Penelopiad
I've just finished reading Margaret Atwood's Penelopiad -- her retelling of the Iliad / Odyssey from the point of view of Penelope and the twelve hung maids*. Apart from the short length, it's very typical Atwood (which means it's very good!).
One of Atwood's main themes is that waiting is boring. Somehow, she's managed to write probably about a thousand pages about this in her career, and it's still interesting to read. I still don't quite understand how she makes boredom interesting, but she manages, and this book is no exception.
I'd never read any of her verse before, so it was nice to see solid dogerrel writing (and some more sophisticated stuff) in there breaking up the monologue. Like most Atwood, it's first person interspersed with a few bits of a different genre: in Blind Assassin the other genre is fantasty; here, Greek choruses. She also reuses the trick from Handmaid's Tale of ending in the Academy, looking back critically at what she's just explored in the fiction.
Penelope narrates this from the underworld, and includes a few cute comments on how she's seen society evolve since her death. A good example is after discussing how Odysseus used a potion to make himself run faster in the race for her hand in marriage, she says this has become a tradition even in modern foot races.
Overall, Margaret Atwood really only has one trick, but she does it very well, does it here and I hope she'll keep doing it.
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* Blink and you miss them in the Odyssey: Telemachus hangs twelve maids who have been sleeping with (in Atwood's version, been raped by) the suitors after he and Odysseus kill the suitors. I didn't remember this bit at all, but maybe it had been edited out of the Students Edition we read in school?
One of Atwood's main themes is that waiting is boring. Somehow, she's managed to write probably about a thousand pages about this in her career, and it's still interesting to read. I still don't quite understand how she makes boredom interesting, but she manages, and this book is no exception.
I'd never read any of her verse before, so it was nice to see solid dogerrel writing (and some more sophisticated stuff) in there breaking up the monologue. Like most Atwood, it's first person interspersed with a few bits of a different genre: in Blind Assassin the other genre is fantasty; here, Greek choruses. She also reuses the trick from Handmaid's Tale of ending in the Academy, looking back critically at what she's just explored in the fiction.
Penelope narrates this from the underworld, and includes a few cute comments on how she's seen society evolve since her death. A good example is after discussing how Odysseus used a potion to make himself run faster in the race for her hand in marriage, she says this has become a tradition even in modern foot races.
Overall, Margaret Atwood really only has one trick, but she does it very well, does it here and I hope she'll keep doing it.
--
* Blink and you miss them in the Odyssey: Telemachus hangs twelve maids who have been sleeping with (in Atwood's version, been raped by) the suitors after he and Odysseus kill the suitors. I didn't remember this bit at all, but maybe it had been edited out of the Students Edition we read in school?