Margaret Atwood

by Shannon Hengen

  3716. UPPAL, Priscila. “Recovering the Past through Language and Landscape: The Contemporary English-Canadian Elegy.” PhD thesis. York University (ON), 2004. 393 pp. Also available on microfiche from Canadian Theses Service (2005). “The dissertation explores how the consolatory sites of landscape and language provide contemporary English-Canadian elegists with a means for reconnection between the living and the dead, thereby diverging from their conventional roles in the traditional English elegy and in conventional mourning practices. Whereas successful mourning in psychological (Freud), anthropological (Van Gennep), and literary (Orphic elegy) models has previously been determined by the achievement of separation between the mourner and the dead, these elegies reorient the focus of mourning as an inclusive and dialectic process of creative exchange. The work of mourning, therefore, is understood as an active and repeated process of connection and invention.” (Author). Atwood among poets discussed. For more see DAI-A 66.01 (July 2005): 184.

  3717. VERDUYN, Christl, and Kathleen GARAY, eds. Marian Engel: Life in Letters. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004. Includes letters both to and from At-wood, as well as a number of references to Atwood in Engel’s letters to others.

  3718. VERWAAYEN, Kimberly J. “Fiction Alices: Through the Looking-Glass of Post-structuralist AutoBYography, and, Four (Eight? Fifteen?) Canadian Women’s Texts (Daphne Marlatt, Anne Michaels, Margaret Atwood, Joan Crate).” PhD thesis. University of Western Ontario, 2004. 311 pp. Also available on microfiche from Canadian Theses Service (2004). “This thesis explores issues of authorial property and voice in relation to textual identities in / and gendered bodies, informed by proliferating autobiographical theories and poststructuralist understanding of ambulatory subjectivities. Always-already tenuous distinctions between self and other, fact and fiction, autobiography and biography are exploded along ‘fault’ lines triggered by writers whose work in ‘fiction/theory’ / ‘fictionalysis’ blows up the field of representation / representability itself.” (Author). Atwood among writers examined. For more see DAI-A 65/11: 4205 (May 2005).

  3719. WALLACK, Karen M. “The Question of Power: Margaret Atwood’s Cat’s Eye through a Foucauldian Optic.” MA thesis. Bowling Green State University, 2004.

  3720. WHIDDEN, Abra Lynn. “Feminist Fallen Women: Rewriting Interwar Patriarchy in Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin, Ann-Marie MacDonald’s Fall on Your Knees, and Gail Anderson-Dargatz’s A Recipe for Bees.’” MA thesis. Acadia University, 2004. 146 pp. Also available on microfiche from Canadian Theses Service (2004). “In The Blind Assassin, Fall on Your Knees, and A Recipe for Bees, Margaret Atwood, Ann-Marie MacDonald, and Gail Anderson-Dargatz provide a contemporary Canadian contrast to the Fallen Woman trope by daring to let their fallen heroines live. Although their protagonists commit adultery, prostitute themselves, or have illegitimate children, the three authors allow their protagonists to live and to pass down their stories to future generations. While the authors end their novels with different degrees of hope and integration for their fallen protagonists, they all subvert patriarchy in three ways: first, they reveal the flaws in and the complexity of patriarchy; second, they create protagonists who undermine patriarchy by deliberately becoming fallen women; and third, they broaden the scope of feminist action beyond individual acts of resistance to the larger theme of female communication and community.” (Author). For more see MAI 43.02 (April 2005): 401.

  3721. WHITSON, Kathy J. Encyclopedia of Feminist Literature Westport, CT; London: Greenwood Press, 2004. See especially “Margaret Atwood.” 20-24. Almost exclusive reference to The Handmaid’s Tale.

  3722. WYATT, Jean. Risking Difference: Identification, Race, and Community in Contemporary Fiction and Feminism. Albany: State University of New York Press, ©2004. See especially Chapter 1, “The Politics of Envy in Academic Feminist Communities and in Margaret Atwood’s The Robber Bride,” 20-41.

  Reviews of Atwood’s Works

  3723. Bashful Bob and Doleful Dorinda. Toronto: Key Porter, 2004.

  Globe and Mail 11 December 2004: D18. By Bill RICHARDSON.

  London Free Press 18 December 2004: Section: Lifestyles: C10. By Barbara TAYLOR.

  3724. Moving Targets: Writing with Intent. Toronto: Anansi, 2004.

  Globe and Mail 2 October 2004: D8. By J. S. PORTER.

  Guelph Mercury 6 November 2004: Section: Books: D4. By Robert REID. (877 w).

