Good Bones and Simple Murders (1992)

This was like a peek into Atwood riffing on ideas, plots, themes. It was like she was auditioning them, seeing what she could do with them, exercising them, putting them through their paces, marking them off with a stopwatch -- go! Wonderful. ( )

An excellent collection of short pieces by Atwood, including her own pen and ink drawings. Some satire, some reinterpretations of fairy tales and literary classics, some satire and social commentary, some humour, some political and feminist and environmental arguments... Tasty little bites, just right for reading one or two before bed, but difficult to resist consuming many in one sitting! Classic Atwood, always worth re-reading and reading out loud to a friend. ( )

“The good bones are in here.”

I snagged a used copy of Good Bones and Simple Murders (Margaret Atwood, 1994) on Amazon, whilst shopping around for some of Atwood’s older novels. A slim collection of short stories and poetry, Good Bones is an eclectic mix, with illustrations by the author peppered throughout. The stories cover a little bit of everything: fantasy, mystery, science fiction, speculative fiction, feminism, rape culture, gender wars, dating, death - you name it.

Many of the pieces are hit and miss; my favorites are the scifi stories that hinge on an environmental or animal-friendly theme:

- “Cold-Blooded” - An alien race of matriarchal moth people visit planet earth - or as they call it, “The Planet of the Moths,” a nickname owing to the fact that their moth cousins outnumber us by billions - and find humans sorely lacking in both culture and intelligence;

- “My Life As a Bat” – A series of reflections on the narrator’s past life as a bat, including a disturbing (and, as it just so happens, true) anecdote about WWII-era experiments in which bats were made into unwitting suicide bombers;

- “Hardball” - A piece of dystopian speculative fiction in which humans, having decimated their environment, have retreated to live under a giant dome. Since space is limited, the population must be kept in check: for every birth, one person is chosen to die via a lottery. Care to guess what becomes of the remains?

Also enjoyable are those stories which reimagine classic literature: “Gertrude Talks Back” gives voice to Hamlet’s long-suffering mother, and “Unpopular Gals” and “Let Us Now Praise Stupid Women” celebrates those villains and “airheads” without which fairy tales would not exist.

While at times difficult to read, “Liking Men” is another standout; this is the piece that deals with sexual assault, vis à vis a woman’s journey back to coping with – and even loving – men (or rather, one man in particular) again after her rape.

A must for fans of Margaret Atwood!

(Is there a nickname for us, like HDM’s Sraffies? Atwolytes, maybe? Mad Adams and Angry Eves?)

PS – Dear Margaret: Fishes are indeed animals. Can we please stop pretending otherwise? xoxo – A vegan feminist fan. ( )

I found reading this collection like walking through an art gallery: enriching but a bit tiring. Exposed to new ideas, pushed to think differently or see things rom a different point of view, but often not really "getting it". Occasionally amusing or insightful but never laugh-out-loud funny or teary. But that's just me; I generally need things spelled out for me and am not an "art lover". Might be better with a friend and don't try to see the whole gallery in one day. ( )

The word that went through my head more often than any other while reading this book was "weird".

This is a collection of short stories, some that are actually poetry as well, that covers an impressively wide range of subjects, from Hamlet, fairy tales, love, the necessity of stupidity, war, and how to make a man.

The stories are very short, very quick to read, and often accompanied by illustrations from the other. All in all, it's a great little collection. Indeed, very weird, but great! ( )