November Read: Margaret Atwood

Share your Atwood reading plans and thoughts here.

I have Hag seed and The Penelopiad to read of Atwood's novels, and then I've got some short story collections and non-fiction. I'm looking forward to a month of great reading!

Slightly early for the month, I've been reading some of Atwood's poetry which I thought was marvellous!

I wrote about it here for the 1968 Club which I co-host with Simon of Stuck in a Book:

https://kaggsysbookishramblings.wordpress.com/2017/10/31/another-side-to-a-great...

I have The Hagseed, Wilderness Tips, and Oryx and Crake tbr.

I thought I was going to read Wilderness Tips but have found myself starting Oryx and Crake

I've read several of Atwood's better-known works already: Handmaid's Tale, Alias Grace, Oryx and Crake & The Year of the Flood, The Penelopiad, The Blind Assassin ... wow, I didn't realize I'd read so many.

Anyway, I've heard great things about The Hagseed, but I'm trying to use these monthly authors to make me read books already on my shelves. So with that in mind, I perused my VMCs and found a few Atwoods. I think I'll read Life Before Man.

>5 lauralkeet: I'm absolutely like you as to "on my shelves" and I'm currently just four short of my ROOTs goal of 75 for this year. I actually don't have any Virago editions of Atwood (I personally do prefer hardcovers with dust jackets if I can get them), but I've got a three-fer of The Edible Woman/Surfacing/Lady Oracle (which, clocking in @ 699pp, will also qualify for the Big Fat Books Challenge). I've also got Bodily Harm, Alias Grace, and The Blind Assassin boxed so I know right where they are.

My past Atwood reading has been her sci-fi, The Handmaid's Tale (of course) and the MaddAddam Trilogy. I've also read Penelopiad (which I thought much better than Jeanette Winterson's Weight, which, like Penelopiad, is in the Canongate Myth Series).

I try to combine challenges – it's a good palliative for my OCD! – so the Atwood read is helping me move along on my ROOTing. It's also nice to get another one in for the Big Fat Books Challenge as well.

I just finished Oryx & Crake about half an hour ago. It's brilliant. Can't wait to read the next two in the trilogy - though won't be this month.

I finished The Penelopiad this weekend, which I really enjoyed. Penelope is mostly, but not entirely, sympathetic and tells her story in an entertaining style. Her narrative is interspersed with a chorus of the 12 maids hanged upon Odysseus' orders at the end of The odyssey, which give a slightly different view of events.

Now I'm reading Bluebeard's egg, a collection of short stories from earlier in Atwood's career. The first two feel a bit autobiographical, from what I know of her life as a child and teen, although I'm sure the details are fictional. Animal lovers may want to skip Uglypuss the titular cat isn't dead at the end of the story but he's in a bad place and the prospects don't look good.

>7 Heaven-Ali: this reminds me I never got around to reading the third one. I enjoyed the first two, though.

>8 Sakerfalcon: I liked The Penelopiad too, I thought it was an interesting reimagining.

Though I am typically not an Atwood fan, **gasp**, I did love The Penelopiad and also gave high marks to Surfacing. Her other works I began and purged upon 'Pearl Ruling' them. I have Hag-Seed yet to give a try.
I brought her Murder in the Dark along with me....now if I can just find it amongst all of the other stuff I am unpacking.

>10 rainpebble: It's a relief to see someone else in the group doesn't really care for Margaret Atwood! I feared I might be drummed out if I admitted it. I've read (and quite enjoyed) The Edible Woman a long time ago and read my way through The Blind Assassin and wished I hadn't bothered. I've also started and given up on several others. She is so much admired by people whose opinions I value that I felt I must be missing something...

I was just perusing my library's Kindle collection and noticed The Hag-Seed was available, so I downloaded it and will read it as soon as I finish my current book. And then I'll read Life Before Man, as I originally planned.