  Hamilton Spectator 25 September 2004: Section: G0: G15. By Moira L. MacKINNON. (655 w).

  London Free Press 25 September 2004: Section: Lifestyles: D8. By Nancy SCHIEFFER. (948 w).

  National Post 16 October 2004: RB7. By David GILMOUR.

  The Record (Kitchener-Waterloo) 6 November 2004: Section: Books: P3. By Robert REID. (877 w).

  The Telegram (St. John’s, NF) 24 October 2004: B4. By Robin McGRATH.

  Toronto Life 34.10 (October 2004): 90. Atwood’s book compared to Margaret Wente’s An Accidental Canadian.

  3725. Negotiating with the Dead. New York: Cambridge UP, 2002.

  Cambridge Quarterly 33:2 (2004): 184-187. By Sarah SAVITT.

  Canadian Literature 183 (Winter 2004): 90-92. By Janice FIAMENGO. “At-wood deserves respect for her willingness to engage a wide readership in discussing the social meaning of literature, and she has undoubtedly created an accessible volume that will enable interested readers to follow up on the magnificent sources she has brought together. Still, it is hard to escape the conclusion that she has put less than she is capable of into these essays. In recycling old material and emphasizing humour over complexity, she has not done justice to her subject.”

  Contemporary Literature 44.4 (Winter 2004): 737-743. By Susan STREHLE.

  Letters in Canada 73.1 (Winter 2003-2004): 348-350. By Sherrill GRACE.

  Studies in the Novel 36.1 (Spring 2004): 126-128. By Earl INGERSOLL. Correction by publisher in Studies in the Novel 36.2 (Summer 2004): 233.

  3726. Oryx and Crake. Toronto: Seal; London: Virago, 2004.

  Canadian Literature 183 (Winter 2004): 92-93. By Coral Ann HOWELLS.

  3727. Oryx and Crake. New York: Anchor Books, 2004.

  Canadian Literature 181 (Summer 2004): 192-196. By Anthony GRIFFITHS.

  Eigo Seinen / Rising Generation 150.5 (August 2004): 298. By Ayako SATO. In Japanese.

  Environmental Politics 13.2 (Autumn 2004): 642-650. By Andrew DOBSON.

  The Guardian (London) 10 April 2004: Section: Guardian Saturday Pages: 31. By Isobel MONTGOMERY. (144 w).

  Hudson Review 57.1 (Spring 2004): 133-140. By Tom WILHELMUS. Also reviewed: Platform by Michael Houllebecq; The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri; The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard.

  Irish Times 24 April 2004: Section: Weekend: Paperbacks: 62. By Eileen BAT-TERSBY. (166 w). “There are moments of pathos, but ultimately the novel is too ironic, too farcically bleak and far too knowingly clever. Atwood’s heavily satiric tone consistently overpowers her post-apocalyptic narrative, leaving it contrived and a bit laboured.”

  Leonardo 37.5 (2004): 416-417. By G. GESSERT.

  Organization & Environment 17.4 (December 2004): 549-551. By G. R. BERRY.

  South China Morning Post 28 March 2004: Section: Paperbacks: 8. ANON. (150 w). “It’s a novel of ideas rather than plot and she finishes her tale by coming to an abrupt end.”

  Sunday News (Lancaster, PA) 11 January 2004: Section: P: 5. Helen Colwell ADAMS. (267w).

  Sunday Times (London) 4 April 2004: Section: Features: 54. By Trevor LEWIS. (237 w).

  The Times (London) 20 March 2004: Section: Features: 16. By Chris POWER. (159 w).

  Washington Post 2 May 2004: Section: Book World: T11. ANON. (207 w).

  3728. Oryx and Crake. [Sound recording]. Read by Alex Jennings. [London]: Blooms-bury, 2003.

  Irish Times 17 January 2004. ANON. (126 w). “Each of the tracks on this ‘CD audiobook’ is 15 minutes long. So what do you do when you’re eight minutes into a track and are forced to switch it off for some reason? Go back and listen to the eight minutes
again? Or skip to the next track and miss something crucial? Remember good old stop/start audiotape? Did somebody say the future just got worse?”

  3729. Oryx and Crake. [Sound recording]. Read by Campbell Scott. Santa Ana, CA: Books on Tape, 2003.

  Library Journal 128.20 (15 December 2004): 184. By Laurie SELWYN.

  3730. Rude Ramsay and the Roaring Radishes. Toronto, Key Porter.

  Kirkus Reviews 72.16 (15 August 2004): 802.

  Publishers Weekly 23 August 2004: Section: PW Forecasts: 54. ANON. (293 w).

