There were those who admired The Edible Woman, while Surfacing—post-discovery chic?—attracted still more attention. This is by far the most cheerful novel Margaret Atwood's written—picking up themes and traces of her former books while subduing the determined, symbolic Millettantism of her second one. Lady Oracle is entertainment de luxe (even a Redbook appearance)—she's Joan Foster, once the very unwanted, fat child of an awful mother who had wretched experiences with everyone except her loving Aunt Lou (e.g. the time her dancing teacher converted her from a butterfly into a mothball which was what she looked like in all that tulle). She reviews the almost "discarded misery" of her childhood and puberty in which she had to suppress sex—there was no role for her to play—until she dieted drastically and moved on to England, still the insecure romantic looking for happy endings. A Polish count who wrote girls' books under the name Mavis Quilp led her to write her own costume gothics. But earlier on (through Aunt Lou's spiritualist) she had been told she had the gift; it comes true when she begins the automatic writing which results in her great best seller, Lady Oracle, a "cross between Kahlil Gibran and Rod McKuen" and winner of cult catchwords like "chthonic." There is also her marriage to Arthur, a mournful, radical prig, which seems to take place "in a kind of spiritual train station," without many sensual highs. Finally Joan Foster decides to do away with all her secret selves and fantasy heroines by preparing her demise into another world and another life. Miss Atwood's eye for detail is as acute as ever; it's just that this book is a genuine mood-softener as well as raffishly funny. Lady Oracle's automatic reading—a charming certainty.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1976
ISBN: 0385491085
Page Count: -
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1976
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.
Atwood goes back to Gilead.
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), consistently regarded as a masterpiece of 20th-century literature, has gained new attention in recent years with the success of the Hulu series as well as fresh appreciation from readers who feel like this story has new relevance in America’s current political climate. Atwood herself has spoken about how news headlines have made her dystopian fiction seem eerily plausible, and it’s not difficult to imagine her wanting to revisit Gilead as the TV show has sped past where her narrative ended. Like the novel that preceded it, this sequel is presented as found documents—first-person accounts of life inside a misogynistic theocracy from three informants. There is Agnes Jemima, a girl who rejects the marriage her family arranges for her but still has faith in God and Gilead. There’s Daisy, who learns on her 16th birthday that her whole life has been a lie. And there's Aunt Lydia, the woman responsible for turning women into Handmaids. This approach gives readers insight into different aspects of life inside and outside Gilead, but it also leads to a book that sometimes feels overstuffed. The Handmaid’s Tale combined exquisite lyricism with a powerful sense of urgency, as if a thoughtful, perceptive woman was racing against time to give witness to her experience. That narrator hinted at more than she said; Atwood seemed to trust readers to fill in the gaps. This dynamic created an atmosphere of intimacy. However curious we might be about Gilead and the resistance operating outside that country, what we learn here is that what Atwood left unsaid in the first novel generated more horror and outrage than explicit detail can. And the more we get to know Agnes, Daisy, and Aunt Lydia, the less convincing they become. It’s hard, of course, to compete with a beloved classic, so maybe the best way to read this new book is to forget about The Handmaid’s Tale and enjoy it as an artful feminist thriller.
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54378-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.
Written with quiet dignity that builds to a climax of tragic force, this book about the dissolution of an African tribe, its traditions, and values, represents a welcome departure from the familiar "Me, white brother" genre.
Written by a Nigerian African trained in missionary schools, this novel tells quietly the story of a brave man, Okonkwo, whose life has absolute validity in terms of his culture, and who exercises his prerogative as a warrior, father, and husband with unflinching single mindedness. But into the complex Nigerian village filters the teachings of strangers, teachings so alien to the tribe, that resistance is impossible. One must distinguish a force to be able to oppose it, and to most, the talk of Christian salvation is no more than the babbling of incoherent children. Still, with his guns and persistence, the white man, amoeba-like, gradually absorbs the native culture and in despair, Okonkwo, unable to withstand the corrosion of what he, alone, understands to be the life force of his people, hangs himself. In the formlessness of the dying culture, it is the missionary who takes note of the event, reminding himself to give Okonkwo's gesture a line or two in his work, The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger.
This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.Pub Date: Jan. 23, 1958
ISBN: 0385474547
Page Count: 207
Publisher: McDowell, Obolensky
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1958
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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