Matt
Does exactly what it says on the tin, although my god, the sex scenes are excruciating to read...
Does exactly what it says on the tin, although my god, the sex scenes are excruciating to read...
Genuinely hard to believe that this was Margaret Atwood's first (published) novel. All the elements that would go on to make her such a distinctive voice are already in place, and it landed at the perfect time to capture the cultural zeitgeist of the nascent second wave feminist movement (even though Atwood herself notes it was written before that really landed, so can't really be considered a product of the movement).
The story of Marian MacAlpin who finds herself fighting a losing battle to meet the expectations of the moment is pretty straightforward, although the switch between first and third person perspectives is a fun authorial flourish that a more seasoned writer would probably discard but really works for this story. While a product of a specific moment in time, Marian's disintegration and symbolic rebirth still hits just as hard today, although as Atwood notes in the foreword it's not like her options are much better at the end of the story than at the beginning (which is very milennial coded, when you think about it). The supporting characters are uniformly fun and well drawn too, although long-time MVP Ainsley is probably aging the worst of the bunch due to <insert literally everything she does to and with Len>.
Genuinely hard to believe that this was Margaret Atwood's first (published) novel. All the elements that would go on to make her such a distinctive voice are already in place, and it landed at the perfect time to capture the cultural zeitgeist of the nascent second wave feminist movement (even though Atwood herself notes it was written before that really landed, so can't really be considered a product of the movement).
The story of Marian MacAlpin who finds herself fighting a losing battle to meet the expectations of the moment is pretty straightforward, although the switch between first and third person perspectives is a fun authorial flourish that a more seasoned writer would probably discard but really works for this story. While a product of a specific moment in time, Marian's disintegration and symbolic rebirth still hits just as hard today, although as Atwood notes in the foreword it's not like her options are much better at the end of the story than at the beginning (which is very milennial coded, when you think about it). The supporting characters are uniformly fun and well drawn too, although long-time MVP Ainsley is probably aging the worst of the bunch due to <insert literally everything she does to and with Len>.
Absolutely unmissable if you're a fan of Margaret Atwood, right from the start her authorial voice comes through so strongly that it feels like catching up with an long-time friend who you don't see as much as you used to, but are delighted every time you bump into each other - especially since she's clearly not afraid to spill some messy gossip. The connections between her life and her work come through strongly and while her fiction never seems to be fully autobiographical, I'm looking forward to re-reading her work to see how different they feel with all this new knowledge. The sections focusing on Graeme Gibson's life are probably the least interesting if you're just here to get your Atwood fix, but the central role he played in her life eventually makes these diversions from her main story feel necessary to understanding her as a person. Ultimately left me feeling a bit melancholic as aging and death start to move from the periphery to the centre of the story - Margaret Atwood feels like a load bearing presence, and I'd much rather not think of a world without her in it.
Absolutely unmissable if you're a fan of Margaret Atwood, right from the start her authorial voice comes through so strongly that it feels like catching up with an long-time friend who you don't see as much as you used to, but are delighted every time you bump into each other - especially since she's clearly not afraid to spill some messy gossip. The connections between her life and her work come through strongly and while her fiction never seems to be fully autobiographical, I'm looking forward to re-reading her work to see how different they feel with all this new knowledge. The sections focusing on Graeme Gibson's life are probably the least interesting if you're just here to get your Atwood fix, but the central role he played in her life eventually makes these diversions from her main story feel necessary to understanding her as a person. Ultimately left me feeling a bit melancholic as aging and death start to move from the periphery to the centre of the story - Margaret Atwood feels like a load bearing presence, and I'd much rather not think of a world without her in it.
