Customer Reviews

The Tent

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Incredible! This fascinating collection of stories, poems, and shorts is as intriguing as the many different voices Atwood uses to portray the pieces. The Works in this collection span many years of writing and many of the pieces have previously been published elsewhere in such works as: The Walrus, Harper's Magazine, New Beginnings, and a few small independent printings of smaller collections.

What draws the reader in, in this compilation, is that every tale is a story about a life, or lives. They are told in first, second or third person accounts, and some are stories of a person telling their own story to save it from the ravages of the press, or from being lost in time.

There is a powerful collection of pieces on orphans that highlights the collection. Atwood uses wit, witticism, irony and dark humour to open our eyes to the lives of others.

A reader will be drawn in by the power of lives, some calm and serine, and some outrageous, and others downright wicked and evil. But all will grab your attention. Read with great attention and take time after each story to reflect upon the message of that piece before moving on. The temptation will be to race through the book, and if you do so, you will be drawn back to reread it more slowly and savor the offerings.

When the profound and prolific Margaret Atwood speaks, I listen. Beyond the fact that her superlative fiction has entertained me for years, Atwood writes with an incisive wit and sophistication that is bred of experience. Generational, perhaps, but such sage wisdom and pithy comments on the state of the world and personal imagination are welcome in any context. In a series of deceptively short pieces, Atwood discourses on diverse topics, herself a central figure, with intimate knowledge of this territory: "Encouraging the Young"; "Orphan Stories"; "It's Not Easy Being Half-Divine"; "Chicken Little Goes Too Far", all invitations to an exploration of self and the modern world, the conventions that define our civilization and the fables we embrace.

Past, future, fable, myth- all are pliable in this author's hands, replete with rampant imagery, nothing wasted, each with a twist of insight to pique our complacent intellects, an undercurrent of hope that all is not lost. The title piece, "The Tent", is an allegory of us and them, one man's damnation another man's salvation: "you can't be exact about the truth and you don't want to go out there, out into the wilderness to see for yourself". Chicken Little wears more modern garb as he goes about trumpeting his anxiety that the sky is falling. Indeed it is, but who has time to address his concerns, everyone caught in the busy work of special interests. Besides, "whining is so unattractive". To be taken seriously, he is forced to start his own web site, TSIF- The Sky Is Falling. The world goes backwards in "The Animals Reject Their Names", de-evolving, species to cell, vague memories of God dissolving by the moment: "because God has bitten his own tongue/ and the first bright word of creation/ hovers in the formless void/ unspoken."

From the quirky retelling of fable to trenchant observations of a conflicted culture, each entry prods and stimulates: a paean to the mothers we have loved and reviled ("Bring Back Mom: An Invocation"), the idealized mother seen as icon with feet of clay, once expendable, but now a necessary component of out lives: "trying with all her might/ not to sink below the line/ between chin up and despair"; she is, incredibly, indispensable, so that "the holes in the world will be mended". In "Orphan Stories", Atwood displays the subtle wit that infuses her work: "Orphans have bad experiences...because they're so tempting... because they're so damaged... because they're so easily broken... because no one will believe what they say". Not to worry, no insult implied: "It is you, not we, that have always been the children of the gods." A wonderful collection, a worthy gift for self or cherished others. Luan Gaines/ 2006.

The stories are mostly very short and filled with edgy on the mark ideas. Quick to read and compelling. It's hard to group/encapsulate the variety of stories... so many ideas written darkly, crisply, playfully, clearly...with such a controlled intent-- tempered with the wisdom of life experience. Margaret Atwood just playes with words and ideas so brilliantly. I don't know if everyone will LIKE each and every story but they will come away thinking about them-- so a good discussion is likely.

I am a big fan of Margaret Atwood. I have read all but one of her prose fiction and I usually finish one of her books looking ahead for another. I prefer her novels although "Wilderness Tips" is one of the best short story collections I've ever read. She surprized me with "Good Bones and Simple Murders" because of the brevity of her stories. "The Tent" falls into the same format of a collection of whimsical sketches. I liken this format to buying one of Picasso's doodle pads; It would have been nice to have the oil painting but there's still something to appreciate in what you got.

