Notes on Nights

I started reading Nights at the Circus, and soon realized I needed to have a dictionary and access to the internet close at hand. The novel is so crammed with allusion, obscure references and complex language that it took some time getting into it. Once I got used to Carter's unique style of writing, it captivated and pulled me in. I really enjoyed the first section (London) and the second (Petersburg). After page 70, I gave up on making notes of every phrase that delighted me, as there were so many, and it was making the reading of the novel somewhat laborious to be jotting down notes every half a minute.

The third section (Siberia) was where I started to lose interest. I found the switching of narration to be grating. One moment Fevvers and Lizzie are brazen Cockney gals, and the next high-minded philosophers. Much of what Lizzie said in this last section seemed too much like preaching, and the story went off on too many tangents, leaving little room for the core characters to evolve.

The theme of self-presentation was interesting to me. The idea that we are all actresses and actors on the stage of life, choosing the face and the reality (or fantasy) we wish to project. Fevvers describes her work as a living statue in Ma Nelson's brothel “[I]s it not to the mercies of the eyes of others that we commit ourselves on our voyage through the world?” (Carter, p. 42). In Buffo's description of the life of a clown, he says "we possess one privilege, one rare privilege, that makes of our outcast and disregarded state something wonderful, something precious. We can invent our own faces! We make ourselves" (p. 141).

The many references to marriage make it clear that Carter is no fan of the institution. “What is marriage but prostitution to one man instead of many?” (p. 21). “Only a whore...could hope for so much from marriage” (p. 51). This is why I find it interesting that Carter hints at marriage for her heroine. Throughout the story, both Fevvers and Lizzie have unfavourable views on marriage, so is this meant to show that Fevvers goes from one "prison" to another with marriage being the ultimate cage for the angel of the 20th century?

Reflections on Geek Love

Reading Geek Love was entertaining, disturbing and suspenseful. It's the only novel I can think of where I really dislike the characters while at the same time remain fascinated by what will become of them. For me, the physical deformities became less central to the story because of the unconcealed human frailty the characters possess. This examination of the darker side of human emotion and personality is part of the reason the novel is so unsettling. I can see myself in these "freaks,"–does that make me more freakish, or does it make them more "normal"? Arty's jealousy, Al's greed and Lil's subservience intermingle with Oly and Chick's desperate need for love, something that is elusive in the Binewski family. The twins' eventual fate seems representative of the struggle within us all, and our capacity for self-destruction.

I would argue that, as with most things in life, there is a continuum of freak/geek. Some of us will fall closer to the extremes than others, and the perception of what is freaky or geeky will differ from person to person and change according to the time in which we live. Social norms change as people who are considered "deviant" push the boundaries and widen our view of what is acceptable in terms of thought and behaviour (including outward appearance). The characters in Geek Love may look different, but it is in the mental and not the physical sphere where freaks are created.