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1. "Angela Carter"
Posted by Harry on Mar-8th-02 at 7:09 PM

The site below has about 16 pages of Angela Carter's "The Fall River Axe Murders".  This was the first time I had seen this book. It's somewhat poetical in spots and in others comical. Worth a glance. Has any one read the whole book?

http://www.gened.arizona.edu/eslweb/Eng%20108%20Readings/aereading1.htm

I loved this part:

"The girls stayed at home in their rooms, napping on their beds or repairing ripped hems, or sewing loose buttons more securely, or writing letters, or contemplating acts of charity among the deserving poor, or staring vacantly into space.

I can't imagine what else they might do.

What the girls do when they are on their own is unimaginable to me."

You always find good stuff, Harry.  I am not familiar with this work or the author.  Is this the entire work that's on this link, or is it just a part?  If it is just a part, how does one go about getting the whole thing?  Taking a quick glance at it, it looks interesting.

What is on the site looks only partial. I tracked it on bookfinder.com and it appears a be a story in a book of stories titled "Black Venus". She must have been a very prolific writer as books under her name are several screens in length. There are lots of "Black Venus" books for sale ranging from $2.85 to $40.00. See:
http://www.bookfinder.com/search/?st=sl&ac=sl&qi=EX6Da0q2jQMOpS7NTwrrouwEX6D,.Arr:3:7


The book appears to be a mixture of fiction and non-fiction. It's only 120 pages or so in length and was published in the U.K.

Thanks, Harry.  I'll look into it. 

Augusta:
I may have sent you a xerox of her article last year(?)(Good Alice laments "Twice-cooked fish?"  Remember?)
Now if I can only find OUR copy...
Here it is:
It's reprinted in THE BLACK CABINET, Unlocked by Peter Lovesey...pgs. 38-56
Carroll & Graf, 1989.

--Checking Harry's link to what is in my book, there are major differences.  If you find that "copy" Augusta, you can compare.
Isn't this ODD?  Or is it "standard" to have a "reprint" be edited, or even re-written?  It hadn't occurred to me before...

(Message last edited Mar-9th-02  7:23 AM.)

This on-line effort leaves out 3 paragraphs before the one which starts "Five living creatures are asleep in a house on Second Street...."

It leaves out one of mine and Stef's favorite passages, as it is SO evocative:  (39)

..."If we have largely forgotten the physical discomforts of the itching, oppressive garmets of the past and the corrosive effects of perpetual physical discomfort on the nerves, then we have mercifully forgotten, too, the smells of the past, the domestic odors--ill-washed flesh; infrequently changed underwear; chamber-pots; slop-pails; inadequately plumbed privies; rotting food; unattended teeth; and the streets are no fresher than indoors, the omnipresent acridity of horse piss and dung, drains, sudden stench of old death from butchers' shops, the amniotic horror of the fishmonger."

The sights and smells of the time may not be noticable to people who lived w/o flush toilets, electricity, and used horses.

Come to think of it, I experienced this as a youth in the 1940s (but remember little about it, except pumps, privies, and kerosene lanterns. We did have a car for trips, but relatives still worked their farms with horses. No, I never shoveled out the dairy barn either. But you can smell it a 100 yards away with the right wind.

People nowadays make certain assumptions about people then. Maybe bloodstains would not be noticed on a butcher; one could walk around in his shop w/o notice. Decades ago you could seen men and boys walking out of town with their guns over their shoulders; not likely in today's world.

What about "gently reared ladies"?
Wasn't it their job to abhorr such conditions and thus spur on the men to INVENT flush toilets and good drainage, and sanitation in all things as civilized ?

Ladies and gents, I can tell you from my own collecting experience that there are definitely TWO versions of Carter's "Fall River."  One was printed in SAINTS AND SINNERS, and a revised version appears in a posthumous collection and other volumes.  Odd to say, there are reasons to read and treasure both.  She also wrote a story called "Lizzie's Tiger," about a small tyke's trip to the circus.  Guess who SHE turns out to be?  I wish Carter were still alive so we could ask her about her (re)writing. 

Flush toilets were invented in the 16th century. To work, they need a water supply (one reason for our current drought). You won't have one if all you have is a manual pump! Electricty to run a pump is another story.

Yes, I'm well past 60 years - the only personal fact I care to share, since it is relevant. I also had relatives 40 years ago who had a flush toilet in the basement. You can always date some houses by the little addition on the back for a built-in "bathroom".