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Tuesday, January 5, 2010

The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood


This is my third book of 2010, and my second one from the New York Times Notable Books of 2009 list (click on title above to access a link to see the full list). I have not read a Margaret Atwood book since I read 'The Handmaid's Tale" in 1985. The book won countless awards, and endless acclaim, and I just hated it. The author is an avowed feminist and while the Handmaid's Tale could be viewed as a dystopian cautionary tale, a story of where we can still go back to as women, no matter how far we have come, I viewed it as merely depressing. The Biblical, "women as breed stock" world view is what I walked away from the book with as a twenty five year old and it did not make me want to come back for more.
Since that time Atwood has been short-listed for, long-listed for and won the Booker Prize. It seems that she is a good writer. As it has been about a quarter of a century since I read a book by her, it seemed that it might be time to get back on the horse. Since the Handmaid's Tale came out, I have gotten married, had four children and raised them into near-adulthood. One is engaged to be married himself, in fact.
I was wrong, as it turns out. This is also a dystopian cautionary tale but one where women are now primarily for sexual abuse rather than reproduction. The abuse is not graphic, so in some ways this seems even a little bit better than what occurs in the Handmiad's Tale, something I am sure the reality would not be.
Margaret Atwood is a spectacular writer. The book is gorgeously written. There are hymns and sermons throughout that weave the story artfully into a more succinct tale. It is a thing of beauty, and I am almost certain it will be another 25 years before I read another novel by her. She is not the most depressing talented author with a myopia for the baseness of man out there--not as long as Cormac McCarthy still lives and breaths--but I can only take it in micro-doses.

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