Customer Reviews

GOOD BONES and SIMPLE MURDERS

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is an eclectic collection of short pieces (a little too short and non-narrative to be called short stories) on topics such as Chicken Little, the importance of dumb women in literature, Hamlet from Gertrude's perspectives, war, death, birth and more. There is no doubting, reading this, that Atwood has a feminist bent, but don't let that you scare you off - it is definitely not a ram-down-your-throat version of feminism. Rather, it is a funny, smart and insightful perspective.

I would not recommend this as an introduction to Atwood - a first time reader would probably be better suited to reading one of her novels such as The Blind Assassin or The Handmaid's Tale first. But I think that for readers that have encountered Atwood before, this collection will give you an insight into a fascinating and wryly humourous writer.

Every one loves a fairy tale, they shine at us like apples, ripe and flavorfull. Atwood's short poetic prose collected here is like eating a bag of apples. Atwood has selected these apples, she has chosen worms and bruses along with tart crunches. Turning fairy tales on there heads "The melon-burst, the tomato-coloured splatter- now that's a story!". These shorts are not as careful as her poetry, prose allows her this freedom but there are morsels here to chew on, to digest

"Good Bones" is one of my favourites from way back in junior high school. A decade or so later, Atwood's essays and creative tid bits still have resonance for me. Her wit and subversive humour really shine here in this collection.

A truly delightful book, so humurous yet revealing deep contemplation of the challenge of being human and female.

Every story in this book is good. I have to say that up front because now I'm going to tell you that the third story, "Unpopular Gals," is why this book will remain forever enshrined on my bookshelf. In five and a half pages, Atwood tells you why fairy tales live forever, and it ain't because of that wimpy, weak-kneed, put-upon little girl whose rescue always takes center stage.

Quite honestly, before I read this book, I had hesitated to indulge in "flash fiction." I like my fiction long, the longer the better. I like Gore Vidal because his works are looooong.

This lovely little book of flash fiction sold me on the art form. While many of the stories are not narrative fiction in the traditional sense, they are smart and funny. Many of them are based on ideas more than the heart of the character. In a longer work, that would make the work slight and overly intellectual. Here, it makes them snappy.

In addition, many of these works are excellent jumping off points to consider literature and writing. For example, the second piece, "Unpopular Gals," tells the story of fairy tales from the POV of the evil stepsister or stepmother. While the POV character laments that she gets all the blame, the piece ends with, "You can wipe your feet on me, twist my motives around all you like, you can dump millstones on my head and drown me in the river, but you can't get me out of the story. I'm the plot, babe, and don't ever forget it." [Emphasis added.]

You can discuss the post-modern era with its emphasis on the disenfranchised character all you like, but that one gem is worth the whole book to an aspiring writer. The other pieces are just as good.

TK Kenyon
Author of Rabid: A Novel and Callous: A Novel

Much as I hate to give anything by Margaret Atwood fewer than 5 stars, honesty requires me to say that this collection is uneven and sometimes boring. Flashes of brilliance (_Hamlet_ from Gertrude's perpective is the best) still make it worth reading. What the heck - you'll get through it in an afternoon, and it's MUCH better than most of what's out there.

Atwoods collection of shot anecdotes ,prose, and takeoffs of traditional narratives creates a delicious layered candy cake, yummy from start to finnish. A light, quick read intended to be thought provoking in either its mildest form or more serious, Good Bones creates a batter of cookie dough complementing her unique sense of style and outlook on our society.

There is quite a mixture of ``genres'' and moods in the book. Some of them, I do not know how to name these writings, are pure satires and witty criticisms of the crook in every human being and in humanity in general, and others are like a breeze getting free from one's stream of consciousness. I felt this latter type really close to me and discovered why: because they are poems without the traditional poetic form. They can transmit a mood into the reader. Yes, they have no story or obvious message to the mind but rather to the whole human being; not food for the analysing mind but a kind of programs that get all your internal resources arranged into a special pattern which is more visual, that is, you rather wonder at it than think about it because you feel it moving and coming to life in you, than verbal.

Good Bones and Simple Murders / 0-385-47110-6

This compilation of Atwood's shortest stories and musings include the following:
- Murder in the Darl
- Bad News
- Unpopular Girls
- The Little Red Hen Tells All
- Gertrude Talks Back
- There Was Once
- Women's Novels
- The Boys' Own Annual
- Stump Hunting
- Making a Man
- Men at Sea
- Simmering
- Happy Endings
- Let Us Now Praise Stupid Women
- The Victory Burlesk
- She
- The Female Body
- Cold-Blooded
- Liking Men
- In Love with Raymond Chandler
- Simple Murders
- Iconography
- Alien Territory
- My Life as a Bat
- Hardball
- Bread
- Poppies: Three Variations
- Homelanding
- The Page
- An Angel
- Third Handed
- Death Scenes
- We Want It All
- Dance of the Lepers
- Good Bones

These stories are all fairly short, no more than a few pages each, and many are less stories than simply musings on the part of the author. Each one is a little snippet of thought, with a larger story behind it that exists only in the author's mind. For instance, "Gertrude Talks Back", a quick short speech where Hamlet's mother responds to his famous berating speech and confesses proudly that it was she who killed Claudius. Behind the speech lies an unwritten story with a stronger Gertrude, one who takes command of her own destiny rather than simply playing the passive roles of widow, wife, and mother.

The only real drawback to this compilation is that the stories are almost too short, too unpolished. The idea behind each is compelling, but it is disappointing that the idea wasn't able to blossom into a full story, or even a whole novel. Of course, lots of ideas peter out with nothing ever coming of them, and there's no shame in publishing these failed musings to inspire others, but it is a bit sad that this is as far as these stories ever got.

~ Ana Mardoll