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Angela Carter
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Shadow Dance Paperback – Import, January 1, 1995

by Angela Carter (Author)
3.8 3.8 out of 5 stars 48 ratings
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Carter's heady first novel introduces one of her most enigmatic characters. Honeybuzzard spends his nights scavenging the contents of abandoned buildings and his days seducing and tormenting lovers, enemies, and friends. He and his best friend Morris scoour the backstreets of London, leaving behind a trail of detruction in the broken hearts and dashed hopes of those they love, manipulate, and ultimately discard.
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  1. Print length
    182 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Virago
  4. Publication date
    January 1, 1995
  5. Dimensions
    5.04 x 0.63 x 7.95 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    9781860490415
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1860490415
  8. See all details
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Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ 1860490417
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Virago (January 1, 1995)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 182 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9781860490415
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1860490415
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 5.6 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.04 x 0.63 x 7.95 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.8 3.8 out of 5 stars 48 ratings

About the author

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Angela Carter

Angela Carter

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Angela Carter was born in 1940. She lived in Japan, the United States and Australia. Her first novel, Shadow Dance, was published in 1965. Her next book, The Magic Toyshop, won the John Llewllyn Rhys Prize and the next, Several Perceptions, the Somerset Maugham Award. She died in February 1992.

Customer reviews

3.8 out of 5 stars
3.8 out of 5
48 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Dusty Drosche
4.0 out of 5 stars Odd and Entrancing
Reviewed in the United States on March 14, 2019
I’m honestly not sure what to think of this book. I’ve just finished it and I’m still in a bit of a daze about it.

I’ll be honest though, I struggled through the first two chapters. Carter has a very different way of writing from anything else I’ve ever read. She is very heavy on description and words. It took me a bit to get used to her style. Once I did though the pace picked up significantly.

Many people describe this book as haunting or magical so I guess I’d go with that. Because I’m not sure how else to describe it. Very little happens and it is definitely a slow burn, yet at the same time you are drawn into this odd world with these odd characters and you find yourself entranced.

None of the characters are very likable, and I’m not sure they are meant to be. This truly is a study on character and relationships, and just how we can get wrapped up into our lives and the lives of those around us, even if we are not happy. Self-destructive behavior definitely comes to mind.

So, while it was definitely different and interesting, I did enjoy it and am eager to read more of Carter’s novels.
3 people found this helpful
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Maverick
4.0 out of 5 stars Angela Carterism
Reviewed in the United States on April 19, 2018
This is my second Angela Carter, and even in her first novel she displays her characteristic sensual descriptions that she defines as a style. Her characters appear with vivid and often disturbing flair, between the androgynous. HoneyBuzzard, or the grotesque Ghîslane. Her descriptions in some ways capture theinner life of the characters, between the ambiguous honeybuzzard and the deceptively sweet Ghislane.

Another Angela Carterism is her peculiar philosophy on women's sexuality and body. Some might call her radical, but no matter your thoughts she is certainly peculaiar. I was reminded of this during one discussion between two characters about pregnancies and abortion.

Themes of this novel include apathy, and objectification of people. Perhaps objectification is not the correct phrase, but the novel does concern itself with how we treat people like objects and with litgle more regard than childrens toy, perhaps by using them as puppets in our personal schemes.

This is a good read, a violent and horrific read. Fans of angela carter will dig for being able to witness her precociousness in her own style. Everyone else? Read it because its a good novel.
5 people found this helpful
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Sandra Iler Kirkland
4.0 out of 5 stars A look at London's Unsavory Characters
Reviewed in the United States on February 21, 2010
Angela Carter introduces the reader to a London that isn't talked about in the tourist guides. It is the London of detached working class men and women scruffing out a living. The book centers around two friends. Morris is married to Edna, but rarely goes home to her. His best friend, Honeybuzzard is an eccentric figure. Physically attractive but emotionally blunted, he sails through life, using everyone around him for his own purposes. Morris and Honeybuzzard haphazardly run an antique store, stocked by their forays into abandoned houses where they steal the items they sell.

Honeybuzzard has been away for several months. A promiscious woman who slept with both the men and most of their acquaintenances, was found raped and cut horribly about the face. Ghislaine has now returned to the neighborhood after getting out of the hospital, horribly disfigured. The rumour mill says that Honeybuzzard may have been the culprit, although the offical report blames a roving gang.

Honeybuzzard has also returned, with a new lover, Emily, in tow. The book follows the lives of these characters as they meet and fall apart and struggle into new configurations.

Shadow Dance is Angela Carter's first book, and it is my introduction to her writing. The writing is stark yet compelling, and her deft touch introduces characters that inhabit the mind long after the last page is read. This book is recommended for fiction readers.
4 people found this helpful
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Eric Anderson
4.0 out of 5 stars Beauty is in the Eye
Reviewed in the United States on January 4, 2001
This novel is a peripheral view of monsters. One monster being Honeybuzzard, the nasty showy boy who routs through abandoned buildings and takes girls for granted. And the other is the once beautiful girl who has been horribly disfigured and looms in the background of much of this novel as a threatening figure. We see this through Morris, the good-natured but morally corrupt man who tends to mix himself up in trouble. This book introduces a lot of the central themes Angela Carter works with in her later novels. What is truly poignant about it is its setting in the counties of England in a place Carter will depart from and never return in her worldly travels of fiction. Although all of her fiction is concerned with the ways in which women are perceived and treated by society, this novel is the most concerned with an awareness of the violence which accompanies the feminine. The monsters are, as always, really storybook characters, the big bad wolf chasing little red riding hood. But, again like always, under Carter's hand they are not so plastic as that. Each character is innocent and guilty, virtuous and corrupt, powerful and weak. It is because we hold within us these binaries that we are human and so sympathetically related to all the characters of the fairy tales because we have the capacity within us for extreme emotions. Honeybuzzard says: "I like - you know - to slip in and out of me. I would like to be somebody different every morning. Me and not me. I would like to have a cupboard bulging with all different bodies and faces and choose a fresh one every morning." The identities that people wear shift constantly and if we aren't attentive to the way in which they change we will be damaged. The mystery of this novel is not the morality of the terrible deformation of the woman, but whether she is truly beautiful or ugly. And, of course, she and we are both.
11 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

BOOKS WORLD
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in India on March 5, 2016
Verified Purchase
good
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AVRIL
5.0 out of 5 stars enjoyed it very much
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 29, 2014
Verified Purchase
different to any book I have read , enjoyed it very much
One person found this helpful
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Trickle Tree
3.0 out of 5 stars Confused but brilliantly written
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 7, 2015
Verified Purchase
Well, a writing teacher once advised that I read a bit of Angela Carter and so twenty years later I dived into this one. A very strange book. We join the story whereby a woman is talking to a man in the pub. She was once a beauty but then suffered at the hands of an attacker and face is now all scared. The chap she is talking to reeks of guilt but the level of guilt we are not too sure about. Then the story follows his relationship to his male friend and it is an odd one at that.

The story for me wasn't that great but I did enjoy her writing and observations. I would read it again in the future to see if I could get any more out of it.
2 people found this helpful
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Mrs J P Warner
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 8, 2015
Verified Purchase
super book as described.
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