Scan barcode
A review by the_evergrowing_library
Old Babes in the Wood by Margaret Atwood
2.0
This in an odd short story collection. Separated into 3 parts we have the stories of Tig & Nell and then Nell & Tig serving as bookends to a more varied collection of stories in the middle.
The Tig/Nell stories feel much closer to home and personal, which while they were written very well, made them more anecdotal than actual stories. Which for me, was a total miss.
That sadly takes out over half the book and leaves us with the sandwich filling of what actually felt like short stories.
The other stories in the collection did to their credit, really go off in starkly different directions. The sheer concept of a snails reincarnation into a woman or an STD pandemic for instance.
‘The Dead Interview’ and ‘Impatient Griselda’ would be my two favourites from the book. The Former being a seance style interview with George Orwell(maybe my recent animal farm re-read added to this) and the latter being an alien life-form attempting to tell an earth fable to a group of quarantined humans.
I have to be honest, while the middle section had some good moments, it wasn’t perfect. That paired with the 1/3 and 3/3 sections feeling wasted on me, this was overall a bit of a flop.
I apparently vary in how I like my Atwood.
The Tig/Nell stories feel much closer to home and personal, which while they were written very well, made them more anecdotal than actual stories. Which for me, was a total miss.
That sadly takes out over half the book and leaves us with the sandwich filling of what actually felt like short stories.
The other stories in the collection did to their credit, really go off in starkly different directions. The sheer concept of a snails reincarnation into a woman or an STD pandemic for instance.
‘The Dead Interview’ and ‘Impatient Griselda’ would be my two favourites from the book. The Former being a seance style interview with George Orwell(maybe my recent animal farm re-read added to this) and the latter being an alien life-form attempting to tell an earth fable to a group of quarantined humans.
I have to be honest, while the middle section had some good moments, it wasn’t perfect. That paired with the 1/3 and 3/3 sections feeling wasted on me, this was overall a bit of a flop.
I apparently vary in how I like my Atwood.