canadian

This is an eclectic collection of short pieces (a little too short and non-narrative to be called short stories) on topics such as Chicken Little, the importance of dumb women in literature, Hamlet from Gertrude's perspectives, war, death, birth and more. There is no doubting, reading this, that Atwood has a feminist bent, but don't let that you scare you off - it is definitely not a ram-down-your-throat version of feminism. Rather, it is a funny, smart and insightful perspective.

I would not recommend this as an introduction to Atwood - a first time reader would probably be better suited to reading one of her novels such as The Blind Assassin or The Handmaid's Tale first. But I think that for readers that have encountered Atwood before, this collection will give you an insight into a fascinating and wryly humourous writer.

Much as I hate to give anything by Margaret Atwood fewer than 5 stars, honesty requires me to say that this collection is uneven and sometimes boring. Flashes of brilliance (_Hamlet_ from Gertrude's perpective is the best) still make it worth reading. What the heck - you'll get through it in an afternoon, and it's MUCH better than most of what's out there.

There is quite a mixture of ``genres'' and moods in the book. Some of them, I do not know how to name these writings, are pure satires and witty criticisms of the crook in every human being and in humanity in general, and others are like a breeze getting free from one's stream of consciousness. I felt this latter type really close to me and discovered why: because they are poems without the traditional poetic form. They can transmit a mood into the reader. Yes, they have no story or obvious message to the mind but rather to the whole human being; not food for the analysing mind but a kind of programs that get all your internal resources arranged into a special pattern which is more visual, that is, you rather wonder at it than think about it because you feel it moving and coming to life in you, than verbal.