Curious Pursuits: Occasional Writings, 1970-2005

Curious Pursuits is a collection of some of Atwood's shorter non-fiction writing, including some forty seven separate pieces — reviews, speeches, essays and obituaries — which were written between 1970 and 2005. Some of the pieces were about books which I had already read, while others concerned people I had never heard of before, but I found all of them interesting, some of them compassionate, and some of them outright hilarious. 'Writing the Male Character' was probably my favourite - very insightful, with enough bite to make it terrifically funny. I would love to have been a fly on the wall when she first gave it, just to see how many people in the audience squirmed and looked uncomfortable. If you're a fan of her work at all, show more this is well worth dipping in to show less

Curious Pursuits is a collection of reviews, forewords and essays by Margaret Atwood. The pieces, written between 1970 and 2005, have been collected into a single volume and seem to have no connecting link between them other than their author. There are definitely reoccuring themes--such as the state of Canadian literature/culture, feminism and, more towards the end, environmentalism--but overall, it doesn’t seem strong enough to hang together.

In the acknowledgements section, Atwood describes overhearing four Irish women discussing her books and complaining that they were becoming too long. She points to the short length of some of the pieces in the book as a peace offering. The book itself, however, is rather chunky. This left it in show more a weird space for me. It was too big to take travelling with me, but the stories were too short to engage me for an extended reading session at home. I found myself putting this book down a lot and wandering off to do other things.

And yet I read the book all the way through. Part of this is probably due to my own stubborness--I’m always very reluctant to put a book down once I’ve started. But the book held interest for me as a writer. A writer, it seems, will write and write a profusion of different things. It was interesting to me to see all the different forms Atwood’s writing has taken apart from her novels (and made me feel better that I am not the only one with diverse writing interests). Her comments about writing had potential for further rumination on my part. I found her book reviews interesting on a couple of levels--discovering both what she had been reading, what her thoughts on it were and the improvement over the years in how she wrote the reviews. I found her essay on The Island of Doctor Moreau particularly interesting and a stronger note to finish the book on.

However, I don’t think it revealed all that much about Atwood as a person, though there was some personal detail, and overall I was left wondering what the point of the book was. show less

Well lets accept it, Atwood is perhaps one of the select woman writers out there who can be considered to be of substance. It is the refinery of her prose and her well developed observational skills that pulls her away from the mediocre horde.
This book is a decent collection of some her non-fiction writings over a period of time, ranging from various subjects- Edinburgh Fringe to Atarnajuat.

I would say it also makes a good introduction to anyone who is looking to start with Atwood.