Atwood, Margaret Books

The Handmaid's Tale: A Novel

Margaret Atwood

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 560 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

I wasn't expecting this!!!! 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

This book was written very well. I had the creeps while I was reading it. It reminded me of the movie "Children of Men" and the book "The Giver". The entire time I was reading this book, I kept thinking of a certain female vice presidential candidate. I am afraid that she would love the form of government that is described. This is a short read. Give it a whirl.

Editorial Review:

In the world of the near future, who will control women's bodies?

Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead. She may leave the home of the Commander and his wife once a day to walk to food markets whose signs are now pictures instead of words because women are no longer allowed to read. She must lie on her back once a month and pray that the Commander makes her pregnant, because in an age of declining births, Offred and the other Handmaids are only valued if their ovaries are viable.

Offred can remember the days before, when she lived and made love with her husband Luke; when she played with and protected her daughter; when she had a job, money of her own, and access to knowledge. But all of that is gone now....

Funny, unexpected, horrifying, and altogether convincing, The Handmaid's Tale is at once scathing satire, dire warning, and tour de force.

The Blind Assassin: A Novel

Margaret Atwood

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Total reviews: 376 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The Blind Assassin is a tale of two sisters, one of whom dies under ambiguous circumstances in the opening pages. The survivor, Iris Chase Griffen, initially seems a little cold-blooded about this death in the family. But as Margaret Atwood's most ambitious work unfolds--a tricky process, in fact, with several nested narratives and even an entire novel-within-a-novel--we're reminded of just how complicated the familial game of hide-and-seek can be:

What had she been thinking of as the car sailed off the bridge, then hung suspended in the afternoon sunlight, glinting like a dragonfly, for that one instant of held breath before the plummet? Of Alex, of Richard, of bad faith, of our father and his wreckage; of God, perhaps, and her fatal, triangular bargain.

Meanwhile, Atwood immediately launches into an excerpt from Laura Chase's novel, The Blind Assassin, posthumously published in 1947. In this double-decker concoction, a wealthy woman dabbles in blue-collar passion, even as her lover regales her with a series of science-fictional parables. Complicated? You bet. But the author puts all this variegation to good use, taking expert measure of our capacity for self-delusion and complicity, not to mention desolation. Almost everybody in her sprawling narrative manages to--or prefers to--overlook what's in plain sight. And memory isn't much of a salve either, as Iris points out: "Nothing is more difficult than to understand the dead, I've found; but nothing is more dangerous than to ignore them." Yet Atwood never succumbs to postmodern cynicism, or modish contempt for her characters. On the contrary, she's capable of great tenderness, and as we immerse ourselves in Iris's spliced-in memoir, it's clear that this buttoned-up socialite has been anything but blind to the chaos surrounding her. --Darya Silver

Oryx and Crake

Margaret Atwood

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 306 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

In Oryx and Crake, a science fiction novel that is more Swift than Heinlein, more cautionary tale than "fictional science" (no flying cars here), Margaret Atwood depicts a near-future world that turns from the merely horrible to the horrific, from a fool's paradise to a bio-wasteland. Snowman (a man once known as Jimmy) sleeps in a tree and just might be the only human left on our devastated planet. He is not entirely alone, however, as he considers himself the shepherd of a group of experimental, human-like creatures called the Children of Crake. As he scavenges and tends to his insect bites, Snowman recalls in flashbacks how the world fell apart.

While the story begins with a rather ponderous set-up of what has become a clichéd landscape of the human endgame, littered with smashed computers and abandoned buildings, it takes on life when Snowman recalls his boyhood meeting with his best friend Crake: "Crake had a thing about him even then.... He generated awe ... in his dark laconic clothing." A dangerous genius, Crake is the book's most intriguing character. Crake and Jimmy live with all the other smart, rich people in the Compounds--gated company towns owned by biotech corporations. (Ordinary folks are kept outside the gates in the chaotic "pleeblands.") Meanwhile, beautiful Oryx, raised as a child prostitute in Southeast Asia, finds her way to the West and meets Crake and Jimmy, setting up an inevitable love triangle. Eventually Crake's experiments in bioengineering cause humanity's shockingly quick demise (with uncanny echoes of SARS, ebola, and mad cow disease), leaving Snowman to try to pick up the pieces. There are a few speed bumps along the way, including some clunky dialogue and heavy-handed symbols such as Snowman's broken watch, but once the bleak narrative gets moving, as Snowman sets out in search of the laboratory that seeded the world's destruction, it clips along at a good pace, with a healthy dose of wry humor. --Mark Frutkin, Amazon.ca

Alias Grace: A Novel

Margaret Atwood

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 167 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

In 1843, a 16-year-old Canadian housemaid named Grace Marks was tried for the murder of her employer and his mistress. The sensationalistic trial made headlines throughout the world, and the jury delivered a guilty verdict. Yet opinion remained fiercely divided about Marks--was she a spurned woman who had taken out her rage on two innocent victims, or was she an unwilling victim herself, caught up in a crime she was too young to understand? Such doubts persuaded the judges to commute her sentence to life imprisonment, and Marks spent the next 30 years in an assortment of jails and asylums, where she was often exhibited as a star attraction. In Alias Grace, Margaret Atwood reconstructs Marks's story in fictional form. Her portraits of 19th-century prison and asylum life are chilling in their detail. The author also introduces Dr. Simon Jordan, who listens to the prisoner's tale with a mixture of sympathy and disbelief. In his effort to uncover the truth, Jordan uses the tools of the then rudimentary science of psychology. But the last word belongs to the book's narrator--Grace herself.

