Margaret Atwood

[starbug]

I'm finishing off my current book (The Bitch in the House) which is more a collection of essays on womanhood, dealing with the myth of domestic bliss and stuff...

anyway, recently I've been quite enthusiastic about Margaret Atwood. I read the Handmaid's Tale and loved it... and I just bought her new one Oryx and Crake, though I'm saving it for when I'm on holiday in a week and can really savour it.

I bought my mum Alias Grace and The Blind Assassin for her birthday...

I really like her smooth, lyrical style. The words just seem to flow (sort of how I feel about Paulo Coehlo). The most interesting thing was that I recently went to an event where she read sections of her new book and was then interviewed afterwards (the interviewer was useless and inspired feelings of hatred in everyone there). It was so good - she has a brilliant sense of humour and clearly soaks up information like nobody's business... all of her stuff is grounded totally in reality (eg she said that everything in Oryx and Crake of a scientific nature is being done right now, or is very close to being done and the only reason it hasn't is ethics - her family are all scientists, apparently).

meeting the author of a book I've read was such a total eye-opener. Although her intellect is astounding, it's nice to realise that they are normal humans with normal neuroses...

[cinnamongirl12]

I haven't read any Margaret Atwood books, but one of my favorite poems of all time is by her:

Variations on the Word Sleep

I would like to watch you sleeping,
which may not happen.
I would like to watch you,
sleeping. I would like to sleep
with you, to enter
your sleep as its smooth dark wave
slides over my head

and walk with you through that lucent
wavering forest of bluegreen leaves
with its watery sun & three moons
towards the cave where you must descend,
towards your worst fear

I would like to give you the silver
branch, the small white flower, the one
word that will protect you
from the grief at the center
of your dream, from the grief
at the center. I would like to follow
you up the long stairway
again & become
the boat that would row you back
carefully, a flame
in two cupped hands
to where your body lies
beside me, and you enter
it as easily as breathing in

I would like to be the air
that inhabits you for a moment
only. I would like to be that unnoticed
& that necessary.

[Jody Barsch*]

I havn't read any of her other works, but I LOVE Handmaid's Tale (I make all my students read it) What is the next book of hers i should read?

[starbug]

I read Oryx and Crake a while ago... it was really good. Frightening (in a sort of apocalyptic way) but good.
I love her work but I have run out of money to buy more books so I'm joining the library... they have all of them.