Wise Children

Wise Children was the last novel written by Angela Carter. The novel follows the fortunes of twin chorus girls, Dora and Nora Chance, and their bizarre theatrical family. It explores the subversive nature of fatherhood, the denying of which leads Nora and Dora to frivolous "illegitimate" lechery. The novel plays on Carter's admiration of Shakespeare and her love of fairy tales and the surreal, incorporating a large amount of magical realism and elements of the carnivalesque that probes and twists our expectations of reality and society. Angela Carter wrote this novel after she knew she had... been diagnosed with cancer. She had a small son and a husband whom she would be leaving behind and in this context, Deefholts notes, "The echoing refrain of the text -- "What a joy it is to dance and sing!" -- seems particularly potent." The story begins on the 75th birthday of twin sisters, Dora and Nora Chance. By what Dora, who is also the narrator of the story, describes as a bizarre coincidence, it is also the 100th birthday of their natural father, Melchior Hazard, and his twin brother, Peregrine Hazard, who is believed to be dead.
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