Moral Disorder and Other Stories

Margaret Atwood

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 18 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Ultimately, this book is a disappointment 3 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

To begin with, I don't understand why this novel is described as a book of short stories. It is a novel with different chapters. I guess you could say any novel is a book of short stories. That was odd to me.

Ultimately, this book is a disappointment. The characters are not likeable, but not unlikable in a sense that they are character studies. They are merely dull people. The main character, Nell, drifts along in a relationship with a very unlikable man, "Tig." He is married to "Oona," has no visible means of support, moves Nell into a dump of a house out in the country, never takes Nell's side in the struggles she has in her life. Nell has a brother, but aside from two or three sentences, he is not in the story, so why did Atwood bother with this character? It is as though she meant to flesh him out, never got around to it, and forgot to delete him from the book. A daughter Tig and Nell had together is mentioned once or twice and never again, too.

There are entire chapters in this book that seem very disconnected from the story, almost like outlines that never got completed. I am referring to "The Other Place," "The Labrador Fiasco," and "The Boys at the Lab." Since the last two chapters mentioned are also the last two chapters in the book, the end of the book is not wrapped up well and leaves you feeling, why did I bother to read this? What was the point? The title of the book does not really tie into the entire work, either, aside from the fact that Nell and Tig lived together out of wedlock. Yawn.

I like to root for or against characters in a work of fiction. I feel this book was very bland. It requires the reader to invest her time and interest, with no ultimate payoff.

Editorial Review:

Margaret Atwood’s latest brilliant collection of short stories follows the life of a single character, seen as a girl growing up the 1930s, a young woman in the 50s and 60s, and, in the present day, half of a couple, no longer young, reflecting on the new state of the world. Each story focuses on the ways relationships transform a character’s life: a woman’s complex love for a married man, the grief upon the death of parents and the joy with the birth of children, the realization of what growing old with someone you love really means. By turns funny, lyrical, incisive, earthy, shocking, and deeply personal, Moral Disorder displays Atwood’s celebrated storytelling gifts and unmistakable style to their best advantage.

Cat's Eye

Margaret Atwood

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 113 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Kids can be so cruel... 4 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

People always say that children are so innocent, and yet most of us have memories of being tormented by other kids at some point during our childhoods. Sometimes we were even guilty of being the young tormenters ourselves. "Cat's Eye" explores the complexities of female friendships and the effects these relationships have on people's lives.

The novel is narrated from the perspective of Elaine Risley, a middle-aged Canadian painter who returns to her hometown of Toronto for a retrospective of her work. From the very beginning of the novel, it is obvious that Elaine has a slight obsession with her childhood friend, Cordelia, whom she hasn't spoken to in years but expects to encounter at the retrospective. The book soon flashes back to Elaine's youth and describes the experience of moving to Toronto with her parents and brother. Young Elaine eventually befriends a group of three other girls, Cordelia among them. There are times when all four girls get along very well, but at other times Cordelia can be incredibly cruel, especially where Elaine is concerned. These childhood relationships have a profound impact on Elaine's life, particularly the interactions she has with Cordelia, which continue into young adulthood. Elaine eventually realizes how her friendships have affected her whole life and helped shape the woman she has become.

I enjoyed "Cat's Eye" very much. Margaret Atwood's portrayal of girlhood friendships is incredibly accurate and painfully honest. It's true that all relationships, even those that ended long ago, have a major affect on people for the rest of their lives, and this book does a great job of illustrating that fact. Personally, I think the book drags a bit in places, and it's not my favorite Atwood novel of all time. However, "Cat's Eye" is very dynamic, powerful, and emotional. It's definitely worth reading.

Editorial Review:

Cat's Eye is the story of Elaine Risley, a controversial painter who returns to Toronto, the city of her youth, for a retrospective of her art. Engulfed by vivid images of the past, she reminisces about a trio of girls who initiated her into the fierce politics of childhood and its secret world of friendship, longing, and betrayal. Elaine must come to terms with her own identity as a daughter, a lover, an artist, and a woman--but above all she must seek release from her haunting memories. Disturbing, hilarious, and compassionate, Cat's Eye is a breathtaking novel of a woman grappling with the tangled knot of her life.

