Product Description

'This crazy world whirled around her, men and women dwarfed by toys and puppets, where even the birds are mechanical and the few human figures went masked...She was in the night once again, and the doll was herself.' Melanie walks in the midnight garden, wearing her mother's wedding dress; naked she climbs the apple tree in the black of the moon. Omens of disaster, swiftly following, transport Melanie from rural comfort to London, to the Magic Toyshop. To the red-haired, dancing Finn, the gentle Francie, dumb Aunt Margaret and Uncle Phillip. Francie plays curious night music, Finn kisses fifteen-year-old Melanie in the mysterious ruins of the pleasure gardens. Brooding over all is Uncle Philip: Uncle Philip, with blank eyes the colour of wet newspaper, making puppets the size of men, and clockwork roses. He loves his magic puppets, but hates the love of man for woman, boy for girl, brother for sister...In this, her second novel, (awarded the 1967 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize) Angela Carter's brilliant imagination and starting intensity of style explore and extend the nature and boundaries of love.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5908 in Books
• Published on: 1992-08-27
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 204 pages

Review
'The boldest of English women writers' Lorna Sage 'Her writing is pyrotechnic -- fuelled with ideas, packed with images and spangling the night with her starry language' Observer

About the Author
Angela Carter was born in 1940. One of Britain's most original and disturbing writers, she died in 1992.

Customer Reviews

Magical stumbling.
Angela Carter was a master of really weird magical realism. Her second book "The Magic Toyshop," is basically a forcible coming of age/first love story, wrapped in a fairy-tale ambience and exquisitely detailed writing, but it's hard not to be frustrated by the abrupt, bizarre finale.

Melanie and her two siblings are suddenly orphaned, and whisked away from the beautiful country house and idyllic life they've always known. Soon they're living in a slummy area of the city, with their brutish toymaker Uncle Philip, wraithlike mute Aunt Margaret, and her two brothers, in a house that is crammed with the magnificent toys that Uncle Philip creates.

Melanie finds herself increasingly drawn to her aunt's brother Finn, a feisty Irish boy who hides an artistic soul and a punk attitude -- and he and Philip are locked in a silent war. As the family tensions come to a climax, Melanie learns of a dark secret that Aunt Margaret is hiding, and which can only end in a horrific tragedy.

"The Magic Toyshop's" title would make you think that it's about... well, the toys, or the toymaker. Instead, it's all about Melanie's maturation into a young woman, and how she leaves her childhood behind. Unfortunately it starts to stagger toward the finale, as if Carter didn't know how to deal with all this stuff.

What makes this novel so intoxicating is the lush writing. Carter fills her prose with a ripe sensuality, rich in colours, sensations, feelings and impressions (such as the horrifying attack by a swan puppet, a la Leda). And she accurately captures a young girl's dreams and exploration, such as Melanie posing before a mirror, pretending to be a classic artist's model.

Unfortunately, the plot goes downhill in the last lap -- the shocking revelation is shocking mainly because it was never hinted at. And the ending feels tacked on, as if she just had to find SOME way of ending the plot quickly and took the most flamboyant one. It's also incredibly depressing and unsatisfying.

The characters are also unevenly portrayed -- Melanie and Finn are compelling as the young future lovers, one romantic and disgusted by the place she now finds herself, and the other a tough, kindly urchin. The other characters are rather underdeveloped -- Melanie's brother and sister are basically props, Finn's older brother is a shadow, and Philip is an ogre.

"The Magic Toyshop" is an exquisitely written novel, with a likably real teenage heroine, but marred by a contrived ending. Definitely worth a read, but not Carter at her best.

A truly fantastic book...
I finished The Magic Toyshop in one day (it's the type you just can't put down), and I can only say it is a brilliant book. On first reading, it's an engaging and captivating tale, but on reflection the multi-layered symbolism becomes apparent. It is a book which stays with you, and actually makes you think. I highly recommended it.

Another Angela Carter
I discovered Angela Carter with 'The Bloody Chamber'. This one 'The Magic Toyshop' is even better. The first chapter drags a little but after that I just couldn't put it down. The further on you read the more fixed on the story you are. Angela Carter is totally addictive!