The Tent
The Tent is a wonderful collection of Atwood's work - not just stories and poems, but also a few original illustrations to accompany them. The stories are a tribute to imagination, where Atwood masterfully tackles a wide range of issues with disarmingly charming narratives. In true Atwoodian fashion, some pieces could be described as abstract - leaving you with a feeling of staring into a famous work at a modern art museum and wondering whether what you see is indeed what the writer intended. But that these stories leave some room for the reader to interpret adds a distinctive appeal to them.
The book starts with a masterpiece, 'Lifestories', where a writer working on her life story discovers the virtue of editing. She seems to have used this virtue of scissors throughout the book, leaving most of the stories with a lean and delightful sparseness.
Truths and perspectives are laid bare, often in ways you haven't seen or heard before or have refused to see or hear before. 'Orphan Stories' talks about the joys and sorrows of being an orphan - how many of us have secretly wondered about the freedom of no family ties, while never really admitting it? And she reminds us to consider:
It is loss to which everything flows, absence in which everything flowers. It is you, not we, who have always been the children of the Gods
'Post-Colonial' poignantly lays bare the feelings of 'us' and 'them',
Who are we now, apart from the question Who are we now? We all share that question.(...) It's a constant worry, this we, this them.
while 'Plots for Exotics' is the story of someone who goes down to a "plot factory" to be told that she is an exotic. It examines the anomaly of being exotic and how exotic here is not exotic there, and exotic there is not exotic here.
..I could do a whole plot in with nothing in it but exotics. Exotics wall to wall.
Three Novels I won't write soon gives a wildly imaginative and vividly entertaining of three potential storylines, while Voices is a narrative on how talent can liberate and enslave, amuse and annoy, energize and exhaust at the same time. And how, ultimately, it will be time for the talent to drop off.
Then we'll descend to the foyer, glittering like ice,my voice attached like an invisible vampire to my throat.
Every story, every poem has a gem to offer, and definitely, food for thought, even for hours after you put down the book.Many of the stories use an odd range of "You" and "I" in the narrative, making the reader feel very much a part of the book. And through all the stories that range from a wide range of topics and characters, you can unmistakably hear the voice of an experienced and accomplished writer. Enchanting and delightful, this is a collection of "mini-fiction" you don't want to miss.
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If you liked "The Tent", you may also like the following books by Margaret Atwood "The Penelopiad: The Myth of Penelope and Odysseus", "Good Bones and Simple Murders" and "Negotiating with the Dead: A Writer on Writing".
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