Strange Things: The Malevolent North in Canadian Literature, by Margaret Atwood

I have had this book for a while now and for some reason it took me four years to pick it up.  I think the subtitle and cover must have put me off.  Anyway, I chose to read it at the right time since I am starting to become fascinated and increasingly curious about anything Canadian, particularly stories about Natives.  I think that might be due to my trip to Canada: Canada became a reality not a place from which my favourite author writes. 

Strange Things by Atwood was definitely a good introduction to tropes of the Canadian North.  As Atwood often states she is a creative writer, not an academic (anymore) and this can be felt in her non-fictional writings.  Each of the four parts of the book is a lecture; yet, they all have a quality of storytelling and Atwood’s humour can be felt through the whole book.

The first lecture is about the disaster of Franklin Expedition, which is also the topic of her story “The Age of Lead”, who set to discover the Northwest Passage in the nineteenth century but of which all members ended up dying for strange and, for a long time, unexplained reasons.  The second lecture is entitled “The Grey Owl Syndrome” and is about those white men who try to “turn Natives”.  The third lecture is about the Wendigo, a figure I had never heard of, which/who is a ravenous cannibal creature with a heart of ice.  The last lecture focuses on how women writers have used these tropes in their works and thus on how their representation of the malevolent North might be different to that of male writers. 

Atwood does not intend to be all knowledgeable on these topics and these lectures are not all-encompassing.  However, she is well-read and knows what she is talking about, particularly when it concerns their representations in Literature.  The lectures provide an introduction and might give you the envy to read some of the many texts she mentions and to explore further the subject of the Canadian North.

Good Bones by Margaret Atwood

Good Bones by Margaret Atwood is one of the three collections of what she calls “aberrations” and “mutations”.  The pieces in this collection defy categorisation.  They are short pieces of various forms and one could spend a long time trying to decide whether these are flash fictions, prose poems, essays and so on.  One thing they all have in common is that they are very short.  Yet, it seems that their form might have repelled readers and critics since they have received less attention than her poems, short stories proper and novels.

The tone of these pieces is often ironic and humorous.  Many of them are parodies, including that of women’s magazines “How to” section in the case of “Making a Man”, in which the narrator gives her readers various recipes to make a man.  Most pieces are highly charged with intertextuality, which allows such short pieces to be suggestive and present multiple meanings.  Some of these intertexts are obvious, such as Hamlet in “Gertrude Talks Back”, while other require more knowledge and research, as in the reference to the Baudelairean prose poem in “Men at Sea”.  Although one might miss layers of meaning by ignoring references, the pieces remain entertaining and sarcastic. 

These pieces are also self-reflexive, drawing our attention to the question of plot, considering what is involved in writing and forcing readers to reflect on how writing is politically charged.  This is often achieved through revision of well-known literary genres.  For instance, the piece “There Was Once” is a deconstruction of the classic fairy tale and “The Little Red Hen Tells All” revises a famous folk tale. 

The pieces often give a voice to marginal literary characters revising their representation in famous canonical works or to aliens and other living beings giving their views on human beings and their irrationality.  By doing so, it subverts Enlightenment ideas concerning the superiority of man (and his reason) above other species (including women).  For instance, the bat in “My Life as a Bat” criticises its representation in literature and popular culture and gives us a strange view of how humans might appear to her.

As I have said, a lot is involved in those short pieces and one can read them at various levels.  Even though we might not be able to grab all the connotations, they remain enjoyable and display Atwood’s usual wit and sarcasm.

11th Frank O’Connor International Short Story Festival

I love going to book readings and book launches, so tonight was a bit of a treat as I attended the opening of the 11th Frank O’Connor International Short Story Festival.  This event, which is sponsored by the Munster Literature Centre, is located in Cork, Frank O’Connor’s hometown.  Now, those of you who are familiar with the genre of the short story will know who I am talking about since Frank O’Connor is an emblematic figure of short-story writing and is particularly known for his work on the short story called The Lonely Voice, which can be considered as an early attempt at theorising the genre of this genre.  But tonight, and the festival in general, was not about Frank O’Connor but about discovering short-story writers and hearing them read their work.

Tonight, I thus discovered two Irish short-story writers: Claire Keegan and Aidan Carl Mathews. 

Claire Keegan was launching her latest book, Foster, which is a long short story, although she would not call it a novella.  The significant thing about this short story is that it is published on its own and by no other company than Faber & Faber; you’ll have to admit that this is quite an accomplishment.  I have read that Keegan has been compared to John McGahern, and I can see where the comparison comes from.  As someone who loves McGahern, this could only be a good sign.  With very few words (isn’t that the aim of a short story?) Keegan is able to convey an atmosphere characteristically Irish, that of a Wicklow farm.  I have heard an extract, read the beginning of the story and cannot wait to finish it!  The reading was followed by a book signing, so I did the cheesy thing and got my new purchase dedicated.  I was wondering why it was taking so long for the queue to diminish, but understood when I got there: Keegan engages you in a little chat and personalises her dedicace.  Nice, isn’t it?

Difficult to match up my enthusiasm for Keegan, and I must admit to being disappointed by Mathews’s reading.  I just did not engage as much.  The beginning of the first story he read was highly promising though: “Once upon a time…”, although you know that it is not a fairy tale that will follow.  I am not giving any definite judgement because my attention after a couple of hours being out is slightly deteriorated.  Maybe his short stories gain from being read rather than listened to, and, from what I have heard, there is a lot going on.  I will come back to his stories, read them attentively and try to savour the words more carefully.  From what I have glanced at in the collection I bought, his stories start with a punch line, bringing you right in the heart of the story.  That’s a good start…