Really feeling the need to re-read Alias Grace and The Robber Bride having just re-read The Handmaid's Tale after about 20 years

Kerry - I have loved some of Atwoods, and I mean LOVED then. But I hate her early stuff. It just does nothing for me at all. Fortunately I started with The Handmaid's Tale which blew me away.

I'm not quite a quarter way through The Edible Woman and really enjoying it so far. It's positively hilarious. (ETA: My only previous experience with Atwood is Handmaid's Tale and the MaddAddam trilogy.)

Whoops, another ETA: I've also previously read Penelopiad and some of that weird thing The Heart Goes Last that appeared originally as Kindle installments. I haven't followed up on that one in its full release form.

Finished Bluebeard's egg and while I loved a couple of the stories most were nowhere near as good as her more recent work. The ones I liked were Loulou, the two stories about Emma and Scarlet Ibis, with the title story and the possibly-autobiographical ones also being good. Most of the others ended leaving me with the feeling that I'd missed something and hadn't understood the story. Atwood is good at making it clear that neither men not women are saints or angels; all are deeply flawed and not always likeable.

>14 romain:, >15 CurrerBell: I like the early novels (The edible woman is one of my favourites) but based on what I've just read her later stories are a definitely improvement over her early work.

>11 CDVicarage:
I am right there with you on valuing the opinions of those here who do love Atwood. I respect all of the members of this group so much & I do get most of my recs from them. Still & all it is nice to know I am not alone.

I just finished The Edible Woman (5*****) and positively loved it! Marian's work at Seymour Surveys reminds me of Shirley Jackson's story “My Life With R.H. Macy." And the graduate English majors thinking up term-paper topics like "Monosyllables in Milton" and coming up with thesis topics that no one yet had done, stuff like Malthusian effects on poetry – reminds me of me a half-century ago.

I reviewed Oryx & Crake on my blog today.

https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2017/11/10/oryx-crake-margaret-atwood-2003/

>15 CurrerBell: I didn't get on with The Heart goes last loved the beginning then it got really silly and didn't really go anywhere.

2** to Atwood's second novel, Surfacing (review), which I thought was poorly written (especially filled with typos and run-on sentences, though this may have been the fault of the edition that I read). My main problem with Surfacing is that it was a realistic novel throughout until the ending, which introduced some confusing symbology for which Atwood never really prepared her reader. I'm surprised, because I positively loved The Edible Woman, but maybe Atwood just got a little bit beyond herself in her second novel, started experimenting in a way that she wouldn't be prepared for until she had greater literary maturity.

Mike - I read her completely out of order and went back to her earlier stuff after enjoying her later novels. According to my reading log, I really liked Wilderness Tips, but really disliked Bluebeard's Egg and Surfacing. My VMC list shows that at some point I also read The Edible Woman but I can find no comment on it. I think my problem with Atwood has always been that I am an emotion-based reader and these earlier books were just not my cup of tea.

I finished The Hag-Seed last night and absolutely loved it. It was my first exposure to the Hogarth Shakespeare series, and I thoroughly enjoyed Atwood's modern reimagining of The Tempest. I was not very familiar with the original work; I read a brief plot summary before beginning this book. The characters and setting were fresh and interesting, and it was really fun to watch the original story unfold.

I was planning to read another Atwood this month, and I have three VMCs on my shelves, but none of them are calling to me. Instead I just requested Jeanette Winterson's Hogarth Shakespeare book from the library.

I'm now reading Wilderness tips short story collection. Good so far.

>21 CurrerBell: You might like Lady Oracle as it is has the humour and a similar tone to The edible woman. I like Surfacing for the sense of place but have never been able to make sense of the ending!

>25 Sakerfalcon: I just finished Lady Oracle (4****) and definitely agree, it's much better than Surfacing (2**), though I do like Lady Edible The Edible Woman (5*****) best of the three. Lady Oracle does have the somewhat the same humor as Lady Edible The Edible Woman, but Lady Oracle's humor tends toward the surreal and doesn't always have the perfect fit with the novel's overall tone of realism. Lady Edible The Edible Woman doesn't have this same kind of inconsistency.

