Cat's Eye Review

So Margaret Atwood and I are parting ways... literally & figuratively.   I allowed myself to stop reading Cat's Eye because I felt so miserable reading it & I left it behind in Paris as a trade at the Irish pub (and English book exchange) that I was frequenting.   I realized that I've had a similar experience reading each work of hers I've picked up.  I read an essay about Atwood & Cat's Eye to try and understand the experiences of others (and to find out what happens instead of reading for myself) & it spoke of her nihilistic views. I honestly don't know if Atwood is a nihilist but it seems to fit with my fundamental problem of her work.  She has amazing allegory & turns of phrase - for instance I chucked & identified with the line "aging begins at the elbows and metastasizes"  (though men don't seem to appreciate the sentiment - and really, what do they worry about for aging besides baldness & impotence?) - but I cannot appreciate the characters or stories because they are continuously defeated. 

From the main characters' viewpoint there is an ongoing dialogue about aging: running down, sagging, drooling, memory loss, morbidity in the anticipated breakdown by maggots after death.  From her closest observation of her family come parallel entropic observations concerning the expanding universe, stars burning themselves out, pollution and corruption and human consumption of the planet. 

I've read other difficult reads on the holocaust (Elie Wiesel's Night being one of the more nightmaric and vivid) or abuse or other uncomfortable topics but there is always a vein of humanism running through to redeem them - a spark of hope or defiance.  Even 1984, which completely defeats the characters at the end, had something - perhaps what might be called a Buddhist outlook that all is suffering and one ascends suffering by embracing it - that redeems it (though I still threw the book against the wall at the end!).  At best, Atwood's characters will accept or resign themselves to their fate as part of their evolution.  This hardly provides catharsis for me.  I feel completely dissatisfied throughout the read and gain no perspective to make it worthwhile for me.  I understand that this is a favorite among other viewers and I'd really like to understand why.  I can recognize the skill with which Atwood executes her craft but I cannot admire the result even when I identify at times with the characters.

I would love to hear arguments to Atwood's favor.

Status Check

Finished: Good Omens (great!  highly recommended!)
Now Reading: Cat's Eye (by Atwood) - so far liking it but am early in.
Next Book: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - I'm kind of procrastinating on this one cause it's big and because people get "so much out of it" that I'm worried it will be a let-down.

Good Omens Review

This was my book on the plane and I sped through it instead of sleeping.  It is hilarious and dead-on for tone.  Even the small, side-characters are well developed & seem right out of Monty Python. One identifies with the central hellish & heavenly (former) inhabitants, and can recognize in the eleven-year-old AntiChrist the boy you raced bikes with around the neighborhood when you rode a 10-speed. And that doesn't even cover what they (it's co-authored) did to the poor Hound of Hell! I've already laughed out loud several times and can't seem to stop revisiting passages in my head. Angel Aziraphale & demon Crowley are awesome and there are things to learn as well - particularly in the remarkable critiques of modern music.

My only real complaint might be the four horsepersons of the Apocolypse. War (a.k.a. Carmen, a.k.a Scarlett, a.k.a. "Red Zuigiber", Pollution a.k.a. "Pale" a.k.a. Chalky a.k.a. "White" & Death (no nicknames required) are all fairly one-dimensional. My favorite of the four is definitely Famine a.k.a. Raven Sable a.k.a. "Black" - who's creative means of starving humanity with his famous trademarked unfood products are British cheek at its best. All in all, I'm enjoying where this is leading (and as the Apocolypse nears, I'm getting further & further sucked in)!

One of the witticisms early on;
"IT IS SAID THAT THE DEVIL HAS ALL THE BEST TUNES.
This is broadly true. But Heaven has all the best choreographers."

Voting for Sabbatical Books...

I've sent a voting e-mail to my bookclub friends plus other readers I know to help me pare down the 4 books I'll take on sabbatical (ouch!) Here are the options in alphabetical order (current leaders marked with an asterisk) with the brief descriptions that interested me.


All Other Nights by Dara Horn - her follow up to The World to Come (though not a sequel). About a Jewish family involved in spying, Passover and the Civil War across the Mason-Dixon line. And of course, there's a love story.

Bellwether by Connie Wills - I first read about this author in Book Lust (anthology of books for every mood by a Seattle librarian) in regards to To Say Nothing of the Dog (which I haven't read & perhaps should have included in the voting). It's my one real sci-fi book on the list about a chaos theorist and a sociologist who studies fads that are brought together by accident with mayhem ensuing. Lots of fun-poking at corporate environments and the similarities between humans and sheep.

**Margaret Atwood's Cat's Eye - I liked her The Handmaid's Tale, I hated The Blind Assassin - so Margaret and I are tentative with each other. It's about how "girls" treat each other. Sort of a "Mean Girls" for grown-ups. Highly recommended by one of my friends as her favorite Atwood.

The Curious Incident of the Dog - by Mark Haddon. This has been a random interest for me due to browsing Borders display tables. It takes a young, autistic wanna-be Sherlock Holmes as the main character who is sleuthing to find the murderer of the neighbor's poodle to clear his name and who has to deal with the fact that other people are a total mystery to him and he has no understanding for sarcasm, nuances and subtlety.

Eva Luna by Isabelle Allende is a follow-up (though not a sequel) to her House of the Spirits which I have read and enjoyed. It fits into Latin America's "Magic Realism" genre like Paolo Coelho or Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Hundred Years of Solitude) & other Latin authors writing fictional dramas with fantasy bents.

**Good Omens by Terry Pratchette & Neil Gaiman - the world is supposed to end in Armegeddon in a few days but the main characters angel Aziraphale & demon Crowley haven't done the greatest jobs getting everything in place which might have to do with the fact that neither of them are that thrilled about the whole plan anyways. British humor.

**Zadie Smith's On Beauty - I really liked her previous book White Teeth about mixed families and coming-of-age in the U.K. This was the winner of the 2006 Orange Prize for fiction (whatever that is!) and contains similar themes this time in the U.S.

Geraldine Brook's The People of the Book - The fictional story of the travels of the 'Sarajevo Haggadah' a Jewish religious volume that travelled Europe surviving centuries of war and religious purges. Essentially a fly-on-the-wall story from a book's perspective.

The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay - probably the biggest tome of the bunch, this is the story of love and faith overcoming huge obstacles in South African apartheid. The main character Peekay is an English boy coming-of-age amidst Afrikaner hatred towards the English and Nazi sympathy during WWII. I've seen the movie and it was incredible (great music too!)

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield - a famous dying author who has told 19 versions of her history finally agrees to tell the truth to an unworldly, bookish biographer. The two women then discover a lot about each other, ghosts, and history as they figure out the truth in the story.

**The infamous Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - everyone's heard of it. Some folks have read it. Not me. It's been on my bookshelf for probably 4+ years.

My latest book to evangelize

I've managed to get my bookclub to pick this one up & everyone who does so can't put it down until they finish reading. The translation has been done very smoothly and the voice is crisp and enthralling. "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" by Stieg Larsson is amazingly accessible despite being a fairly dark tale with an originally foreboding Swedish title of "Man som hatar kvinnor" - "Men Who Hate Women." I wouldn't call this noir, its not your typical mystery or crime novel, but then I'm not sure what to call it; Let's just say there are incredibly drawn characters (both distant and recognizable), a fast-moving & surprising plot, and astute observations about corporations, humanity, economy, politics and love.