In the memory and the mouth

Angela Carter’s Book of Fairytales x Wine52’s Veneto Selection

Like many, my introduction to Angela Carter was by the way of The Bloody Chamber, her 1979 collection of feminist fairytales. I was eighteen and had chosen to write an extended essay on Little Red Riding Hood, exploring the different versions of the tale - starting with Perrault and looking both backward and forward in history. 

Naturally, ‘The Company of Wolves’ was amongst the list of stories that I had decided to analyse. It had the most significant impact upon my understanding of both Little Red Riding Hood and fairytales in general. Whilst Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes saw Little Red ‘whipping a pistol from her knickers’ to shoot the wolf dead, and Thurber shook up the moral via another handily concealed weapon, it was Carter’s story - that leant into the grotesque, embraced the sensual, felt heavy with magic, and drew upon the ‘latent content’ of traditional fairytales - that became my focus point. 

There was nothing pretty or kitsch to be found in Carter’s stories. She had fully reimagined stories that - until her - I had thought of only in the context of childhood. As Marina Warner put it in the Afterword of The Book of Fairy Tales, Carter’s skill was in lifting her fairytales ‘out of the pastel nursery and into the labyrinth of female desire’. She wasn’t dabbling in the watercolour worlds of flower fairies or the sparkling beauty of a Cottingley cutout - and what I loved was how she captured the savagery, the trickery, the darkness, the fantastical. Plus, it gave me an excuse to learn and use words like phantasmagoria and wonder and polymorphous wanting. 

Angela Carter’s Book of Fairytales is a bit different of course - it’s a collection of tales from around the world and captures the stories of all sorts of different women - from the cunning to wise to the not-quite-damsels-in-distress. In its pages, we find well-known stories from Ireland, France and Britain alongside less well-known ones from Sudan, Somalia, Palestine, and Iceland. There is Perrault’s classic version of Little Red, but then there’s the Chinese story ‘The Werefox’ reminding us that shapeshifting women can be as wily and dangerous as a wolf in grandmother’s clothing. 

The stories are organised into themes that hang geographically distant tales together too - ‘Brave, Bold and Wilful’ is one selection, ‘Sillies’ is another, as well as the pointed ‘Good girls and where it gets them’. This arrangement asks you to approach each tale in a different way to how you might have as a standalone piece of writing. It also emphasises that sometimes things really are just bonkers, that we shouldn’t take stories so seriously - at least not every time. 

I also encourage any new reader to take a peak at Carter’s foreword. Here she makes the point that the written word changes a story - because in the very act of being written down a tale loses its mutability, those transformative powers that a fairytale holds and which allow it to bend and adapt and shift into something new. This isn’t a bad thing, just a different one. And it means we should pay attention to the fairytales and folk stories that have been passed down from grandmothers to daughters and granddaughters. We should think about all the versions that came before. The ones that may come after.

Carter writes, ‘There are still some languages that do not exist in any written form or, like Somali, have acquired a written form only in the immediate past. Yet Somali possesses a literature no less glorious for having existed in the memory and the mouth for the greater part of its history, and its translation into written forms will inevitably change the whole nature of that literature because speaking is a public activity and reading is a private activity. For most of human history, ‘literature’, both fiction and poetry, has been narrated, not written - heard, not read. So fairytales, folk tales, stories from the oral tradition, are all of them the most vital connection we have with the imaginations of the ordinary men and women that created our world.’ 

Have you read Angela Carter’s Book of Fairytales? Which were your favourite stories? Did any surprise you? Let me know. I’d love to chat fairytale - traditional and reimagined - with you. 

The Pairing: Three wines from Veneto (doesn’t that sound like a fairytale title) 

There’s one word that best describes wine from Veneto - charmed. As a region, it benefits from protection from the Dolomites, a cool breeze off the Adriatic, and reddish volcanic soil combined with limestone and clay. Together, these perform a kind of alchemy for the vines, create a certain magic that allows neutral grapes - like our staple Pinot Grigio or the Glera - to transform into minerally, delicate, delicious wines.  

