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The Magic Toyshop | 
 enlarge | Author: Angela Carter
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Category: Book
List Price: $15.00
Buy New: $8.35
You Save: $6.65 (44%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  22 reviews
Sales Rank: 66183
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 208
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.7 x 5 x 0.7
ISBN: 0140256407
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN: 9780140256406
ASIN: 0140256407
Publication Date: August 1, 1996
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: NEVER BEEN USED, MAY HAVE SMALL BLACK MARK OUTSIDE EDGES PAGES.15700
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Product Description
In this brilliantly imagined novel, Angela Carter explores the tormented world of adolescence and the heart's ability to withstand even the deepest sorrows. "A tour de force . . . put out shoots of all Carter's fascinations, which turns up in her later books: illusion and stage magic, myths and folktales, sorcery, the allure of suffering, incest, revenge, escape."--Voice Literary Supplement.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 17 more reviews...
 Mythic March 21, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
To declare a bias right off, I read the critical reviews and was slightly put off by the summaries which seemed to regard the story as some sort of allegory of the archetypal feminine journey to learn to live in the scary world of men.
But nevertheless, I bought it anyway, and read it over the course of an afternoon. Then I read it again. Then I read it again another three times, and tonight I'm going to start reading it a sixth time.
To put my cards on the table, if there *is* a feminine allegory in here, then I can only vaguely feel it, in the manner of someone feeling their way around a dark room. I can guess that the shapes of it are there, but feminine allegories tend to pass straight over my head as something I simply don't understand or even notice. Instead, I found myself wondering why people thought the book was about Melanie, when it was so clearly about Finn and his 'Jack the Giant Killer' journey from terrified but feckless boyhood, through slaying the monster, to responsible adulthood.
But of course the minute I say this I realize that in the best tradition of fairy tales it might contain Finn's giant-slaying, but that's not all it contains. It does also contain Melanie's journey, and the sense that neither Melanie nor Finn would have been able to achieve their journeys without each other. So it may be a feminine and a masculine allegory with the healing message that both halves need each other to be fully what they are capable of being, to break free.
Or it may not. It may be a story about Phillip, Margaret and Francie, and their weirdly Arthurian arrangement. And I must say that the enduring impression I carried away after the first two reads was how important it was to have hot water and nice soap. I will never take cleanliness for granted again!
It is, again, in the best tradition of fairy stories, because in Tolkien's words it is 'applicable' rather than 'allegorical'. It hints at a variety of meanings, it feels enlarging - as though you've learned something important - but somehow I can't quite figure out what it was. I'll have to go and read it again!
She has Tolkien's gift of being mythical, which is impressive in a story where not much happens beyond drinking cups of tea and putting on puppet shows. And she has a beautiful writing style, which makes reading about other people's dirty bathrooms and unclipped toenails a positive pleasure. I can't recommend the book enough!
Reviewed by Alex Beecroft, author of Captain's Surrender
 The Macabre September 5, 2007
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
There is not much to the overall plot of this book. The strength of it lies within the wierd characters and dialog among them. I felt a few things were thrown in for shock value like the unexplained severed hand in the kitchen drawer or the 'don't see it coming revealed secret' at the end... that could have been either left out entirely or at best given us a hint about the secret.
The peek hole was just down right creepy and some of the descriptions like the uncle's false teeth in the jar in the bathroom made me shudder. I had trouble with Melanie's attraction to her aunt's dirty brother with his nasty breath and teeth and unwashed stinky body. However it was this sort of thing that draws you in and makes you love the book because it IS SO macabre!
The ending is lousy but in reality the whole story was not that great but it's the characters and their weirdness that will keep you reading so even with a bad ending you will go away whispering... wow...
fours stars as a novel, five stars as a literary work of art and intellect April 9, 2007
14 out of 14 found this review helpful
I had read The Magic Toyshop" for the first time ten years ago, in college, and was absolutely smitten with it. Now I re-read it and... I am not so uncritical of my awe. I can still admit that Carter's use of language, her ability to build the atmosphere and to get the reader into the book are superb. She maneuvres between styles, alluding to many archetypical images referring to art (Pre-Rafaelites are ever-present in this novel; all the characters seem to be directly taken out from Dante Gabriel Rosetti's paintings) and uses the symbols so that it is immediately obvious that she is an eloquent, well read author. But I have some doubts about the structure and the plot of this novel - if it is to be considered a novel, because if it is a feminist manifesto, an expression of a point of view (on many issues), or a collection of images tied together by a loose story, then it is perfect.
