Rick Moody (right) selected this month's book

Michael Jurin, stellastarr*
I've been mute so long; I've decided to babble. Apologies in advance.

First a note on reading. By this I mean "the act of." An ex-girlfriend bought me a copy of The Bloody Chamber years ago. She told me that I'd really enjoy it. Embarrassingly, I waited till now to read it. Why? Why did I not dive immediately into a book that someone specifically chose for me? (And her book tastes are impeccable.) Well, I'm sure other books distracted me. Moods are constantly shifting with my surroundings. Some art/books/movies/albums are more attractive during different seasons of the year, et cetera. But also, the physical book does have to seem esthetically appealing to my present mindset. Like, sometimes I'm in the mood to read hardbacks, and sometimes I want something light and portable.

Which brings me to think the reason was this: the typeset of the copy she bought me is unnecessarily small. Smaller than most mass paperback print. And unconsciously I believe I am rarely in the mood to read tiny print. This still means I suck for not fully appreciating the gift, but I think a point could be made to publishing houses. A book should hopefully not only be entertaining to the mind, but also pleasurable to physically read. I have good eyesight, and do not need glasses. I would like to keep it that way. Maybe more young readers would get into countless "classics" if it weren't for their typically cheap tiny print crammed on the page. It's daunting to the eye at first glance. Dense bricks instead of inviting paragraphs. Edgar Allan Poe is generally a sufferer of this.

Okay, The Bloody Chamber… Angela Carter's truly impressive command of phrasing and vocabulary were the first things that really pulled me into this short story collection. Descriptions were detailed to the point that you could almost look behind the page to view it all as reality. And yet she kept you tethered to her version of this reality by leaving it dream-like, aloof, stylized and purposefully unreal. It reminded me a bit of Ray Bradbury.

I didn't immediately think on the feminist aspects of the stories, nor the fact that Carter's name occasionally pops up during the topic of modern feminism. I simply read them for what they gave me. Most fairy tales are power struggles, and often ones pinning the sexes. So I accepted that notion upon theme alone. However, this might have been precisely why Carter chose to rewrite fairy tales in the first place. I don't know. I certainly was not distracted from her vivid story telling by thoughts of this subtext. More so, I felt that she used sexuality, in particular pubescent innocents and naivety as a catalyst for tension. A couple stories used the pivot of letting our knowing minds (in a biblical sense) watch unknowing ones in… hmmm… precarious circumstances. The effect was an unnerving play on the perversities we might imagine.

As Emily nicely pointed out, symbolism can be read and reread up and down for meaning. There was particularly a link of white and red in most of the stories. I personally found it more a subtle undertone of violence or danger than a marking of feminism. Remember, most fairy tales were born with darkness and teeth before Disney or children's writers ever domesticated and defanged them. (Greta would definitely know this, fresh from Grimm's fairytales.) Ok, she did definitely bring up bloody sheets a few times. Plus, I did notice that male characters were often more concealed in personality than the women. Tall, dark and… mysterious… dangerous?

"Puss In Boots" was a break from the norm, a naughty little romp in amongst dark forebodings. But I loved the playful whims of Puss, and the peek into cat psyche when it comes to human relations. "The Erl-King" stood out strong, and so did "The Lady of the House of Love." Both are great specimens in the art of writing short stories.

Next up:
Want to read the next book along with the SPIN.com Book Club? Pick up Leonard Cohen's The Book of Longing, selected by Elizabeth Seward of Spelling & Grammar, and then check back here next month to see what the musicians thought and voice your own opinions!