Margaret Atwood should fucking die

So I guess I haven't read any Atwood novels at all.

Is this what getting old is going to be like?

'surfacing' is great,
but no one I know loves it
as much as I do

her poetry is amazing, esp. power politics and circle game, her short stories are mixed, but if you find one called birth read it in one sitting, and her flash fiction/occasional collection simple murders/good bones might be the funniest thing i have ever read.

I agree that Handmaid's Tale - although it is a spooky work conceptually - does not particularly deliver, and is probably not her best book, even though it's her most widely known.

I recently read The Edible Woman, which just blew me away. She has a way of capturing emotion in deceptively simple, yet incredibly complex writing. Cats Eye is amazing, the way it blurs the line between autobiography and fiction - so many of her novels *seem* to be autobiographical, which is a compliment, she writes experiences so realisticly. I actually loved Alias Grace, it was one of her first novels that I read, it was complex and layered and intriguing, it made me want to read it over, to see what I'd missed the first time. Robber Bride was OK, but I didn't like it as much as the others. I agree the short stories are good, I have Bluebeard's Egg.

She just has a way of capturing the emotional power games between people, while still making both sides seem sympathetic.

also poems kate poems !!!

I liked the layered, womblikeness of Alias Grace. Because the woman that it was about was a complete mystery, an enigma, so I thought the book was deliberately obscure to try and express that multi-layered aspect of Grace's personality. There weren't supposed to be clear answers - was she a multiple personality? Was she a lying crook? Was she an innocent victim of other people's manipulations? I liked the fact that Atwood presented all aspects, she didn't try to push you into one or other the options.

whats wrong with the poems ?

also,email me yr address and i'll send along a copy of good bones in the post.

I haven't seen Good Bones, it sounds good!

Anyway, the whole thing went to court and he was convicted.

Can anyone remember this, and who it was?

I think it is a bit harsh, to understate the case mightily, to suggest that a writer should die just b/c you think their books = sux0r. Poss i should start a thread - "nick hornby should fall over and graze his knee. a bit." i dunno. All I've read is the handmaid's tale, which i thought was very good. i am a lightweight.

"Aye," says the pirate. "It's drivin' me nuts!"

I dunno about those particular details, but a short while back Evelyn Lau was involved with W.P. Kinsella, and when she wrote an article about the affair the lawyers got involved.

You'd love her poems though! There all depressing about her drowning at the bottom of a lake or meeting long dead hunters. I can't stand her novels but her poetry is darn spooky. I'm slowly becoming convinced that if she was an boozer she'd be the female Bukowski.

Either way Anthony and I have had this conversation before.

Was this thread started because someone got Handmaid's Tale in grade 12 English?

all the margaret atwood threads on ilx are terrible

i just read a margaret atwood novel! it was okay. this thread title is unpleasant.

i know her niece. she's quite lovely.

can't believe she's been dead for 6 years

um - if that's the case there's been a zombie Margret Atwood wandering around for years now!

MAybe he's talking about her niece, who was quite lovely.

cat's eye is a great novel tbh iirc

hmmm. somehow i doubt that.

xpost

Maybe velko's a nutter.

maybe he knows something we don't

jewish?

I love Margaret Atwood. Just finished The Edible Woman, which was marvelous.

i don't know if i'm a fan yet, but i'm considering it. i read the handmaid's tale (almost typed tail lol) so long ago that i don't really remember it, but i just read oryx & crake and loved it. it's one of the most believable near-future dystopias i've come across.

not familiar with her public persona/statements.

xp

i started the new one too (year of the flood) but i'm not far enough in to have an opinion.

jewish?

― T.M.I. Friday's (s1ocki), Tuesday, December 1, 2009 11:48 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

no YOU wish

Jordan, she's really fond of the whole "You see, my book isn't science fiction because..." pronouncement, which is teeth-gratingly annoying. Also some annoying statements about not identifying as a feminist because of not wanting to be pigeonholed, which were less than teeth-gratingly annoying, but still annoying, so.

Also she seems to combine an occasional genuine elegiacism (not a word) with a tendency to write something totally tin-eared every twenty pages or so.

Obviously my personal biases kind of come into play here in that I will forgive a lot of fantasy and SF stuff something totally tin-eared every other paragraph. I have been meaning to read the new two SF ones lately, and the Penelopiad, although the latter one totally rips off something I was going to write when I was seventeen.

it was super-annoying when she pulled that i write science fiction but not because my books are literary thing, yeah.

when did she say she wasn't a feminist; that is a baldfaced lie and totally lol!

cat's eye is a great book.

i guess the genre-snob thing is annoying but musicians do it all the time (see "i don't like to use the word 'jazz'") and no one really takes them seriously about it.

i have enjoyed other books she wrote, too, but if you read a bunch of her books this pattern emerges where female sexuality is represented as, like, dark and dank and musty and after a while you're like, what are you trying to say, margaret atwood?

i can find lots of articles quoting her as saying "i don't know if i am a feminist" but i can't find a source, sry

i bought the blind assassin once and never read it, never read anything by atwood...is that one worth the time?

the central thesis of o&c is basically that sexuality is responsible for all of humanity's ills. but it's a much more fun read than that makes it sound.

i couldn't get past the first couple pages of the blind assassin tbh.

