margaret atwood – ~*LunaSea*~

Atwood, Margaret. Cat’s Eye. Read by Kimberly Far. Random House Audio, 2011.
Atwood, Margaret. Cat’s Eye. Anchor Books, 1998.

Reason read: Atwood was born in the month of November. Read in her honor.

Atwood is clever in describing typical friendships between girls with the simple line, “we think we are all friends”. Young Elaine Risley has all the angst of a young girl growing up in the bullseye of bullying; something that haunts the adult Elaine when she returns back to her childhood city of Toronto to put on an art show. Elaine confronts the painful memories of the various traumas of her childhood with every passing landmark. Most prominent from her childhood are three girls who at turns tormented and loved Elaine with equal parts malice and warmth. As with all young friendships, Elaine was an easy target. She was desperate to please; bullied into thinking she was never good enough for the friendships she begged to have. One of the saddest moments for me was when Elaine contemplated suicide, not because she wanted to end her life, but because she knew how much her death would please an enemy.
As a teenager, Elaine discovered she had a sharp tongue which becomes her best defense and her most valuable weapon. Her enemies fall away not because they leave her, but because she lets them go.
As an adult, Elaine learns that the monsters of our youth can shrink to the harmless size of dust balls under the bed; their teeth and claws can dull upon adult scrutiny. But not all of them go away, especially when you do not want them to.

As an aside, Atwood seems to have an affinity for the nail polish color, “Fire and Ice”. Several different characters wear it.

Simple yet devastating lines, “She thinks I am happy” (p 161), “Murder ought to be a more ceremonial occasion” (p 266), and “There’s too much old time here” (p 453).

Author fact: Margaret Atwood has long been one of my favorite authors.

Book trivia: Cat’s Eye is a type of marble design. Back in the day everyone had marbles. Elaine carried one as a talisman.

Setlist: “Skye Boat Song”, “Scots Wha’ Hae”, Frank Sinatra, Betty Hutton, “Hearts Made of Stone”, “Moonlight Sonata”, and “There Will Always Be an England”.

Nancy said: Pearl describes the plot of Cat’s Eye.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Women’s Friendships” (p 247).

Atwood, Margaret. Oryx and Crake. Read by Campbell Scott.

Reason read: Atwood was born in the month of November. Also, I needed a book for the Portland Public Library reading challenge for the categories of speculative fiction and a book I have read before.

I need to condense the plot of Oryx and Crake for simplicity’s sake. There is a lot going on in this dystopia drama. Here is the shortest recap ever: Snowman was once a boy named Jimmy. He lived in a world dominated by bioengineering companies capable of creating new species of nonhuman lifeforms and genetic modifications for future humanoids. Jimmy befriends a boy named Glenn (who becomes Crake). During their pubescent years Jimmy and Crake spend an inordinate amount of time doing drugs, playing over the top violent video games, and watching live videos of murder, beastiality, and child pornography. This shapes Crake’s future invention of a health and happiness pill with an unadvertisized side effect of sterilization. Another result of this happiness pill is a lethal and extremely contagious global pandemic. When Jimmy goes to work for Crake he discovers a woman he recognizes from the porn videos he and Crake used to watch. Crake introduces her as Oryx and Jimmy becomes smitten. Does he dance with the devil? Yes, yes he does.

Confessional: I had completely forgotten how disturbing Oryx and Crake is.
Second confessional: I read Oryx and Crake while our world is still struggling with Covid-19. I couldn’t help but make comparisons to O&C.

Lines I liked, the phrase “turn memory into white noise” was the best.

Author fact: Atwood has called Oryx and Crake as romance. She is both brilliant and twisted.

Book trivia: Oryx and Crake is the first book in a trilogy. While this is a reread for me, I have not read the other two books in the series.

Nancy said: Pearl didn’t say anthing specific about Oryx and Crake except to include it in the list of other dark and stormy novels.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “It was a Dark and Stormy Novel” (p 129).