Plus, I really love Lady Edible The Edible Woman's Seymour Surveys and the spoofing of the graduate English majors!

ETA: Whoops! Should be The Edible Woman.

>26 CurrerBell: I agree with you about preferring Edible woman slightly over Lady Oracle. EW is one of my favourite books, not just of those by Atwood.

This weekend I read Hag seed and really enjoyed it. I loved seeing how the production of The Tempest comes together, and how Felix's plan for revenge unfolds. I thought the novel worked very well as a modern take on the play (I've heard that one or two of the others in this series are not so successful). I'd recommend this to anyone who likes books about theatre as well as to those who are specifically fans of Atwood.

Now I've started Curious pursuits, a collection of Atwood's journalism and speechwriting from the 1970s to 2005.

Today I reviewed Wilderness Tips loved it.

https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2017/11/20/wilderness-tips-margaret-atwood-1992/

>27 Sakerfalcon: I totally agree with your thoughts on Hag-Seed, Claire. I loved it.

After my relative failures with Nina Bawden and Christina Stead, and total failure with Margaret Kennedy, I didn't make any particular plans for Margaret Atwood month though I did set aside a pile of her books. Strangely I have not yet read any of her novels though I have read and, in one case even reread, several collections of her short stories, with mixed results.

The topmost novel on the pile was Surfacing, which I had some misgivings about given the comments above. However, it was both the shortest and my most recent Atwood acquisition so I picked it up. I found the introduction by Francine du Plessix Gray slightly off-putting and (on rereading it after finishing the novel) quite misleading. In short I did not find the story compelling. I loved the wilderness descriptions but not the characters. The progress of the unnamed main character's self-discovery was interesting until towards the end of the book when it got a bit incomprehensible, and the ending did not seem quite right either. Also the anti-Americanism may have been around in Canada when it was published (perhaps it still is) but it seemed overdone to me. Still it was worth reading but I did not find it "one of the important novels of the twentieth century" as the writer of the introduction would have us believe.

Next on the pile is The Edible Woman, which sounds much more promising.

>10 rainpebble: >11 CDVicarage: Another one here who is not really a fan, so this is the first time I have checked this thread. Interesting to read the commentary. I used to read a lot of Atwood, found her earlier work quite funny, but then when she ventured into sci-fi, I stopped reading her. I think the last one I read was The Handmaid's Tale. There's also the thing that in Canada it feels like a sort of civic duty to read each new work, which can be discouraging. Oddly, I really enjoy hearing her in discussions on the radio, where her offbeat humour really shines.

Having agitated for Atwood I haven't actually read very much of her this month! But I *am* enjoying Strange Things, a collection of lectures about Canada's frozen north and its influence on their literature which is fascinating!

>32 kaggsy: That is on my tbr pile! Glad you are enjoying it!

Curious pursuits is full of insightful pieces about writing, writing as a woman, writing as a Canadian, as well as pieces about Atwood's family and reviews and introductions to other authors. It's great to read on the train as I can usually complete a couple of articles during my journey time.

I've just started Bodily Harm, picking it because of its relatively short length. This will be my last Atwood over the holiday period.

>32 kaggsy: Strange Things is an excellent book indeed.

Just squeezing in my review of Strange Things before the end of the month - really, really enjoyed it, and I do love Atwood's humour!

https://kaggsysbookishramblings.wordpress.com/2017/11/30/the-lure-of-the-frozen-...

I've ended the month with Moral disorder, an excellent collection of linked short stories centred around the life of one woman. We see her as the daughter of slightly eccentric parents, before she herself marries and becomes a mother, then as an older woman with aging parents. Most are written in the 1st person with the narrator nameless, but in the middle of the book the voice switches to third person and we learn that the woman's name is Nell. All of the stories were good, though I think my favourite was The entities, about houses and homes; it features the wonderful Lillie who sounds like the nicest estate agent ever. Animal lovers may wish to be warned that in the title story and White Horse bad things happen to animals - mainly as a result of normal or accidental farming life. Highly recommended.

