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A review by chester_is
Old Babes in the Wood by Margaret Atwood
4.0
it's a sandwich, this book. the bread is autofictional stories of Nell & Tig, aka Atwood and Graeme Gibson. these are equal parts funny and heartbreaking, as Tig/Graeme departed this life in 2019, and the freshness and sweetness of Atwood's grief are abundant.
the "meat" of the sandwich — or maybe roasted eggplant, or tuna salad — is a selection of mostly recent stories, anchored by "My Evil Mother", bittersweet. many of the other stories are speculative/sci-fi, but in earthbound ways, even when the narrator is extra-terrestrial. the weirdness quotient is high, and i applaud this unreservedly.
Margaret Atwood is a Canadian treasure, yes. but more than that, she is a human treasure. it is my fortune to have come to her at a point in my life when i can fully appreciate the reading.
i'll return later to add my note on the type. i found one spelling error in the book, but it was an easy one to make: the Netherlandish river the IJssel is mistakenly referred to as the Ijssel. in Netherlandish, the ij is a single letter; it's basically a y, and often functions as such in a way that English speakers would recognise:a baker works in his bakery; a bakker works in his bakkerij. when the initial capital of a place name, the IJ is capitalised, as those two letters are joined at the hip and act as one. IJssel.
the "meat" of the sandwich — or maybe roasted eggplant, or tuna salad — is a selection of mostly recent stories, anchored by "My Evil Mother", bittersweet. many of the other stories are speculative/sci-fi, but in earthbound ways, even when the narrator is extra-terrestrial. the weirdness quotient is high, and i applaud this unreservedly.
Margaret Atwood is a Canadian treasure, yes. but more than that, she is a human treasure. it is my fortune to have come to her at a point in my life when i can fully appreciate the reading.
i'll return later to add my note on the type. i found one spelling error in the book, but it was an easy one to make: the Netherlandish river the IJssel is mistakenly referred to as the Ijssel. in Netherlandish, the ij is a single letter; it's basically a y, and often functions as such in a way that English speakers would recognise:a baker works in his bakery; a bakker works in his bakkerij. when the initial capital of a place name, the IJ is capitalised, as those two letters are joined at the hip and act as one. IJssel.