 Beyond the natural wonder of the region, I wanted to pair a fairytale collection with a wine collection - and this one stood out. Of all the wine boxes I’ve received, the artists involved in reimagining the Veneto labels really created something beautiful. When I first unboxed them I immediately was struck at how much story there was captured in the design, the romance of them, the wildness. There’s something delightful about each take - the Quattro d’Oro, by André Ducci, captures the free, dazzling spirit of the Venetian Quadriga; 2Bros Creative interpret Romeo and Juliet for their Vincenzan bottle of Pinot Grigio; Enygma’s bold and abstract design captures the traditional masks from the Carnevale di Venezia. 

The fact that the Venetian community is so proud - particularly in terms of their regional identity - also stood out to me. This is rather the way we are about our stories too. And with Carter’s collection there are so many tales to explore, each a foundation to the communities and societies that rose up around them. So here are you pairings for the week - possibly something new to explore. 

The Wine(s): Now most of us will be very familiar with Veneto’s most popular export - Prosecco - but the fact is that the reds can be fantastically deep and characterful, the whites fresh and lovely. I was delighted to try a selection of these wines recently and learn a bit more about what makes the area so special. My intros ranged from whites from the west of the region, near Lake Garda, through to the volcanic and more structured reds. I feel like there must be a wine for everyone around here. 

Tasting notes: Veneto wines are celebrated for their aromatic intensity and refined balance. Typically, you can expect a harmonious blend of vibrant fruit flavours, floral notes, and a hint of minerality, all underscored by a fresh acidity and sometimes that tell-tale saline note from the coast. Among the ones I’ve tasted, the Pinot Grigio was super fresh, a little floral but clean, with hints of lemony citrus. It didn’t have a long finish and was delightfully light and acidic. On the other hand, Quattro d’Oro comes from near Lake Garda and has a more candied nose and a love zip of grapefruit. It’s super inviting and whilst slightly sweeter, it’s balanced and inviting. Something different from my usual. Finally, looking at the reds, with Enygma, you get a lively and vivid Bardolino grape with light tannins that is seriously drinkable. Serve it a little chilled and with a light pasta, polpettine, or grilled veggies and you’ll find yourself in a little pocket of Veneto. 

Where can I buy it? This one’s a doozy - you can find all of these wines with Wine52. I received them as part of my monthly subscription as part of the Veneto box - which was fantastic. If you subscribe, they’ll send three to four bottles to you based on your preferences from amazing wine regions around the world. Some you’ll be familiar with - like the Loire Valley or Marche - but others will be entirely new. I’ve discovered some delicious wines from Swartland, Moldova, and even North Macedonia. If you’d like to try them, you can use my personal code to get 50% off your first order - find out more here. 

I also have five golden tickets to give away. This will grant you an entirely free first case from Wine52. To receive one, just restack this post and leave a comment below.  

Fun facts: This one comes straight from Glug magazine’s accompanying Veneto issue. Did you know that in Venice, a small glass of wine is call an ‘ombre’ or ‘ombra’? This is supposedly because the wine sellers of St Mark’s square used to follow the shadow cast by the cathedral, keeping their wines cool. As the team put it, ‘It’s nice to think of each glass as its own pool of shade, crisp and cool against the warmth of another hard day’s graft in Italy’s most unusual city.’ 

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PS. I was inspired to write this review as a bit of a thank you to all the people who have recently subscribed to The Book Cellar by way of Nike Sulway’s amazing The Orange and Bee project. Welcome to all of you and thank you. As a fellow lover of fairytale, I couldn’t imagine a better excuse to talk about one of my favourite fairytale collections so I hope you enjoyed and look forward to discussing!  

And if you’ve also just joined The Book Cellar, why not let me know if you have any books - fiction or nonfiction - that you might like a pairing for? I’d love to hear from you all.