Margaret Atwood

[Mirabell]

Well. A really big name. Perennial nobel contender, booker winner, bestseller writer.

I'ma list three novels here.

Alias Grace was my first novel of hers and the one that has remained strongest in my mind. A historical novel about the 1843 murders of Thomas Kinnear and his housekeeper Nancy Montgomery. I found the characterizations great, it evoked its time and place in an admirable way. It does drag some, but it's still highly recommended. I love it.

Blind Assassin was my last novel of hers, it's her Booker winning novel (after several shortlistings). I will need to reread it soon. I am not sure what to think about it. It's well written. There are enough stories so it never drags. And it's sure ambitious. If memory serves well, it doesn't really cohere. For the ambition and inventiveness, this, too, is highly recommended.

Surfacing is the best novel of hers I've read and one of the few straightforward 'feministic' novels I've read that really work on all levels. A strong statement, a short but concise novel about femininity, about surfacing, finding oneself, this one deeply impressed me and is surely among the best novels I know, period.

[Stewart]

Well. A really big name. Perennial nobel contender, booker winner, bestseller writer.

And let's not forget: inventor (http://www.longpen.com/).

I've read The Penelopiad by her, something which would probably have meant more by reading The Odyssey first. But I also remember being given a sample passage of hers a number of years back in a writing class, and I couldn't make it to the end of the passage, finding it extremely dull. That passage was from The Robber Bride.

[ions]

Ahhh Maggie...

Many hate her. The Handmaids Tale is one of the more difficult books in the Canadian Highschool syllabus, not that it's a difficult book, and so many lighter readers end up resenting her. She does come off as arrogant in her work. Many say she's sardonic to a fault. I think she's fine but I'm a fellow cynic. Another reason she is resented here is her early criticism boils Canadians down to survivors of wilderness and that's what all Canadian fiction is about. That was written in the early 70s so maybe she's changed her mind on the topic. I think she's an incredibly bright cynical writer that's got a little intellectual elitism going on. Works for me. I've got to read more of her still though.

And Oryx and Crake kicks ass. Even if it's been done before it was done very well again with that work.

[saliotthomas]

What kept me from reading Aywood untill now is a big guy on a Cancun beach 5 or 6 years ago with the Blind Assassin in hand, making spiritual commentary on it.
I was swearing under my breath never to read Maggie in my entire life.
I am midway through Oryx and Crake and i enjoy it very much.The part on child prostitution is not easy and i wish it will stop soon but i like her tone and ways.I am trying to get The Penelopiad for a next read.

[beelzebubbles]

Peg was my first literary crush.

I was shelving in the fiction department and thinking that I needed a good book to read. I came upon a pink book and thought, "This looks yummy!" Yes, I do judge a book by its cover. (Shrugs shoulders). The book was called the Edible Woman. I laughed at the congruence and borrowed the book that night.

I loved the Edible Woman, Lady Oracle, Cat's Eye and The Handmaid's Tale and some of her poetry.

We had a falling out at the time Oryx and Crake was published. I think she might have been to far ahead of me. She is my mother's age and I originally fell in love with her writing as a young woman when I was a young woman.

[Jayaprakash]

I recently read THE HANDMAID'S TALE after sort of circling around it for years, being torn between curiosity and my fannish resentment of her somewhat simplistic dismissals of science fiction. Having finally read it, I have to say it is a very good book indeed. The narrative voice is just right, not an easy task given the narrator's circumstances and (presumable) distance from Atwood's own character and experience. The speculation about a sort of patriarchal theocracy are fascinating, nuanced and credible and the rhythm of the narrative is compulsive. A scorching book, and one is glad that it ends on a note of hope, otherwise the darkness may have been too much. Also, like Ursula Le Guin re: Jeanette Winterson's THE STONE GODS, I have to, with all due respect, point out that no matter what she thinks, Atwood has written an SF novel here. And a bloody good one, at that. Definitely going to read more of her books.

Incidentally, has anyone here read ROBBER BRIDE? My wife recently did, and had some thoughts and questions about it she would like to discuss.

[beelzebubbles]

Jayaprakash, what were Atwood's objections to sci fi?

I have read the Robber Bride a couple times. I would certainly be glad to answer any questions your wife had, if I could.

[Jayaprakash]

She has often said things to the effect that her works cannot be science fiction because they contain no 'talking squids in outer space'. She has I think warmed to the term speculative fiction. To be fair, this is a better tag to apply to THE HANDMAID'S TALE, but I am enough of a fan that the high-handed dismissal of the genre as being about monsters in space and nothing else rankles.

