Alias Grace was one of the best-written books I read this year, not only for the intresting story, but mostly for the quality of the prose and the writing style.
Alias Grace was one of the best-written books I read this year, not only for the intresting story, but mostly for the quality of the prose and the writing style.
I have only read 'The Handmaid's Tale' and although I enjoyed the plot I became bored with her writing style. I found myself wanting to rush through it and move on to something else. Calling her style monotonous is, in my opinion, absolutely correct.
Last edited by Mariamosis; 08-28-2009 at 01:37 PM.
-Mariamosis
The monotony is mainly apparant at the beginning: 'We had that. Now we have this. Miserable' especially as the plot hasn't really developed yet. I wouldn't read anything else of hers I don't think.Originally Posted by Mariamosis
As one who doesnt know much of the ins and outs of Canadian literature, I think Islandclimber has it about right. A very good writer, but with a feminist agenda that's always there, like too much garlic in your dauphinoise.
Yep, just what I thought, or as Keats said, (ish) "we distrust something that has a unpalatable design upon us" I mean all men aren't that bad are they?
It's not even that though, because her plots are that well developed in her historical writing. In, for instance, Alias Grace, there is a very strong female component, and the actual daily narrative is perfectly researched - we have essentially the proof of it, and Atwood went back and dug it up. It's not that really, it's just that she is so obsessed with ironizing everything, and making everything she can depressing - that's what I feel is really the monotony. The poem This Is A Photograph Of Me ( http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets...wood/poems/312 ), for instance, isn't based on gender associations - but on a total wilderness - the artist, despite any real gender, is merely reduced to some unmarked speck in the beauty of the picture - there isn't gender there, but rather an empty frame - nothing but the dead artist, unable to get any real expression out of the photograph that speaks of its maker directly. For some reason she finds that interesting - the feminist narrative just surfaced, because, quite frankly, women weren't and aren't treated well. It's just in The Handmaid's Tale, which for some reason has become her staple everywhere, but is hardly her best work, took things to a worst case scenario, as a means of ironizing the whole (mostly American) feminist academic and discourse heavy climate around its publication in the first place.
Last edited by JBI; 08-28-2009 at 07:28 PM.
Love this poem by Atwood:
You Begin
You begin this way:
this is your hand,
this is your eye,
that is a fish, blue and flat
on the paper, almost
the shape of an eye.
This is your mouth, this is an O
or a moon, whichever
you like. This is yellow.
Outside the window
is the rain, green
because it is summer, and beyond that
the trees and then the world,
which is round and has only
the colors of these nine crayons.
This is the world, which is fuller
and more difficult to learn than I have said.
You are right to smudge it that way
with the red and then
the orange: the world burns.
Once you have learned these words
you will learn that there are more
words than you can ever learn.
The word hand floats above your hand
like a small cloud over a lake.
The word hand anchors
your hand to this table,
your hand is a warm stone
I hold between two words.
This is your hand, these are my hands, this is the world,
which is round but not flat and has more colors
than we can see.
It begins, it has an end,
this is what you will
come back to, this is your hand.
~
"It is not that I am mad; it is only that my head is different from yours.”
~
Love her books, hate the endings.
I think that sums it up.
Some of the feminist principles are a bit much for me to stomach. I agree with most of what JBI said, honestly.
Naked except for a cigarette, you let your mind drift and forget your disbelief. Feel the chill down your back and the flutter of wings through dandelion fields, and forget the pull of gravity in a night without stars.
I lack eloquence and commitment to my arguments. They are half baked, and I will begin passionately, and then abandon them.
Handmaid's Tale is one of the best things I have ever read. I should really read more of her...but i've heard only good things about Oryx.
I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of anything than of a book! When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
Through research, I've become familiar with her life but never had the chance to read her works. I think she's quite possibly one of the most inspiring feminists I've come across.
Dreams! adorations! illuminations! religions!
the whole boatload of sensitive!
— Allen Ginsberg, Howl II.
In terms of achievement, I don't know if the woman sleeps - she seems to read widely, write rapidly, yet somehow is also one of the biggest self-promoters there are (she has a blog, facebook, twitter, you name it), plus she supposedly answers all her mail, and does a lot of work for Pen Canada and other organizations - as well as appears at every book promotion event possible.
I Was checking out the non-fiction books she's written, I found them interesting, well the subject at least, Canadian literature and days of the rebels 1815-1840....
does anyone have an opinion on her non-fictional books
I hope death is joyful, and I hope I'll never return -Frida Khalo
If I seem insensitive to what you are going through, understand it's the way I am- Mr. Spock
Personally, I think that the unique and supreme delight lies in the certainty of doing 'evil'–and men and women know from birth that all pleasure lies in evil. - Baudelaire
Read above, I gave a commentary on her literary criticism, especially her volume Survivor.
yeah I did read that, but what about that book on the rebels, I don't know what it's about or what happened in these years she talks about... maybe I just need to check out the library....
I find it interesting how she writes about everything and her style, but I definitely think it's strange to have all these pages on herself, facebook and all that, I don't know half of them and don't use any, very self promoting...I prefer a bit of a mystery.
I hope death is joyful, and I hope I'll never return -Frida Khalo
If I seem insensitive to what you are going through, understand it's the way I am- Mr. Spock
Personally, I think that the unique and supreme delight lies in the certainty of doing 'evil'–and men and women know from birth that all pleasure lies in evil. - Baudelaire
I haven't read the text of Days of the Rebels, but I know a little history of the time - that was generally a time when Canadian history was undergoing significant changes in historiography - the emergence of the "post-modern" in literature also seems to have tied in there, with new interpretations reevaluting traditional perceptions of events - in that sense, it is no surprise that her volume is just a few years younger than the famous play 1837 by Canadian playwright Rick Salutin (a former professor of mine, coincidentally, and someone who has done collaborations with Atwood). I have no doubt, given the tone of history, and of Salutin's play, and a long poem I read whose author and name I cannot remember now dealing with the 1837 revolution, that her book probably takes the ironic stance on revolutionaries in Canadian history, as is still the case - the actual revolutionaries function as more of a joke on the American revolution, and the whole "shot heard around the world" bit than anything else - in the sense that the Canadian revolutionaries are regarded - well, I hate to say in a quixotic vein, with double-edged comic irony (which isn't unseen in portrayals of the French revolution either) but, it kind of feels that way, whereas in American historiography and culture, the revolution is generally felt as "the shot heard around the world".
That's all I can really say about that now, having not read the text itself, but I hope that's helpful, though, from what I understand her book is made up of mostly photographs.
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