Just finishing up Margaret Atwood with Bodily Harm (4****). Reminds me of Graham Greene. Took a little longer because I had five nights out of things in the hospital (congestive heart failure) and I took my Kindle with me but didn't have Bodily Harm on it so I read some other stuff – mainly the 18th century dramatist Richard Brinsley Sheridan.

You ok now Mike????

Better, but quite a way to go.

I was in the hospital one overnight before Thanksgiving and they diagnosed COPD (along with a slight rise in the creatine level, which means a slight reduction in kidney function). Discharged me on prednisone and told me to take plenty of fluid to clear the mucus and keep the kidneys going well. NOT! They'd failed to diagnose the CHF, where you DON'T want a lot of fluid, So when I landed back in the hospital the Saturday after Thanksgiving and they realized there was CHF (which the paramedic may have been the first to identify), my cardiologist was really ticked that they hadn't called him on the prior admission. He's taken over now and told me HE will coordinate with the pulmonary people – who are good, but I worship this cardiologist, whom I've had since my heart attack 6½ years ago.

I was in the hospital five overnights, discharged last Thursday morning. I was on the telemetry ward, on heart monitor the whole time.

I'm finishing up on the prednisone and I'm still taking an antibiotic, and the antibiotic really upset my stomach this morning and caused some diarrhea, but that's a small discomfort and the antibiotic regimen will be over soon. My biggest problem right now is a sometimes hacking cough, but the hospitalist at Delaware County Memorial gave me a prescription for Tessalon-Perles, which is an absolute WONDER DRUG.

I've got a post-discharge follow-up with one of my cardiologist's younger associates this Thursday.

I really love the medical care at Delaware County Memorial Hospital (Pennsylvania), but I've had six ambulance trips this year to the ER, five of them overnight stays, and I'm hoping they have a very Merry Christmas without me. Every time, although there's been COPD involvement, I can identify some other specific trigger – in February, the flu; my July trips, extreme constipation from gastroparesis, pressuring the diaphragm; this past month, CHF (for which I already have a definite history, and this is the serious one).

Whoa! I know it was serious Mike because they kept you in for 5 nights. I hope Richard Brinsley Sheridan was entertaining :)

>41 romain: I've been reading the plays in order. So far, The Rivals, St Patrick's Day, The Duenna, A Trip to Scarborough. Have another act or so to go on The School for Scandal and mean to get around to finishing it, but I'm currently ER-read/review of The Girl in the Tower (absolutely fantastic) which ties in with the Reading Through Time group's December read, "Fractured Fairy Tales." I seem to have attracted other RTTers to this new trilogy, because at least a couple are reading the first book, The Bear and the Nightingale. Based on Russian folklore.

I mean to get through the entire body of Sheridan on Kindle because I just happened to stumble across what looks like a pretty good biography of Sheridan and want to read at least the plays first. Found it at a used bookstore in Doylestown, Bucks County Bookshop, on Janet's Irish lit/history/bio shelf.

>42 CurrerBell: Sorry to hear of your recent medical woes. I'm glad you get such good care in hospital but I share your wish that you can stay away for a while, especially over the holidays.
I loved The bear and the nightingale so I'm glad to see that you are so enthusiastic about the sequel. Onto my wishlist it goes ...

I finally finished The Edible Woman last night. I didn't find it compelling enough to finish it before the end of last month when a lot of other things were going on. But it was definitely worth reading, particularly once I got to the party scene and its aftermath. On balance I preferred it to Surfacing but I'm still waiting for my 'blown away by Atwood' experience (after only two novels & three collections of short stories!). Still I must confess I haven't read The Handmaid's Tale yet, though I did see the original film when it was released. From reading the comments above it looks as though I should try some of her later works.