A possible assignment for C.C.?

So, not that you don't have enough to do or anything, but why don't you read the new Margaret Atwood and let us know what you think about it?

From The Independent:

Spun from low-status material on the margins of classical culture, The Penelopiad creates a form all its own. As she works from the Odyssey and other traditional stories, Atwood resurrects the long-suffering wife of Odysseus - and the 12 young "maids" (that is, slaves) so bafflingly hanged when the hero returned to Ithaca after his long adventures in the wake of the Trojan wars. It sounds, in the abstract, rather like the sort of low-temperature, left-handed exercise with which garlanded authors may sometimes while away the time as a bigger idea comes slowly to the boil. Not with Atwood, who will kill a fledgling work off rather than nurture a misbegotten book.

Not being much of an Atwood fan myself (I don't hate her or anything, I just haven't read much), I'm reserving judgment about this one.  I'm not going to get all excited.  Okay, I have some (really big) doubts about it.  But no one is better qualified to review it than our favorite classics expert. 

Whaddya say?

Comments

[Pacze Moj]

I hate Atwood.

[C.C.]

Will do, it's about time I visted the Harvard Bookstore anyway; I read a lot of Atwood in highschool and one of my all time favorite poems:

you fit into me
like a hook into an eye

a fishhook
an open eye.

[leila]

That might actually be the best poem in the whole world.

Thank you for starting my day off right.

[jmfausti]

Umm, about CC's Atwood poem. Wow! and Ouch! That will rank right up there with my favorite Dorothy Parker poem, Resume (there's supposed to be an accent over the last e, for the record):
Razors pain you
Rivers are damp
Acids stain you
And drugs cause cramp
Guns aren't lawful
Nooses give
Gas smells awful
You might as well live.

[steve]

As long as we're (sort of) on the subject, my fave Atwood lines:

Please die I said
so I can write about it

[leila]

Hmmm. I've always had a secret irrational attitude about M. Atwood. Now I'm starting to think that it was totally unfounded and I should give her more of a try.

Suggestions other than Handmaid's Tale?

[C.C.]

She has a book of short stories called Bluebeard's Egg. Maybe. Wait. Now I have no idea what the title is, but short stories are always a nice way to ease yourself into an author. I loved the Handmaid's Tale (of course) and I remember thinking (even at the time) that I didn't understand what the hell was going on in Cat's Eye, but liking it a lot anyway, which I feel is always a good sign. Perhaps it's time to revisit her.

[jmfausti]

I've read Alias Grace, which was very good and recently read Cat's Eye, which I didn't like as much as The Handmaid's Tale. Everyone tells me to read The Blind Assassin.