as with most authors i think atwoods books are probably more enjoyable if you pretend she didnt exist and her books were all written by a faceless computer that didnt have any opinions about science fiction

i kind of liked bc it tells a family story in a conventionally realist way but it's not going to set the world on fire or anything

xpost about the blind assassin

i love margaret atwood, not overly familiar w/her public statements but it seems obvious that when she does "scifi" stuff it's not really proper scifi (ie, i like it, and i'm not really a scifi fan otherwise).

the handmaid's tale - this is the one that got me into her at ~14. v much a departure in context of most of her other books and as per max i suspect i'd find it pretty heavy-handed/stilted now
oryx & crake - much better venture into dystopian worlds - what i love about atwood is that she makes her worlds so utterly believable (whether the worlds in her characters' heads or a wider transformed society) - even when they're ludicrous, as they are in places here
cat's eye - again read this as a teenager, insisted that i write my gcse coursework on it, rather than do "of mice and men" like the rest of the class, which i found hideously boring. it might well be the kind of book you need to read as a teenager
the robber bride/alias grace/the blind assassin - these are actually my favourite atwood novels but weirdly i don't have much to say beyond that - just that i think her precise style and penchant for multiple perspectives really suits these epics with only a few main characters
the penelopiad - really enjoyed this but v possibly b/c i have a soft spot for anything greek mythology related

if you've never read any atwood though and you want to you should read...cat's eye

so your definition of proper sci fi is that ... you know it's proper sci fi because you don't like it?

i'll kill you, lex >:[

from what i can see she totally revels in being a cranky, difficult old woman, and there's nothing not to love about that

oh wait you're not calling cat's eye hideously boring, never mind

as with most authors i think atwoods books are probably more enjoyable if you pretend she didnt exist and her books were all written by a faceless computer that didnt have any opinions about science fiction

totally improves dickens imo

ha i wondered wtf, xp. cat's eye is great.

yeah i don't approve of dumb statements about genre or claiming not to be a feminist, but she seems really mean in a way that i <3

so your definition of proper sci fi is that ... you know it's proper sci fi because you don't like it?

i guess? i've found anything sold under sci-fi kinda unappealing whatever the medium (book/film/tv/whatever) so the fact that i enjoy atwood indicates that she's either way above-average sci-fi or not "proper" sci-fi. kind of like people who don't like hip-hop but do like MIA (but hopefully not as annoying).

kind of like people who don't like hip-hop but do like MIA (but hopefully not as annoying).

haha yeah. tbh this is the sort of issue that turned me off margaret atwood a lot more at 15 than it does now.

enjoy atwood indicates that she's either way above-average sci-fi

lol your monomaniacal faith in your own taste is p rad

m.atwood seems a lot like science fiction because shes not really great @ "science" or "fiction" but i kind of like her books anyway

she's good at fiction! that's what i was thinking while reading the blind assassin; this lady is a pro, she sure has written lots of novels.

mo is based on just reading oryx & crake

thats y its so authoritative

o&c is pretty good at both science & fiction imo

"time to go" imo

I have now read the first half dozen pages of The Blind Assassin. It's pretty good, actually.

her poetry is lovely

haha @ i h8 thinking about things i shouldnt post so um i just remember thinking

a) lol one dude basically killed everyone on earth
b) wolvogs really?
c) the pre-disaster world seemed too outlandish and EVERY ONE OF YOUR FEARS IS REAL too be credible
d) i didnt really "get" oryx's character and then she ended up being an actual symbol lol

there was probably more so much just struck me as ridiculous and oftentimes she would describe things (porn, videogames, asian ppl) like her only experience w/ them was through disdainful mentions @ dinner parties

but i mean i kind of liked the book and read it really avidly and will def read the recently published novel in the same world so

i liked the year of the flood book a lot, axully. lots of sexuality, period. not just 'musty female sexaulity' except for old toby and the mushroom lady.

yeah, in fact, the sexuality in blind assassin was not particularly musty, either. maybe i am misremembering and being overly harsh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkkwEXi-zZI

search:

surfacing, lady oracle, cat's eye, alias grace, survival, half of her essays

destroy:

her public persona (see above, and i never want to hear another cbc radio interview about her "longpen" or about how she's "blogging," go away), her last three books, the other half of her essays and nonfiction writing (incl recent "on debt" thing)

when did she say she wasn't a feminist; that is a baldfaced lie and totally lol!

Pretty sure she's just trying to say she disagrees with some elements of the feminist movement... I think she's known some very strident practitioners. This dates way back to interviews for Cat's Eye, but I remember her talking about being criticized by feminists for that book -- mostly for the negative female characters, iirc.

It's good to see the Edible Woman appreciation here. I love it, but thought it had been largely forgotten. It's my second favorite Atwood after Cat's Eye.

Surprising thing I learned today: Claude Jutra (director of Mon oncle Antoine) made a movie of Surfacing in 1981.

Anyone else looking forward to the TV adaptation of Handmaid's Tale?

Me!

really? you had to revive this thread to ask that !?

WTF with this thread title

And the first post! Can we possibly drop this thread, and revive something a little less grossly misogynistic and threatening? :|

for Handmaid's Tale talk I suggest:

Best Album from Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale from the mixtapes the story is supposedly reconstructed from according to the Historical Notes in the back

for general Atwood I propose:

taking sides: munro vs atwood

yeah it's gross, lock thread

i'm sorry..didn't do it with bad intentions..

jesus christ.