  School Library Journal 50.11 (November 2004): 90. By Caroline WARD. “A rather wretched effort.”

  Sunday Telegram (MA) 5 September 2004: Section: Insight: G5. By Nicholas BASBANES. (127 w).

  Washington Post 7 November 2004: Section: Book World: T11. By Elizabeth WARD. (138 w).

  3731. Strange Things: The Malevolent North in Canadian Literature. London: Virago, 2004. Originally published in 1995 by Oxford UP.

  Independent on Sunday 28 March 2004 Section: Features: 31. By Murrough O’BRIEN. (220 w).

  3732. Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 2004.

  Canadian Literature 183 (Winter 2004): 191-193. By Janice FIAMENGO.

  Reviews of Adaptations of Atwood’s Works

  3733. The Edible Woman. Adapted by Dave CARLEY. Winnipeg: Scirocco Drame, 2002. Play based on the novel.

  Calgary Herald 17 April 2004: Section: Entertainment: C6. By Bob CLARK. (502 w).

  Columbus Dispatch 20 March 2004: Section: Features: 4B. By Michael ROSSBERG. (507 w).

  3734. RUDERS, Poul. The Handmaid’s Tale. Copenhagen: Edition Wilhelm Hansen, 1998-2002?

  Performance in Toronto (2004) reviewed:

  Buffalo News 4 October 2004: Section: Entertainment: C7. By Herman TROTTER. (542 w).

  Globe and Mail 24 September 2004: A10. By Robert EVERETT-GREEN.

  Maclean’s 20 September 2004: Section: Film/Television/Music/Books/Performing Arts/Games: 62. By Lianne GEORGE. (444 w).

  Toronto Star 24 September 2004: Section: Entertainment: C11. By William LITTLER. (673 w).

  Toronto Sun 25 September 2004: Section: Entertainment: 43. By John COULBOURN. (590 w).

  Variety 18-24 October 2004: Section: Legit Reviews: B47. By Richard OUZOUNIAN. (1084 w).

  ~ 2005 ~

  Atwood’s Works

  3735. “After the Last Battle.” New York Review Books 52.6 (2005): 38-39. Review of Visa for Avalon by Bryher.

  3736. Alias Grace. Toronto: Emblem; London: Virago, 2005. Paperback reprint.

  3737. “Aliens Have Taken the Place of Angels.” The Guardian 17 June 2005: Section: Guardian Friday Pages: 5. On the difference between science fiction and speculative fiction. (845 w).

  3738. “And Who Told You to Pull My Strings?” The Times (London) 25 June 2005: Section: Features: 12. Review of Eileen Blumenthal’s Puppetry and Puppets. (1184 w). Excerpt: “Among my own first literary efforts was a puppet show, performed by me at the age of 6, using a cardboard box for a stage. In it, a morally reprehensible giant got squashed by the Moon, a fate I have since longed to visit on various world leaders. As an adolescent, I went on to a hand-puppet troupe with a repertoire of cannibalistic crowd-pleasers—The Three Little Pigs, Little Red Riding Hood—performed to audiences of bloodthirsty 5-year-olds. Children of that age are not surprised by talking simulacra, but it really bothers them when the backdrop falls down and the whole thing is revealed as a fraud.”

  3739. “The Arctic.” Granta 91 (Fall 2005): 225-226. Atwood discusses the shrinking of the ice cap around the Arctic and reflects on the possible consequences for humanity, which include the inundation of countries by rising seawater and the release of huge quantities of methane from organic matter due to the melting of the permafrost under the tundra.

  3740. “The Art of Cooking and Serving: A Short Story.” Toronto Life 39.8 (August 2005): 44-49. “The story is from a collection of stories by Margaret Atwood entitled Moral Disorder, which will be published by Bloomsbury in September 2006.”

  3741. “Autobiography.” Open Field: 30 Contemporary Canadian Poets. Ed. Sina Queyras. New York: Persea Books, ©2005. 6. Short fiction. Reprinted from Murder in the Dark, ©1983.

  3742. “Baumbaby.” Ein neuer Anfang. Berlin: Berliner Taschenbuch Verlag, 2005. 11-14.

  3743. The Blind Assassin. [Sound recording]. Read by Margot Dionne. New York: Random House; Prince Frederick, MD: Recorded Books, 2005. Compact disc, 15 sound discs (ca. 18 hr.).

  3744. The Blind Assassin. [Sound recording]. Read by Michael O’Brien. Fredericton, NB: BTC Audiobooks, 2005. 3 compact discs (ca. 3 hr.).