The Penelopiad: The Myth of Penelope and Odysseus (Myths, The)

Margaret Atwood

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 19 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

A Lackluster Protagonist for a Lakluster Story 2 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

Disappointing. My hope was for a retelling of The Odyssey that would give a richer, more intriguing and unique viewpoint of Penelope and her maids over the twenty-year span of Odysseus' absence. What it instead ends up being is a boring recounting of Penelope crying, filling up the time doing nothing, or being sarcastic about life now that she inhabits the Underworld. She speaks in far too modern a tone, and sounds much more like a feminist mouthpiece than anything else. The book also assumes knowledge of the Odyssey--granted, it is a retelling of sorts, but should be enjoyable without me puzzling over certain names or events. And Penelope herself is, in a word, boring. The redeeming factor of the book lie in the interludes, songs and poems and small scenes featuring Penelope's maids acting as a Greek chorus. They are beautiful, clever, and occasionally terribly moving or even funny. They provide the only relief throughout an otherwise dragging story.

Editorial Review:

Margaret Atwood returns with a shrewd, funny, and insightful retelling of the myth of Odysseus from the point of view of Penelope. Describing her own remarkable vision, the author writes in the foreword, “I’ve chosen to give the telling of the story to Penelope and to the twelve hanged maids. The maids form a chanting and singing Chorus, which focuses on two questions that must pose themselves after any close reading of the Odyssey: What led to the hanging of the maids, and what was Penelope really up to? The story as told in the Odyssey doesn’t hold water: there are too many inconsistencies. I’ve always been haunted by the hanged maids and, in The Penelopiad, so is Penelope herself.” One of the high points of literary fiction in 2005, this critically acclaimed story found a vast audience and is finally available in paperback.

The Penelopiad: The Myth of Penelope and Odysseus (Myths)

Margaret Atwood

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 47 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Brilliant! 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Margaret Atwood can't write a bad book, period. If you enjoy the subject matter, you'll like this book.

Editorial Review:

"Homer’s Odyssey is not the only version of the story. Mythic material was originally oral, and also local -- a myth would be told one way in one place and quite differently in another. I have drawn on material other than the Odyssey, especially for the details of Penelope’s parentage, her early life and marriage, and the scandalous rumors circulating about her. I’ve chosen to give the telling of the story to Penelope and to the twelve hanged maids. The maids form a chanting and singing Chorus, which focuses on two questions that must pose themselves after any close reading of the Odyssey: What led to the hanging of the maids, and what was Penelope really up to? The story as told in the Odyssey doesn’t hold water: there are too many inconsistencies. I’ve always been haunted by the hanged maids and, in The Penelopiad, so is Penelope herself." -- from Margaret Atwood’s Foreword to The Penelopiad

Lady Oracle

Margaret Atwood

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 22 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

One of the better books I've read 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I randomly stumbled across this book and I'm so glad. I'd never read any of Atwood's books before this, and was extremely impressed. Her book is a truly inspired blend of hilarious farcical elements combined with haunting, melancholy passages. Joan is an extremely well drawn and three dimensional character, easy to empathize with in spite of, and because of, her numerous quirks, neuroses, and personalities. Combined with Atwood's fluid, flawless writing style, it made for a unique and highly entertaining experience I will not soon forget. Looking forward to reading more from this author.

Editorial Review:

Joan Foster is the bored wife of a myopic ban-the-bomber.  She takes off overnight as Canada's new superpoet, pens lurid gothics on the sly, attracts a blackmailing reporter, skids cheerfully in and out of menacing plots, hair-raising traps, and passionate trysts, and lands dead and well in Terremoto, Italy.  In this remarkable, poetic, and magical novel, Margaret Atwood proves yet again why she is considered to be one of the most important and accomplished writers of our time.

The Robber Bride

Margaret Atwood

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Total reviews: 90 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Margaret Atwood's The Robber Bride is inspired by "The Robber Bridegroom," a wonderfully grisly tale from the Brothers Grimm in which an evil groom lures three maidens into his lair and devours them, one by one. But in her version, Atwood brilliantly recasts the monster as Zenia, a villainess of demonic proportions, and sets her loose in the lives of three friends, Tony,  

Charis, and Roz. All three "have lost men, spirit, money, and time to their old college acquaintance, Zenia. At various times, and in various emotional disguises, Zenia has insinuated her way into their lives and practically demolished them.

To Tony, who almost lost her husband and jeopardized her academic career, Zenia is 'a lurking enemy  commando.' To Roz, who did lose her husband and almost her magazine, Zenia is 'a cold and treacherous bitch.' To Charis, who lost a boyfriend, quarts of vegetable juice and some pet chickens, Zenia is a kind of zombie, maybe 'soulless'" (Lorrie Moore, New York Times Book  Review). In love and war, illusion and deceit, Zenia's subterranean malevolence takes us deep into her enemies' pasts.