The
tales feature characters from fiction, from Classical myth, from folk tales and
fairy stories, as well as other, more disparate sources. Margaret Atwood
herself seems to figure here and there as well. In every case, we see something
familiar from an unusual perspective, points of view that in every case take
the reader by surprise.
But
there is something much more arresting and surprising than the subject matter,
and that is the various forms in which these pieces are presented. They are all
different, but none addresses its subject matter via mere prose. And strangely,
these are not poems either. They are poetic, and they feel like they ought to
be prose. They are like sketches or verbal doodles and, as such, regularly flit
from one unexpected turn to another, equally unpredicted.
If
these short pieces were pictures, they would remind us of smaller canvases by
Paul Klee, with their schematised line drawings, cartoon witticisms and the
occasional joke tinged with nightmare. Throughout they would speak of big ideas
that seem to underpin the content, and this is communicated in concentrated
form, despite their small scale, emerging via suggestion. And it is surely
their biting irony that simultaneously arrests and entertains.
In
some ways, these short stories by Margaret Atwood, these prose
poems-cum-doodles almost constitute a new literary form, perhaps doing for
prose what haikus do for poetry. Each one could have become a novel, if
Margaret Atwood had been lucky enough to have had the luxury of multiple lives
to afford the time to construct them. Read them quickly and the revisit them
individually with more time to spare. Their stature is small, but their rewards
are great.
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