Tag Archives: Margaret Atwood

Good literature keeps you thinking about it.  There’s an obvious theme and message here that Atwood wants to get across regarding men and religion:  be very, very afraid of either, and especially both.  I don’t agree with her, but I … Continue reading → Continue reading →

As I said, I wasn’t nuts about Offred, the main character in this novel, and while I’m open-minded enough to accept what an author is laying down as setting, environment, language, etc., I did also have a small problem suspending … Continue reading → Continue reading →

So as I mentioned, I’m not enthralled with Atwood’s main character and my general feeling was one of her first being a wimp (even her best friend Moira felt this way) for going along with everything so placidly–even while Atwood … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Finally getting the time-consuming computer problem solved (with a fax machine, second hard drive, and scanner to hook up still plus a camcorder to fiddle with), I’ve gotten back into sitting around eating bon-bons and reading some of the days … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Atwood is fairly open with her metaphors, and pretty versatile about the way she uses them. It’d be hard to say that the whole novel is a metaphor, and yet in certain ways it is: Feminism, religious extremism, government control, … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Ah, here is where Atwood comes up with language use that lures the reader back into a literary frame of mind, straight into the dangers of her world: I can’t think of myself, my body, sometimes, without seeing the skeleton: … Continue reading → Continue reading →

A third of the way through, I find that we’ve only covered about three days in the present.  The backstory is in layers:  Offred’s past, just prior to this when she was "in training"; her life with her husband and … Continue reading → Continue reading →

First of all, the sci-fi element surprised me–being an Atwood novel.  But she (who I can’t help but say reminds me of Rhea Perlman [Carla on Cheers] ) has always played a bit with time and the lives of her … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Tough decision–what to read next.  But with about 150 books on the shelf, all now nice and neatly alphabetized by author, it’s quite a delight to be able to browse and pull out what strikes me. There are quite a … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Naturally, with the deed done and the suspects either hanged or imprisoned at the start of the book, the burden of maintaining tension within the retelling of the story lies in the building up to the moment based on the … Continue reading → Continue reading →

I do, I do, I do have lots to say about more predawn reading, but must frame quickly ten small Chinese papercuts into little golden frames before this client walks through my shop door.  However, as a teaser: Suddenly he … Continue reading → Continue reading →

While the use of Grace’s first person narrative voice in the retelling of her story to the point at which the story begins is exciting in its intimacy (as posted previously), something about it is starting to bother me. Grace … Continue reading → Continue reading →

How remiss to have neglected to mention the quilt as the leit-motif in Alias Grace, but it seemed so obvious that I find it hard to believe that a writer such as Atwood would use it to imply any hidden … Continue reading → Continue reading →

A thought on Atwood’s choice of telling story via the first person of the protagonist, Grace Marks and the question of reliable narrator (God help me, I hope I have this term correct, being on the brink of senility as … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Atwood employs the use of tale-telling in braiding the past with the present in the story of Grace Marks.  She has in the first few pages of the book used exposition to present the reader with the situation:  A young … Continue reading → Continue reading →