H E AT H E R J O H N S O N 81 lopsidedly’ (Pt III, Ch 7, p 251) in a gesture of imperfection out of keeping with an idealized flying woman Hints that her mythic status might be explained or reduced in this manner come early in the novel When Walser considers the effect of her voice, ‘Walser had become a prisoner of her voice, her cavernous, sombre voice’, he reflects that ‘such a voice could almost have had its source, not within her throat but in some ingenious mechanism or other behind the canvas screen’ (Pt I, Ch 2, p 43) Just as the Wizard of Oz ceases to be a monumental figure when the curtain reveals a man pulling levers, so Walser, ever the sceptic, suspects that myth is constructed and is an effect more than a human-scaled reality As Fevvers’ material reality becomes foregrounded, the mythic names are discarded: ‘No Venus, or Helen, or Angel of the Apocalypse, not Izrael or Isfahel only a poor freak down on her luck, and an object of the most dubious kind of reality’ (Pt III, Ch 10, p 290) Fevvers is not the only character associated with myth in the novel Buffo starts to unravel both himself and the myth of the clown In one of the references to W B Yeats’s poetry (all of which act as a reminder of the poet’s version of Leda and the swan), Buffo’s identity also seems constructed: ‘He is himself the centre that does not hold’ (Pt II, Ch 4, p 117) The history of the great clown highlights the source of myth’s power: ‘This story is not precisely true but has the poetic truth of myth’ (Pt II, Ch 4, p 121) Metafictional concerns about the distinction between fact and fiction continue to be an issue in the closing chapters: ‘The young American it was who kept the whole story of the old Fevvers in his notebooks; she longed for him to tell her she was true’ (Pt III, Ch 9, p 273) Her mythic status is dependent on his textual snapshot of her and on her continued identification with that version Ironically, Fevvers herself seems to regret the loss of her status, a clear indication that Carter does not take a simplistic view of mythic identity but instead acknowledges that the attention which Fevvers elicits must ultimately be on her own terms and of her own making As materialism replaces myth – ‘not the music of the spheres, but of blood, of flesh, of sinew, of the heart’ (Pt III, Ch 9, p 275) – Fevvers’ wings cease to be marvellous objects: no longer hidden, they ‘no longer seemed remarkable’ (Pt III, Ch 9, p 277) Myth proves to be a sanitized, hermetic phenomenon in its hidden realities; its power relies on what is secret and mysterious Once Fevvers cannot maintain her appearance, her authentic self seems to emerge: ‘She was so shabby that she looked like a fraud’ (Pt III, Ch 9, p 277) The friction between myth and reality, which Carter so deftly handles, drives her novel Nights at the Circus, and the unmasking of the fantastical in turn creates a world that is magically real Through its matrix of metafiction, magical realism and myth, Carter’s text undermines the reader’s sense of assurance and challenges cultural preconceptions The novel ends on a self-reflexive note, when Fevvers tells Walser: ‘ “To think I really fooled you!” she marvelled “It just goes to show there’s nothing like confidence” ’ (Pt III, Envoi, p 295) This final comment points to the distinctive tone in which the story is told (challenging the reader to disbelieve) and suggests too that the novel, like the discourses of fiction, history, reality and myth can operate as a kind of confidence trick, fooling the inattentive reader Carter’s writing reminds us of the need to remain wary, to be sceptical like Walser, and so alert to the possible deception inherent to familiar cultural discourses which often determine our understanding of the world