• Welcome to BookAndReader!

    We LOVE books and hope you'll join us in sharing your favorites and experiences along with your love of reading with our community. Registering for our site is free and easy, just CLICK HERE!

    Already a member and forgot your password? Click here.

Margaret Atwood

Ell said:
Somewhere along the line - not quite sure when - I started to "get" her sharp, sardonic wit. I went back and re-read The Robber Bride, The Edible Woman, Cat's Eye. I realized that she's not afraid to write about, what I call, the inner-bitch that lurks inside a lot of us. I found I could relate to the characters and, if I was honest, could see parts of myself in some of them.
Click to expand...

I'm wondering if the inner bitch or, even better, inner strong woman, is inside all of us. I love her writing because she spreads power to women who live somewhat mundane lives. In so many ways, being a woman is synonymous with a lack of power, and Atwood's razor wit is like a secret power. Hard to explain at this time of night. Will think more on it and post more coherently. Great insight, Ell.
 
I love Margaret Atwood - I read 'The Handmaid's Tale' and absolutely adored it. Then I read 'Alias Grace', which was certainly good, but almost put me off Atwood in the fact that the thing I had loved most about her was her writing style in 'The Handmaid's Tale', but this seemed to become predictable and a little annoying in 'Alias Grace'. Having said that, I read a lot of her poetry, and this turned me back onto her, as it's powerful and passionate, and gives me faith that she is genuinely an amazing writer, so I'm probably going to pick up 'Oryx and Crake' soon.
 
Last year I finally read The Handmaid's Tale and this time I enjoyed it. I think I was just not a mature enough reader the first time I read it...when it first came out. Tastes change, it's true, but some of the scenes in it just stopped me cold the first time.

I have The Robber Bride, Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin, Oryx and Crake and Life Before Man in the stack to read eventually.

Steffee...in another thread somewhere you told me so, and you were right. :D:flowers:
 
Margaret Atwood is definitely an aquired taste. She's a little bit tart and slightly bitter - kind of like a green olive, you know? :)
 
AquaBlue said:
Is Atwood's September '09 release of The Year of the Flood a follow-up of Oryx and Crake?
Click to expand...

The site you linked to clearly says it is if you read the words as well as look at the pictures.
The book focuses on a group called God's Gardeners, a small community of survivors of the same environmental catastrophe depicted in Atwood's earlier novel Oryx and Crake. The earlier novel contained several brief references to the group.
Click to expand...
I really liked Oryx And Crake, so it'll be interesting to see what she makes of it.
 
Another question frequently asked about Oryx and Crake concerned gender. Why was the story told by a man? How would it have been different if the narrator had been a woman? Such questions led me to Ren and Toby, and then to their respective lives, and also to their places of refuge. A high-end sex club and a luxury spa would in fact be quite good locations in which to wait out a pandemic plague: at least you’d have bar snacks, and a lot of clean towels.
Click to expand...

from amazon.com

Thanks for the heads-up, AquaBlue. :)
 
Atwood has some really strange stuff... I had to read one of her books in college... but of those type books, it was actually kinda enjoyable. About a dystopia... oh wait, that may be most of her books.
 
readsalot said:
Atwood has some really strange stuff... I had to read one of her books in college... but of those type books, it was actually kinda enjoyable. About a dystopia... oh wait, that may be most of her books.
Click to expand...
I'd only classify three of her novels as dystopian: The Handmaid's Tale, Oryx and Crake, and her most recent, Year of the Flood.

Besides her novels, she's written poetry, non-fiction and short fiction. Some of my favourite Atwood is in her collections of essays and short fiction.

For anyone interested: Her bibliography

.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top