Well, my wife's away at work, but I remember that her main questions were to the effect of 'what was the point? That Zenia was an unscrupulous manipulator? Well, the men were no better; they were all too willing to leave their stable relationships for Zenia. And the women were as bad, the lengths they went to to win back these unfaithful men. Was it just about how rotten people can be and how fragile relationships are, and in that case, is that all?'

She has read several of Atwood's books before and liked them quite a bit.

[beelzebubbles]

Well I am with you I don't care for that high handed attitude towards science fiction either.

As to your wife's criticism of the Robber Bride, I'll have to think about it for awhile.

But what I have said before when discussing Atwood is that she often writes about "woman's inhumanity to woman."

[beelzebubbles]

Considering The Robber Bride it seems a sort of straight forward pot-boiler. Femme fatale steals away other women's men and those women fight to get them back. It sounds as if it should star Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Susan Hayward and Lana Turner as the fatale dame. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if Atwood is playing with the conventions of that sort of "woman's picture" as they used to be called.

I do remember a kind of supernatural bit when the femme fatale dies and one woman seems to be haunted by her. The one who lived on the island. Am I remembering this right? This reminded me a bit of another book that has the same sort of story about women and their competition for men and that is The Witches of Eastwick. I think both The Robber Bride and The Witches of Eastwick are comic but Updike's novel is much lighter in tone despite all the nasty goings on. The witches, a group of divorcees, end up killing (or was it the cancer that did her in) a young rival and their coven falls apart. But hey ho! the witches end up getting remarried, so everyone is a happy.

Are the people rotten. Yeah, I guess. It's just easier to take from Updike than from Atwood.

[SlowRain]

I was extremely impressed with The Blind Assassin. I had always avoided Atwood as I felt she was a "feminist" writer. (I'm sorry if that upsets anyone here, but that's how I felt.) As a novel, it was quite inventive using a story-within-a-story, but also a story-within-a-story-within-a-story. And all of it is relevant for figuring out what is really going on. All too often, an intriguing novel keeps things from the reader so that, at the end, the writer can introduce a twist and the reader is supposed to be impressed because they never saw it coming. That's usually because the writer isn't really playing fairly. In The Blind Assassin, Atwood puts it all out there for the reader to pick up on. Add to that the character of Iris, whom I think is based on pretty much everyone's own grandmother in later life, and it is an extremely satisfying novel.

Alias Grace is a good novel, and worthy in its own rights, but I prefer The Blind Assassin. I haven't read anything else by her.

[Yasmine]

@Beelzebubbles, yes the character you mention is Charis. I sometimes wonder if she did kill Zenia in a psychotic episode and then attributed it to a supernatural experience she had. Yes, it's a straightforward novel and I feel disappointed with Atwood for that. (I'm Jayaprakash's wife, by the way).

[beelzebubbles]

@Beelzebubbles, yes the character you mention is Charis. I sometimes wonder if she did kill Zenia in a psychotic episode and then attributed it to a supernatural experience she had. Yes, it's a straightforward novel and I feel disappointed with Atwood for that. (I'm Jayaprakash's wife, by the way).

Hello Yasmine, it is nice to cyber-meet you. I am sorry you were disappointed with this novel. I actually read it a couple times, so as you can see I liked it. Did Charis kill Zenia or was Zenia just ill? I can't remember what I believed; it's been years since I read the novel. Certainly, the haunting suggests a murder and possibly psychosis. Or it could just be guilt at wishing someone harm who committed great harm.

[Bjorn]

Who doesn't love Canada:

Margaret Atwood to sing in Score: A Hockey Musical | Mother Atwood | torontolife.com (http://www.torontolife.com/daily/hype/mother-atwood/2010/03/10/margaret-atwood-to-sing-in-score-a-hockey-musical/)

[Stiffelio]

Who doesn't love Canada:

Margaret Atwood to sing in Score: A Hockey Musical | Mother Atwood | torontolife.com (http://www.torontolife.com/daily/hype/mother-atwood/2010/03/10/margaret-atwood-to-sing-in-score-a-hockey-musical/)

She's a real trooper! I'm beginning to like her more now :-)

[waalkwriter]

Atwood is a very politically relevant writer. Her novel a Handmaiden's Tale seems nightmarishly relevant to the modern culture right that you have to look no than the Texas State Board of Education, though there is some hope that the tide of the Christian Culture Warriors has peaked in America.

[DB Cooper]

Making a trip to the bookstore tomorrow, and Im considering picking up Oryx and Crake. Ive never read any Atwood but Im in the mood for a good bleak post-apocalyptic story. Is this book entertaining?

[Liam]

An excellent recent piece in The Millions: The Journey to Planet X: Margaret Atwood's In Other Worlds (http://www.themillions.com/2012/01/a-journey-to-planet-x-margaret-atwoods-in-other-worlds.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+themillionsblog%2Ffedw+%28The +Millions%29)