Angela Carter – wove her magic in macabre fairy-tales

Angela Carter, rated in the top ten of British writers in the 20^th Century, known for her feminist, magical realism short stories, was lauded in a BBC documentary last night.  She gave a macabre Freudian and surrealist twist to fairy-tales, garnering the praise of Salman Rushdie and Margaret Atwood. And although reckoned a feminist she raged against ‘the self-immolation of women, how women collude and connive with their condition of enslavement.’

Born 7 May 1940 in Eastbourne, England, (no birth time) she had an extraordinary if fairly tortured life. She had a suffocating mother, who over fed her, didn’t allowed to dress herself, or to go to the bathroom alone, which turned her into a pudgy child with a stammer and few friends. Along the way she rebelled, went on a diet, ‘changed from a fat, obliging girl to a skinny, rude girl.’ When university became a prospect her parents said they would move close by, so she escaped into marriage instead. Unfortunately she picked a depressive as a husband, whom she left for a spell in Japan, which radicalized her as she watched the submissive doll-like women there. She picked up two younger boyfriends there and on her return to the UK, aged 31 she met a 19 year old construction worker, had a child and married him. She died of lung cancer aged 51.

She was a Sun Uranus (Moon) in Taurus – a stubborn maverick – all in a creative and inspirational trine to Neptune. Her Jupiter in upfront Aries conjunct Mercury Saturn in Taurus squared Pluto giving her a mix of bullish confidence along with equal quantities of bleak self-doubt. Her passionately enthusiastic Mars Venus was in a publicity-attracting square to Neptune and an exuberant sextile to Jupiter.

A one-off personality who danced to her own tune.

Her 13^th Harmonic was exceptionally strong – breakthrough, genius, exploration, breaking with the orthodox. As was her leaving-a-legacy-for-history 17H; and her creative 5H.