{"id":11416,"date":"2018-07-22T20:31:59","date_gmt":"2018-07-23T00:31:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/?p=11416"},"modified":"2018-07-22T20:31:59","modified_gmt":"2018-07-23T00:31:59","slug":"a-nuclear-eden-return-to-angela-carters-heroes-villains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/2018\/07\/a-nuclear-eden-return-to-angela-carters-heroes-villains.html","title":{"rendered":"A Nuclear Eden: Return to Angela Carter’s “Heroes & Villains”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Man, remember how I said Anna Karenina<\/em> was the most heterosexual novel I\u2019d ever read? I must have forgotten this bristly little gem.<\/p>\n

Heroes and Villains<\/em> is relatively early Carter, from 1969 (see here<\/a> for some notes on her first and last novels). It tells the story of Marianne, a Professor\u2019s daughter who lives in a literal ivory(-colored) tower, and Jewel, the Barbarian she first encounters as he\u2019s killing her brother. It\u2019s a fairy tale and a piece of Bible fanfiction, set in a postapocalyptic England where mutant Out People wander the ruined cities and you might die from a swim in the lion-colored sea. All the contrasts are heightened: citizen vs. outcast, savage vs. scientist, sheltered vs. desperate; and man against woman.<\/p>\n

Ah, this is such a great, ferocious novel. Marianne and Jewel need each other without wanting each other. Their days are spent in marital bitterness and their nights are a river of fire beneath the blankets. Their union is a power struggle in which every victory leaves the winner confused and hurting. He rapes her\u2013he rapes her and hits her, you might want to know that going in. And yet when she sees and responds to his vulnerability it doesn\u2019t come across like a cheap authorial plea for pity. Nor is she exercising heroic forgiveness. She\u2019s capitulating to her own extremely heterosexual empathy, and to the fact that she and Jewel find in each other, against their will, \u201csome clue to survival in this inimical world.\u201d<\/p>\n

They are both hard and exposed, frightening and threatened; and alone, and unsure if it\u2019s better to be alone together or if it\u2019s just inevitable. They are defined by their headlong plunge toward one another, they are each the arrow for the other\u2019s target and vice versa, just like in the Theology of the Body, if it were written by Catholic artist John Darnielle<\/a>. They live in a time when all the animals are losing their names, and yet they can\u2019t seem to lose theirs, they are always, inescapably, together He and She. Together one animal.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho do you see when you see me?\u201d she asked him, burying her own face in his bosom.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you want the truth?\u201d<\/p>\n

She nodded.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe firing squad.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not the whole truth. Try again.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cInsatiability,\u201d he said with some bitterness.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s oblique but altogether too simple. Once more,\u201d she insisted. \u201cOne more time.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Man, remember how I said Anna Karenina was the most heterosexual novel I\u2019d ever read? I must have forgotten this bristly little gem. Heroes and Villains is relatively early Carter, from 1969 (see here for some notes on her first and last novels). It tells the story of Marianne, a Professor\u2019s daughter who lives in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1071,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[1326,1357,88,431],"class_list":["post-11416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","tag-adam-and-eve-and-pinch-me","tag-angela-carter","tag-as-antony-said-to-cleopatra","tag-cupid-and-psycho"],"yoast_head":"\nA Nuclear Eden: Return to Angela Carter's "Heroes & Villains"<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Man, remember how I said Anna Karenina was the most heterosexual novel I'd ever read? 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