  3745. “Brave New World: Kazuo Ishiguro’s Novel Really Is Chilling.” Slate Magazine [www.slate.com] Posted 1 April 2005. Also available from Lexis-Nexis. A review of “Never Let Me Go…the 6th novel by Kazuo Ishiguro, who won the Booker Prize in 1989 for his chilling rendition of a bootlickingly devoted but morally blank English butler, The Remains of the Day.”

  3746. “But It Still Could Still.” New Beginnings. London; New York: Bloomsbury; Vancouver, BC: Raincoast, 2005. 5-6. Short fiction.

  3747. “Chicken Little Goes Too Far.” Harper’s Magazine 311.1865 (October 2005): 78-79. Short story. [Ed. note: Atwood also converted this story into an original 15-page handwritten and illustrated book which was put up for bid on eBay as a fund-raising tool for the Canadian chapter of the World Wildlife Fund. See Globe and Mail 30 March 2005: R2.]

  3748. “A Conversation.” Washington Post 16 October 2005: Section: Book World: T10. Atwood interviews writer Patrick Lane on the occasion of the publication of his memoir, What the Stones Remember. (1089 w). Excerpt from her Introduction: “I was more than delighted to read What the Stones Remember when it came out, although I was also astonished by it. I had no idea that Pat’s early life had been so vicious and abusive; nor did I know about his multiple addictions and the periods of total blackout he’d gone through. Perhaps the biggest surprise for me though was his love of nature, and especially of gardens and their healing pleasures, that the book revealed. It was almost as if a world previously viewed as dead or hostile had come benevolently to life. What the Stones Remember is a tough, lovely book and it shows the person that was in there through all the desperate times—a person who had now, finally, grown into his real skin.”

  3749. “Culture: ‘She’s Left Holding the Fort’: Margaret Atwood Makes Her Acting Debut Tonight in Her Update of The Odyssey—Told from the Viewpoint of Odys-seus’s Wife. She and Phyllida Lloyd Explain Why.” The Guardian 26 October 2005: Section: Guardian Features Page: 22. (1090 w). The two performers alternate in the explanation. Excerpt: “The book is in essence theatrical. It’s a lot like the structure of a Greek tragedy, in that the central characters’ stories are told in quite long monologues, then the chorus comment on the action. The book has the chorus line; the 12 women were hanged—pretty maids all in a row—with their feet twitching, which brings to mind the chorus line, except with a different kind of twitching feet. The singing and dancing in the court of Odysseus and Penelope would have been performed by slaves. Then the guests would be allowed to help themselves to the maids—they were entertainment, servants and sex toys all in one. Some of their numbers are written as songs, some dance numbers, some chanting.”

