Bluebeard's Egg: Stories [Paperback]

Margaret Atwood (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 20, 1998

By turns humorous and warm, stark and frightening, Bluebeard'S Egg glows with childhood memories, the reality of parents growing old, and the casual cruelty men and women inflict on each other. Here is the familiar outer world of family summers at remote lakes, winters of political activism, and seasons of exotic friends, mundane lives, and unexpected loves. But here too is the inner world of hidden places and all that emerges from them-the intimately personal, the fantastic, the shockingly real...whether it's what lives in a mysterious locked room or the secret feelings we all conceal. In this dramatic and far-ranging collection, Margaret Atwood proves why she is a true master of the genre.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"Conversations in our family were not about feelings," recalls the teenage narrator of "Hurricane Hazel"about her breakup with a boyfriend who "meant what is usually called absolutely nothing to me"in Atwood's (The Handmaid's Tale, etc.) second collection of shortfiction. Unfortunately, the author's arch cleverness and cool understatementanesthetize the impact of the stories' conversations and gloomy relationshipsbetween parents and children, husbands and wives, friends and lovers. Symbols abound and some, reminiscent of Atwood's "edible woman" cake in the book of the same title, are strained. In "Uglypuss," the discordant lovers are political activists; at one point they plan to picket a sock company and dramatize the crucifixion, portraying Christ as a large knitted sock, in red and white stripes. But the collection is somewhat redeemed by the affecting title story, where an egga deceptively innocuous object that, according to the legend, ultimately marks as disobedient two of Bluebeard's unfortunate wivesaptly symbolizes the protagonist's premonitions of doom about her marriage to a man she is desperately afraid of losing, although she describes him as obtuse, blundering and predictable.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

In this delightful collection of short stories, Atwood (The Blind Assassin) explores relationships between men and women, parents and children, and people and pets. She also touches on anorexia and adult children of elderly parents. In typical Atwood fashion, the characters and locations are described in detail. Bonnie Hurren transports the listener into the author's world with her excellent pronunciation and slow, well-paced intonation. Each cassette stops at a convenient point in the story rather than whenever the tape ends. While this requires the listener to fast-forward each tape before changing sides, it makes it easier to follow the story line. Recommended for popular fiction collections and any library serving Atwood fans. Laurie Selwyn, San Antonio P.L.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Anchor (January 20, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385491042
• ISBN-13: 978-0385491044
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.7 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #585,093 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

MARGARET ATWOOD, whose work has been published in over thirty-five countries, is the author of more than forty books of fiction, poetry, and critical essays. In addition to The Handmaid's Tale, her novels include Cat's Eye, shortlisted for the Booker Prize; Alias Grace, which won the Giller Prize in Canada and the Premio Mondello in Italy; The Blind Assassin, winner of the 2000 Booker Prize; and her most recent, Oryx and Crake, shortlisted for the 2003 Booker Prize. She lives in Toronto with writer Graeme Gibson.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars facets of our world, September 17, 1999

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Bluebeard's Egg: Stories (Paperback)

This was the first book by Margaret Atwood I read after reading the short story "Happy Ending" in an anthology.

A great writer is easily recognisable. All you have to do is to write a few lines of a novel or a short story. You will just keep on reading and feel sorry when you are closer to the end than to the beginning of the story.

This collection of short stories shows that Margaret Atwood is a major writer and story teller. Of course, not in the pulp fiction or slimy-sweet sense but you need a curiosity for the inner world of soliloquies and self-observations.

However, she does not give us lectures on psychology, but tells us the story and we can live it from the inside.

In three of the stories the seeds of her later novel, "Cat's Eye" can be found, which I was inspired to read exactly by them. Short stories can always be a good introduction or lead-in for writer and reader alike.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tactile and tangible with biting wit, April 5, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Bluebeard's Egg: Stories (Paperback)

In Bluebeard's Egg, Margaret Atwood weaves her poetic prose though twelve short stories that are as haunting as they are hilarious. Atwood takes the reader on a journey within her characters' minds, using real life for the canvass of her work. While the reader senses almost no movement through the physical world, there is a striking depth and distance traveled in each story.

Atwood's characters range from neurotic artists to doctor's wives, all linked by their dysfunctional existence. In "Uglypuss," Joel, a struggling theater director, goes out for a drink when his estranged girlfriend announces that she is coming over. After a rendezvous of casual sex with an old aquaintance, Joel returns to find his place ravaged and his cat missing. It is in this twisted context where the protagonist asks, "what's the point of continuing, in a society like this one, where it's always two steps forward and two back?"

Atwood, like only a handful of other authors, is able to sharply focus her writing while grappling with philosophical issues. Yvonne, in "The Sunrise," wonders: "if art sucks and everything is only art, what has she done with her life?" All the while, the reader is grounded in sensory details, like Kimberly's "wet pink oyster-like mouth."

In many of the stories, Atwood melts past with present, mimicking the random texture of human thought. The seamless prose carries the reader along, stopping at childhood beach cabins, home economics class, and erotic sexual encounters. These retrospective glimpses are preludes to the hauntingly familiar world that the characters inhabit.

With Bluebeard's Egg, Atwood has reached a new plateau in her writing, showcasing complete mastery of the craft. Her prose grabs the reader, poking and prodding until the comical and horrific are somehow inseperable. This is superlative serious fiction from one of the most prolific authors of the genre. END

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Captivated by the Egg., June 2, 2002

By 

Britt Arnhild Lindland (Norway) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bluebeard's Egg and Other Stories (Audio Cassette)

In the car I always have an audiobook to listen to, and the last weeks I really have enjoyed Margareth Atwood's Bluebeard's Egg and other stories.

This is a collection of short stories written by a master of words, and a master of short stories. When Atwood writes she uses no extra words or sentences, she takes us right to the point, and the point in this collection is human beings. Common human beings fighting for their lives. No heros, just plain people like you and me. Every time a new story starts I think, this one cannot be better than the last, but it happend again and again, the story captivates me, and it is all mornings hard to stop the car and go to work - I want to hear just one more sentence, and then one more.

My favorite story though is the one that has given name to the collection, Bluebeard's Egg. A well known fairy tale, told and given it's own meaning by Atwood, or may be she just shows us the original meaning of the story. Sally, the main carachter of the story struggles with the puzzle of her life, to keep all the pieces together. The center of her life is her husband Ed, but how can she be sure that she is also the center in Ed's life? No one can write about this, invite us into and let us be in the feeling of the story like Atwood do.

Britt Arnhild Lindland