Comments on: The Cat’s Table, by Michael Ondaatje

By: Buried In Print

Buried In Print — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 03:38:27 +0000

Really enjoyed reading your thoughts on this one. And it looks like a great conversation about other Canlit icons that I missed because I was avoiding Michael Ondaatje's latest. And for no good reason, as it turns out. I'd heard a lot of 'meh' and some outright disappointment, so I approached it with caution; but I've finished it at last, and I enjoyed it almost as much as I enjoyed In the Skin of a Lion. Although that was my first of his, and so has a special glimmer of nostalgia in my reader's experience. (My thoughts are here if you're interested.)

By: Kate, Sydney

Kate, Sydney — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 22:41:12 +0000

I have also had to part ways reluctantly with Margaret Atwood since she started writing her futuristic novels. I thought her brilliant with The Robber’s Bride, Alias Grace and Cat’s Eye but….. I have also recently discovered Margaret Laurence and agree with Mrs Kfc. She is very, very good.

By: KevinfromCanada

KevinfromCanada — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 21:35:36 +0000

This one is definitely better than Divisadero, although I share you frustration. Check out Kimbofo’s review — I think she captured some aspects of the book that I did not address in my review.

By: Cherine Badwi-Hlady

Cherine Badwi-Hlady — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 21:24:04 +0000

I thought Divisadero was awful. So bad, in fact, that I am sadly reluctant to read any new titles of his. And this review, though on the positive side, doesn’t change my mind. Sadly, Ondaatje and Ian McEwan (another one of my “fallen-out-of-favour” favourites) seem to have lost their mojo. At leat Margaret Laurence had the good sense to know when to stop, going out full guns blazing with The Diviners.

By: marco

marco — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 15:25:35 +0000

The Handmaid’s Tale was inspired by a visit to Afghanistan in 1978; under traditional custom the life of women in poor rural areas wasn’t much different from now.

While The Handmaid’s Tale may be seen as a response to the conservative backlash against feminism as well as the rise of the Religious Right in the early 80s, it doesn’t add much to the table with respect to the exploration of gender themes advanced by authors like Russ, Tiptree Jr, Charnas, Piercy, Haden Elgin during the great season of Feminist Science Fiction in the 70s.

By: KevinfromCanada

KevinfromCanada — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 14:11:10 +0000

Max, Lisa: I’ll leave the SF debate to you two — any comments that I would make would have the definite advantage of not being affected by actual experience. I do agree with Max however that Atwood seems to want to deny what it is that she is actually writing.

By: Max Cairnduff

Max Cairnduff — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 13:04:52 +0000

Oops, accidentally repeated myself in that post. Sorry.

By: Max Cairnduff

Max Cairnduff — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 13:00:50 +0000

Not necessarily that long. The Taliban are just one manifestation of an age-old desire to control women. I didn’t have the impression Atwood was writing about a specific example of a group in our world, but I very much had the impression she was nonetheless writing about our world through an SFnal mirror – and that’s far from an unusual thing to do. The Taliban were just another (admittedly unusually extreme) manifestation of a wider and much older phenomenon.

The Stepford Wives similarly uses SF (Levin wrote a fair bit of it) to hold a mirror up to the real world.

Foundation though, that really is just about a made-up future.

By: Lisa Hill

Lisa Hill — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 12:43:34 +0000

I don’t want comment on the definition of speculative v science fiction because it appears that the only books I’ve read in such genres are Atwoods, Asimov’s Foundation and The Stepford Wives. I don’t know enough about it. However The Handmaid’s Tale was published in 1985 well before the Taliban began their rule in Afghanistan in 1996 and took women back to the Dark Ages. And while the Islamic Revolution in Iran took place in 1979 and its ideology opposes equality of the sexes and reversed many civil rights, women are not wholly excluded from public life and can still attend university and work in the civil service and elsewhere. Even in Saudi Arabia which is more repressive, women are allowed to attend school and go to work. So if Atwood was commenting on real world issues in 1985 she was drawing a long bow…

By: Max Cairnduff

Max Cairnduff — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 11:46:50 +0000

Commenting on real world issues such as the Taliban treatment of women is pretty much what speculative fiction does. That’s the point of it in large part.

I remember Linda Grant once saying on twitter how something wasn’t sf because it was really about our world. It was an odd comment. Some sf is about made up futures, but plenty is only about that on the surface and underneath isn’t about the future at all.

Still, not that I plan to defend Atwood. A sniffy writer who looks down on the genre she’s part of. Her whole redefinition of herself as someone who writes speculative fiction, not science fiction, is just embarassing. It seems odd to choose to write in a genre and then pretend not to.

On Munro I was talking about the 1980 Booker shortlist recently and I noticed that Alice Munro was on it. Given how strong that year’s list was, and Kevin’s praise for her, I think I need to reconsider Munro. Where would you suggest starting Kevin?