  3750. Curious Pursuits: Occasional Writing 1970-2005. London: Virago, 2005. Includes 47 short pieces penned by Atwood since 1973. Although the titles Atwood uses may vary, note that a number overlap with those published in MT [Moving Targets: Writing with Intent, 1982-2004. Toronto: Anansi, 2004 (see MT for sources or original publication)]. Includes “Introduction 1970-1989” 3-6.—“Travels Back” 7-13. Originally published: Maclean’s 86 (January 1973): 28, 31, 49.—“Review of Diving into the Wreck: Poems 1971-1972 by Adrienne Rich” 15-18. Originally published: New York Times Book Review 30 December 1973: 1-2.—“Review of Anne Sexton: A Self-Portrait in Letters” 19-21. Originally published: New York Times Book Review 6 November 1977: 15
.—“The Curse of Eve—Or, What I Learned in School” 23-35. Originally published: Women on Women. Ed. Ann B. Shteir. Toronto: York University, Gerstein Lecture Series, 1978. 13-26.—“Northrop Frye Observed” 37-45. Originally published: Second Words: Selected Critical Prose 1960-1982 by Margaret Atwood. Toronto: Anansi, 1982. 398-406.—“Writing the Male Character” 47-63. Originally published: This Magazine 16.4 (September 1982): 4-10. A somewhat different version of this paper was delivered as the Hagey Lecture at Waterloo University, February 1982.— “Wondering What It’s Like to Be a Woman” 65-70. [MT] (Review of The Witches of Eastwick by John Updike).—“Introduction to Roughing It in the Bush [Or, Life in Canada]” 71-78. [MT]. —“Haunted by Their Nightmares” 79-84. [MT] (Review of Beloved by Toni Morrison). —“Writing Utopia” 85-94. [MT].—“Great Aunts” 95-107. [MT].—“Introduction: Reading Blind.” The Best American Short Stories. Ed. Margaret Atwood and Shannon Ravenel. 109-122. [MT].—“The Public Woman as Honorary Man” 123-125. [MT]. (Review of The Warrior Queens by Antonia Fraser).—“A Double-Bladed Knife: Subversive Laughter in Two Stories by Thomas King” 131-141. [MT].—“Nine Beginnings” 143-149. [MT].—“A Slave to His Own Liberation” 151-154. [MT] (Review of the General in His Labyrinth by Gabriel García Márquez).—“Angela Carter: 1940-1992” 155-157. Originally published: No source.—“Afterword to Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery” 159-164. [MT]. —“Introduction: The Early Years [The Poetry of Gwendolyn MacEwen. Ed. Margaret Atwood and Barry Callaghan]” 165-169. [MT].—“Spotty-Handed Villainesses: Problems of Female Bad Behaviour in the Creation of Literature” 171-186. [MT].—“The Grunge Look” 187-196. [MT].— “Not So Grimm: The Staying Power of Fairy Tales” 197-201. [MT]. (Review of From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and Their Writers by Marina War-ner).—“‘Little Chappies with Breasts’” 203-207. [MT] (Review of An Experiment in Love by Hilary Mantel).—“In Search of Alias Grace: On Writing Canadian Historical Fiction” 209-229. [MT].—“Pinteresque” 241-242. Originally published: Pinter Review: Annual Essays, 2000: 5.—“Mordecai Richler, 1931–2001: Diogenes of Montreal” 243-244. [MT].—“When Afghanistan Was at Peace,” 245-247. [MT].—“Introduction to She by Rider Haggard” 249-256. [MT].—“Introduction to Doctor Glas by Hjalmar Söderberg” 257-261. [MT].—“Mystery Man: Some Clues to Dashiell Hammett” 263-276. [MT]. (Review of The Selected Letters of Dashiell Hammett, 1921-1960, ed. Richard Layman and Julie Rivett; Dashiell Hammett: A Daughter Remembers by Jo Hammett, ed. Richard Layman and Julie Rivett; and Dashiell Hammett: Crime Stories and Other Writings, ed. Steven Marcus).—“Of Myths and Men” 277-280. [MT]. (Review of Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner, dir. Zacharias Kunuk, 2001).—“Cops and Robbers” 281-291. [MT]. (Review of Tishomingo Blues by Elmore Leonard).—“The Indelible Woman” 293-295. [MT]. (Comment on To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf).—“The Queen of Quinkdom” 297-308. [MT]. (Review of The Birthday of the World and Other Stories by Ursula K. Le Guin).—“‘Victory Gardens’ [Foreword] to A Breath of Fresh Air: Celebrating Nature and School Gardens by Elise Houghton” 309-316. [MT].— “Mortification” 317-320. [MT].—“Writing Oryx and Crake” 321-323. [MT].— “Letter to America” 325-328. [MT].—“Edinburgh and Its Festival” 329-332. Originally published: Edinburgh Festival Magazine May 2003: s.p.—“George Orwell: Some Personal Connections” 333-340. [MT].—“Carol Shields Who Died Last Week, Wrote Books That Were Full of Delights” 341-344. [MT].—“He Springs Eternal” 345-357. [MT]. (Review of Hope Dies Last: Keeping the Faith in Difficult Times by Studs Terkel).—“To Beechey Island” 359-368. [MT]. [Ed. note: In Moving Targets as well as Writing with Intent, Beechey is spelled without the “e”; the “y” remains.]—“Uncovered: An American Iliad” 369-375. (Review of the 3-volume series, Masterworks of the Classical Haida Mythtellers. v.1: A Story as Sharp as a Knife: The Classical Haida Mythtellers and Their World / Robert Bringhurst [Vancouver, BC: Douglas & McIntyre, 1999].—v.2: Nine Visits to the Mythworld / Gandl, Robert Bringhurst [Vancouver, BC: Douglas & McIntyre, 2002].—v.3: Being in Being: The Collected Works of Skaay of the Qquuna Qiighawaay / Skaay, Robert Bringhurst [Vancouver, BC: Douglas & McIntyre, 2001]). Originally published: The Times (London) 28 February 2004: Section: Features: 10.—“Headscarves to Die For” 377-381. (Review of Snow, Turkish writer Orthan Pamuk’s 7th novel). Originally published: New York Times 15 August 2004: Section: 7: 1.—“Ten Ways of Looking at The Island of Doctor Mo-reau” 383-395. Originally published as the Introduction to The Island of Doctor Moreau. London: Penguin, 2005. xxiii-xxvii.