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3.59 AVERAGE
3.59 AVERAGE
I love these stories. Every so often, when I am back in Louisiana, I pull my mother's copy of this off the shelves and re-read the story about the potter and the poets. It's just beautiful.
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
What bugs me the most about Atwood is how often she recycles ideas. While the marginalia in the first short story tipped me off that I had at least read that story once before, the lack of marginalia suggested I gave up after that story. Yet, everything felt so familiar. I kept thinking "was this in Cat's Eye? Edible Woman? Life Before Man?" which felt especially odd, since the connections I was supposed to be drawing were from fairy tales NOT written by Atwood (as blatantly suggested by the title). I feel it's fairly safe to say that I love the Atwood of the late to mid 90s. What I find most interesting about Atwood's short story collections (which is particularly pertinent in this one) is that I spend a good portion of the first few stories trying to piece together if it is the same narrator, or whether they just work well enough together. Knowing Atwood, it is something we are meant to question, especially given the abrupt shift to the first person narration at the end.
3/5 stars for Atwood, which is 4/5 for every other scale.
3/5 stars for Atwood, which is 4/5 for every other scale.
Less a collection of short stories than compelling character sketches. A good read through I had encountered both "Betty" and "Sin Eater" previously in Dancing Girls and Other Stories. My second read of "The Sin Eater" has me thinking it is one of the finest short pieces I've ever read. "The Sunrise" is another great sketch. Well-crafted fiction with a heart made of poetry.
I rather prefer Atwood's novels -- she's really good with "underlying themes" and extensive metaphors and whatnot (help me out here, English majors?) and the short stories don't really give her enough time to do her stuff. There are still some glorious moments in this collection though.
Smart and soft in the way only Margaret Atwood can balance, Bluebeard's Egg is a wonderful read. Oftentimes when I read short story collections, I find that there are at least two or three pieces that drag or slow me down, sometimes even to the point of not finishing the collection. Either that, or I finish the book and can't remember any of the stories I supposedly just read. However, that's happily not the case with Bluebeard's Egg. Each piece in this collection is captivating in its own right, and the stories, though similar in structure or exploring similar themes, each feel unique and memorable.
Atwood revisits many of her typical themes in this work: relationships between men and women, children and their parents, siblings, etc.; the stresses of love and betrayal; and the ways hurting others can inadvertently hurt ourselves. Again, we can see some of the seeds for her longer works cropping up in stories like "Unearthing Suite," which is almost undeniably the base from which Cat's Eye eventually grew. Most of the stories center around women, another Atwood trademark, and most of these women feel more true and real in the space of ~20 pages than other authors can muster in the length of an entire novel.
The titular story, "Bluebeard's Egg," has particular resonance for me because I studied it as a large piece of my undergraduate thesis work on fairy tale retellings. At that point in my life, this and The Handmaid's Tale were the only Atwood works I had ever read. Despite the slow drip of poison and madness that writing a thesis proved to be, "Bluebeard's Egg" captivated me and eventually led me to seeking out Atwood's other works. Although I'd read it dozens of times in the process of writing my thesis, I made sure to read it again in the context of the other pieces in the collection, and I do think that lent it new light in some ways. As a standalone story, I think it's easier to peg "Bluebeard's Egg" as the rabbit hole it truly is; I mean it literally when I say you can glean something new every single time you read this story. It's layer after layer after layer when it comes to breaking down the story structure, the characters, the gender dynamics, etc. But when read in the middle of all these other stories, it's harder to pick up on some of the subtleties; the delicate background noise gets drowned out by the other stories' voices.
This made me wonder if the reverse was true -- if the other pieces in the collection could be savored and painstakingly peeled like a sack of giant onions, just as I'd spent five months dissecting "Bluebeard's Egg." My instincts tell me yes; my brain tells me I'm not going to sit down and try. Perhaps my best piece of advice is to take Bluebeard's Egg slowly. Savor each story instead of blowing through the entire collection. Though it's easy to whip through the book, it might be more impactful to take it piece by piece.
Some of my favorite stories: "Significant Moments in the Life of My Mother," "Scarlet Ibis," "Uglypuss" (my second favorite), and "Two Stories About Emma."
Atwood revisits many of her typical themes in this work: relationships between men and women, children and their parents, siblings, etc.; the stresses of love and betrayal; and the ways hurting others can inadvertently hurt ourselves. Again, we can see some of the seeds for her longer works cropping up in stories like "Unearthing Suite," which is almost undeniably the base from which Cat's Eye eventually grew. Most of the stories center around women, another Atwood trademark, and most of these women feel more true and real in the space of ~20 pages than other authors can muster in the length of an entire novel.
The titular story, "Bluebeard's Egg," has particular resonance for me because I studied it as a large piece of my undergraduate thesis work on fairy tale retellings. At that point in my life, this and The Handmaid's Tale were the only Atwood works I had ever read. Despite the slow drip of poison and madness that writing a thesis proved to be, "Bluebeard's Egg" captivated me and eventually led me to seeking out Atwood's other works. Although I'd read it dozens of times in the process of writing my thesis, I made sure to read it again in the context of the other pieces in the collection, and I do think that lent it new light in some ways. As a standalone story, I think it's easier to peg "Bluebeard's Egg" as the rabbit hole it truly is; I mean it literally when I say you can glean something new every single time you read this story. It's layer after layer after layer when it comes to breaking down the story structure, the characters, the gender dynamics, etc. But when read in the middle of all these other stories, it's harder to pick up on some of the subtleties; the delicate background noise gets drowned out by the other stories' voices.
This made me wonder if the reverse was true -- if the other pieces in the collection could be savored and painstakingly peeled like a sack of giant onions, just as I'd spent five months dissecting "Bluebeard's Egg." My instincts tell me yes; my brain tells me I'm not going to sit down and try. Perhaps my best piece of advice is to take Bluebeard's Egg slowly. Savor each story instead of blowing through the entire collection. Though it's easy to whip through the book, it might be more impactful to take it piece by piece.
Some of my favorite stories: "Significant Moments in the Life of My Mother," "Scarlet Ibis," "Uglypuss" (my second favorite), and "Two Stories About Emma."
How the heck does she do it? There are entire worlds in each story within this collection, and each one has something in it that speaks directly to my heart. Atwood is one of the only authors for whom I break out my highlighter--I know I will need to revisit certain passages. I want to copy them down on paper and give them to my loved ones: "Here, read this and understand me."
Significant Moments in the Life of My Mother: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Hurricane Hazel: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Loulou; or, The Domestic Life of the Language: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Uglypuss: ⭐️⭐️
Betty: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Bluebeard’s Egg: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Spring Song of the Frogs: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Scarlet Ibis: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Salt Garden: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Sun Eater: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Sunrise: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Unearthing Suite: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Hurricane Hazel: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Loulou; or, The Domestic Life of the Language: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Uglypuss: ⭐️⭐️
Betty: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Bluebeard’s Egg: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Spring Song of the Frogs: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Scarlet Ibis: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Salt Garden: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Sun Eater: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Sunrise: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Unearthing Suite: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
