Fiction Friday (102)

As I've mentioned in a Fiction Friday a few weeks ago, one of the great treats about working in a library is wandering the shelves and spotting a book that you didn't know existed. So, something only librarians might appreciate is that poetry is not shelved in the fiction section, or some poetry section (which doesn't exist in libraries), but is shelved in Non-Fiction in the 811's. And that is where I cam across this book, by an author I love, and was unaware she wrote poetry.

morning in the burned house by Margaret Atwood
(Mariner Books, 1996)

The strength of any poetry is the word. It is the choice of words, the choice of omission, and the order in which they come together. In this collection of poetry, most centered around the theme of aging, Atwood displays a mastery of all of those choices. 

Her ability to take ordinary scenes and imbue them with a quality of imaginative beauty is the real treasure of this book. Her imagery is stunning. Her rhythm nearly impeccable. There wasn't any single poem that rose above the others, rather it was the entirety of the collection that gives it power.

I don't read poetry to the extent that I once did. In collect, I was a devoted reader of poetry, but sort moved away from it. However, every now and then I enjoy the form and relish the moments I spend absorbed in a collection. This was one of those books.

Fiction Friday (55)

I don't want to jinx myself, but I've been closing the last page of a book more often these days, though that may end now that I've begun Finnegan's Wake. But in the meantime, I'm going to enjoy the progress I'm making in my goal to read more books. This week I finished reading a book I picked up last month. I've read some Margaret Atwood in the past and really liked her style, but this book was something else. Easily one of the best books I've ever read, this is one of those stories that will shape my thoughts on writing for years to come. Enjoy. 

Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood
(Anchor, 1988)

"Time is not a line but a dimension, like the dimensions of space. If you can bend space you can bend time also, and if you knew enough and could move faster than light you could travel backward in time and exist in two places at once."  opening lines

There comes a point in our lives, usually around the age of eight or nine, when our families cease to be the center of how we define ourselves. The realm of friendship moves in to shape our ideas of self-worth and deficiencies. Though there are many novels that examine this coming of age theme, few of them look at the scars left by these friendships. In Cat's Eye, Maragret Atwood takes a brutally honest and poetic look at how these relationships can be both damaging and dangerous.

Returning to her hometown of Toronto after her own kids have grown, Elaine Risley begins to revisit the events of her youth that haunt her. She describes in detail the punishingly cruel friendships she had as a girl, the kind that are all too common and all too often ignored. The girls "think that they are friends" and from the perspective of childhood, they are. It is only in retrospect that Elaine sees the cruelty inflicted upon her and the cruelty she later inflicts on those who are supposed to be friends. But it is also these relationships that ultimately made her the celebrated artist she's become.

As much as this book is about the world of female friendship, it also about the dying of the past and the way society continues to rebuild itself, told through the metaphor of the city that hardly resembles the one that raised Elaine. It also about the way we drift in and out of relationships, moving farther and farther from ourselves as we become who we are in the present. Outstanding in every way, this is one of the best books I've ever read!