"The Magic Toyshop" central character is Melanie, a fifteen-year-old girl, who is just at the point of discovering her own physical femininity. Melanie spends the summer, while her parents are on the book tour in America, with her younger siblings, Jonathon, a constructor of ship models, and Victoria, a plump, overeating, cute five-year old, under care of the housekeeper, Mrs. Rundle. Melanie passes through her days daydreaming of being an adult woman (amazing wedding dress trying on scene), hoping to get married, and inventing stories, changing her life into fiction, until the terrible news about the death of her parents in the plane crash forces her, Jonathan and Victoria to move out of their beautiful house and their rich life. As orphans, the are taken into care of their mothers eccentric brother, uncle Philip. Melanie vaguely recalls him from her parents' wedding picture as well and from the repulsive gift she received from him once. She learns from Mrs. Rundle that the uncle has a wife now, which is surprising for some reason...
Uncle Philip is a toymaker who has a shop in London. Living in London, despite her shock and confusion, is an exciting prospect for Melanie. Upon their arrival, the children are picked up by their Irish aunt's brothers: Francie and Finn. On their way to the house, the kids learn that their aunt Margaret is dumb - she stopped speaking altogether on her wedding day.
Uncle Philip's house seems to Melanie small, neglected and creepy after her ordered, fashinable, posh home, and her new family a bunch of weird people, although they are oddly fascinated by all of them, especially the elvish Finn (who is an incredibly sexy young man!). Uncle Philip turns out to be an old tyrant, terrorizing the family with his peculiar ways and fond only of his puppets in his home theatre, where he makes the inscenizatons of well-known myths and tales. Or... is he really as Melanie sees him? And what is going on during the night behind the closed doors? What is Margaret's life really like?
We see everything through the eyes of Melanie, an adolescent girl with a vivid (not to say sick) imagination. The symbolic imagery evokes a lot of associations which are the food for thought. All the characters are obviously symbolic and many themes are explored, the objectivization of women (all the women basically, but especially Melanie, who cannot escape her fate in real life, she can only create the fictional reality to hide inside it), exploration of female sexuality together with its dangers (Melanie again), the importance of literacy (Aunt Margaret), the mad demiurge (uncle Philip). Despite being a clearly feminist writer (the women, even the absent ones, like Melanie's mother, represent great types and are portraited with brutal honesty, without flattery), Carter can be read on many levels and her novel a starting point for many hypotheses and discussions, there is no doubt about it. Additionally, it reads like an odd dream, everyday things have a magical quality to them, which makes it a fable and teleports the reader to a different, parralel plane. What is strange, is, first of all, the ending. The novel promises more than it really is, in terms of the plot, and does not meet the expectations in this area. The second strange thing is, that it seems to have so many threads and try to touch so many important topics, that there unavoidably must be, and are (in my opinion) some loose ends. What, for example, was the purpose of the scene with the severed hand in the kitchen drawer?
Nevertheless, this novel stays with the reader forever and is great as a brain stimulant. Although not the best of Carter's, it is definitely her own in terms of style and original voice, it is mesmerizing and makes me yearn for more. It just ends too early and abruptly...
 Brilliant novel, stumbling ending February 5, 2007
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
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.
Very odd book, but beautifully written January 7, 2005
3 out of 7 found this review helpful
I was totally lost as to what to expect out of this novel. Angela Carter's descriptions, especially of people, are some of the best I've ever read. I just couldn't shake this sense of menace and impending doom while reading the book. It has very gothic overtones. I was very fearful for the characters. (It didn't help any that the cover is very creepy). I mean, it is rare that recently orphaned British children sent to live with their Uncle (whom they have never met) end up in happy circumstances (at least in Literature and Film *smile*). Still, very different and interesting, and I LOVED her descriptions. The plot was very weird and different. The ending left me with a "hmmm..." feeling. Oh well. I'm still glad I read it, but what a strange coming-of-age story.
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