Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood was on campus on Wednesday as part of the University's Distinguished Speakers Series.

I went to hear her speak and I have to say that it really wasn't what I expected. Atwood herself was funnier than I imagined. Her talk was on the short side and its topic was "questions people have asked me and their answers" so the whole program ended up being like one huge question-and-answer session.

What she chose to include in her talk was interesting, particularly her discussion of how the questions she's usually asked have changed over the years. She touched on her hair, feminism, speculative fiction, and hope. Her answer to the question of which of her characters is most like her is Zenia from The Robber Bride because she's a pathological liar who's able to spin tales appropriate to her audience.

The audience questions covered a variety of topics. Atwood was asked about her arctic vacations and whether she had any advice for graduate students. Individuals requested that she comment about one character or another and share her feelings about the film adaptation of The Handmaid's Tale (she wishes they'd release an original cut because the voice-over bits were cut out and, while she understood that they had to change the ending, she didn't think what they decided to do was logical).

When Atwood was asked which genre she prefers to write she answered that if she really and truly enjoyed one more than the others that'd be the only genre in which she'd write. She continued that the bit of writing that she finds most difficult is the book review. As a result she reviews infrequently and only books that she likes. She mentioned reviewing E.O. Wilson's first novel Anthill.

She was also asked which authors she always snaps up: Alice Munro and Hilary Mantel. She also threw in a plug for Yann Martel's new book, Beatrice and Virgil (forthcoming in April).

When asked about the impending death of the book (in the wake of e-readers), Atwood mentioned that she'd written a post on her blog detailing three reasons to keep paper books: solar storms, energy shortages, and internet overload.

Books that were mentioned in the program (ordered, more or less, from most-mentioned to least) were The Handmaid's Tale, The Year of the Flood (which we'd expected her to talk more about than she did), Oryx and Crake, The Robber Bride, and Alias Grace. Atwood mentioned her poetry, but generally.

Of course I can't mention everything here, but that was a taste of it.

newsletters

I subscribe to quite a few book-related newsletters, but Powell's Review-a-day is most definitely my favorite.

Today's review was of Margaret Atwood's forthcoming The Year of the Flood so it seemed like the perfect opportunity to mention both the newsletter and the novel.

Why don't you go check out the review and maybe subscribe to the newsletter?

book clubbing in February

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

Last month's book club selection was Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin. I actually didn't finish the book in time for our discussion on Wednesday (I only finished yesterday), but I was rereading and remembered enough that I wasn't going to worry about spoilers.

We had a full and lively discussion on the book, hitting on topics like
- who is the blind assassin referred to in the title
- how would we have reacted to the book if we were older and had lived through more of the time period described in the book
- who was responsible for Laura's death and way
- the fairy tale aspects of the book (this came from one of those sets of discussion questions put out by publishers and we completely disagreed with the question-author about the story being at all fairy tale-like)

One of the best things about reading this book is that it introduced quite a number of our members to Atwood for the first time and left them asking the rest of us about which of her books to read next (we recommended Alias Grace and The Handmaid's Tale).

March is nonfiction...

Starting a book blog - my favs

I thought I'd start out by sharing
a few of my all-time favorite books...

The Storyteller by Mario Vargas Llosa

At a small gallery in Florence, a Peruvian writer happens upon a photograph of a tribal storyteller deep in the jungles of the Amazon. He is overcome with the eerie sense that he knows this man...that the storyteller is not an Indian at all but an old school friend, Saul Zuratas. As recollections of Zuratas flow through his mind, the writer begins to imagine Zuratas's transformation from a modern to a central member of the unacculturated Machiguenga tribe. Weaving the mysteries of identity, storytelling, and truth, Vargas Llosa has created a spellbinding tale of one man's journey from the modern world to our origins, abandoning one in order to find meaning in both.

I haven't read this one in a while, but I still consider it my favorite book.

The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera

Rich in its stories, characters, and imaginative range, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting is the novel that brought Milan Kundera his first big international success in the late 1970s. Like all his work, it is valuable for far more than its historical implications. In seven wonderfully integrated parts, different aspects of human existence are magnified and reduced, reordered and emphasized, newly examined, analyzed, and experienced.

Ok, I'm a bit of a Kundera junkie. I've read every book the man has written, but this one is my favorite (though Immortality is a close second... and his nonfiction books are superb!).

Some quotes from the novel.

All We Know of Love by Katie Schneider

Jo Shepherd grew up on a farm in the Pacific Northwest under the loving care of her grandfather, Frank. After spending months nursing him through his final painful illness, Jo receives a vision of the Virgin Mary, who sends her to Italy to live out her dream of becoming an artist. In doing so, Jo must leave behind her home and her best friend Jack, and risk losing him forever.

This is the debut novel from an unknown author.

I thought it was wonderful and I've read it at least three times. What can I say? This book just spoke to me on so many different levels.

I'm eagerly awaiting Schneider's next book, though I'm a little worried that I won't like it as much as this one.

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood's dystopian, futuristic novel.

This is one of those books that people either love or they hate. I'm one of those who loves it. It's different than alot of Atwood's other books, but in the same vein as Oryx and Crake.

In an interview about The Handmaid's Tale, Atwood said: "I believe as the Victorian novelists did, that a novel isn't simply a vehicle for private expression, but that it also exists for social examination."

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

The story of the tragic decline of an Indian family whose members suffer the terrible consequences of forbidden love, The God of Small Things is set in the state of Kerala, on the southernmost tip of India.

A beautiful and brilliant book, richly deserving of the Booker Prize that it won in 1997.

I will say that I'm pretty disappointed that we haven't seen more fiction from Roy... I know she wants to do the politics thing, but she has such a talent for fiction that it seems a waste to push it aside.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by JK Rowlings

The forth book of the Harry Potter series is my favorite so far.

Fourteen-year-old Harry Potter joins the Weasleys at the Quidditch World Cup, then enters his fourth year at Hogwarts Academy where he is mysteriously entered in an unusual contest that challenges his wizarding skills, friendships and character, amid signs that an old enemy is growing stronger.

If you like audio books, Jim Dale's narration of the books from this series is wonderful.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Jane Austen's perfect comedy of manners--one of the most popular novels of all time--features splendidly civilized sparring between the proud Mr. Darcy and the prejudiced Elizabeth Bennet as they play out their spirited courtship in a series of eighteenth-century drawing-room intrigues.

A classic that's not to be missed, but *PLEASE* steer clear of the latest printings, which include introductions by chick-lit authors... ugh!
See my friend Antheras' blog for more details.

The Big Book of Martyrs: Amazing but True Tales of Faith in the Face of Certain Death!, published by Factoid Books

by John Wagner and over 50 of the world's top comic book artists.

Taken directly from Church-sanctioned sources, these short bios retell the incredible lives of the saints.

This is really just one of the coolest books... the lives of various martyrs are told through comics. And, amazingly enough, the book is not irreverent.

Invitation to the Voyage: An illustrated poem, published by Bulfinch Press (bi-lingual edition)

Charles Baudelaire's masterpiece is brought to life with mood-laden 19th century photographs in this wonderful new presentation of a classic.

Another book that is just a wonderful experience to read.

The Thurday Next books by Jasper Fforde

Books in the series so far: The Eyre Affair, Lost in a Good Book, The Well of Lost Plots, and Something Rotten

This series is simply wonderful. I love Fforde's literary references (they make you want to read the classics all over again!), his fabulous sense of humor, and his awe-inspiring imagination.