Is it possible to say that Angela Carter agrees with her principal characters? How far can the opinions of an author be inferred from his or her fictional work?
2. The style of the novel's narration might be called 'colloquial', in that it imitates the everyday speech of Dora. How possible is it to represent natural speech on the page? How successful is the author in this respect?
3. Elsewhere in Angela Carter's work, folk and fairy tales are reworked to bring out their darker, sexual undercurrents. In this novel, too, we see this theme, with the filming of A Midsummer Night's Dream in Hollywood. What is it about the fairy story that enables such a revelation of sexuality?
4. How well do you think Angela Carter achieves a balance in her fiction between creative imagination and rational intelligence?
5. To what extent is Dora's retelling of her life merely another colourful performance? Do we form a picture of the real Dora or just the Dora she wants us to see?
6. Much of the action of the novel takes place in Hollywood. What effect does the language of the cinema and video have on the narration? And how has the medium of film in general influenced twentieth-century fiction?