Ms. Atwood divides her sketches into three chapters (thus enabling the book to add another half dozen blank pages to the other 10 or so (in a 154 page book!). For what it's worth, my favorites were all in Chapter 2. I enjoyed the pointed satire of "Chicken Little Goes Too Far", I liked the humor of "Three Novels I Won't Write Soon", I liked the subtlety of "Heritage House", I was impressed with "Bring Back Mom: An Invocation" and, finally, I loved the perspective of "Post-Colonial". These were worth buying (and reading) the book.

Margaret Atwood has a very insightful way of looking at people and their relationships. Her novels take you places in those areas that others could not find. I missed that in "The Tent" but I still came away knowing more than when I started.

It seems all that have reviewed this book so far are Atwood fans (which I guess is typical given the fact that one generally reviews things one likes). I'm not sure I would put myself in that camp (This is only the second book by Atwood that I've read), but I do admire her abilities as a writer: her use of language; her oddly apt comparisons; her strong, direct style. Therein, this book does not disappoint. In fact, in some of the earlier pieces I was left admiring Atwood's writing more than what she wrote. And that, in a nutshell, is the fault I find with the collection. It is (as many have already observed) a bit uneven.

"The Tent" is a collection of vignettes divided into three "books" (Book II being the strongest section, as many have already commented). The vignettes discuss a wide range of topics from social injustice to God to the changing roles of motherhood to the craft of writing. I would have liked a bit more cohesion to tie the collection together; they seemed a bit too disparate for my liking. Granted, it IS a collection, and "collection" implies difference, but that's just my preference.

The stories that worked for me: "Life Stories" and "Voice" (two vignettes about the need to write). "Orphan Stories" and "Salome was a Dancer" (two vignettes about the conflicting feelings Society has towards victims). "Take Charge" was interesting by essentially telling the same event but in five different time periods (past, present, future). "Post-Colonial" and "Heritage House" (two vignettes about what is remembered in history and whose history is remembered). "Faster" and "Eating the Birds" (two very short pieces about unchecked avarice and its cost).

A good (not great) collection of literary sketches. Save yourself some money and buy the paperback (instead of the hardcover)

Margaret Atwood has reached iconic status. Best known for her novels, including A Handmaid's Tale and The Blind Assassin, which won the Booker Prize in 2000, she has an acerbic wit, pointedly criticizes society, and has again and again pushed the boundaries of subject matter and literary form. In her new collection of stories, The Tent, Atwood again attacks the reigning order, and in 30 very short pieces turns literature, history and expectations on their heads.

The first thing that strikes the reader is a question of form. Are these pieces poetry? Short swatches of memory? Flash fiction? A little bit of each of these, and more. Within this freedom of form, Atwood is able to explore everything from life stories ("The livers of the lives in question had their chances, most of which they blew") to a re-writing of the Chicken Little story, where someone finally puts the annoying bird "out of his misery."

Although sometimes uneven, the collection has some gems that make it well worth reading. The book is divided into three sections, and section two seems the strongest, offering up "Plots for Exotics," where a character learns he doesn't have what it takes to be a main character, and "Bring Back Mom: An Invocation," in which the description of the bread-baking, gingham-aproned stay-at-home mom manages to simultaneously make a feminist statement and create a guilty nostalgia in the reader.

Atwood has been writing for more than 35 years, and after that long of pushing against expectations, it has ironically become expected that she would do so. As writing has been her life in many senses, it is not surprising that Atwood turns her brutal gaze on that as well. These stories, especially, feel as if Atwood, as writer, is the narrator. In one story, she decides to "encourage the young." In another she lists three of the novels she won't write soon. And in another she says: "I was given a voice. That's what people said about me. I cultivated my voice, because it would be a shame to waste such a gift." Indeed.

Armchair Interviews says: Margaret Atwood did not disappoint!

Never one to rest on her artistic laurels, Margaret Atwood, author of THE BLIND ASSASSIN and THE HANDMAID'S TALE, has compiled a clever sketchbook of images and ideas; short, imaginative prose pieces, one long-form poem, all complemented by her own illustrations. Poking fun at the archaic views of conventions such as motherhood, science and love, Atwood turns these ideas on their ear, as in her piece, "Chicken Little Goes Too Far," where the well-known nervous character who proclaims that the sky is falling gets a modern twist in this version. Here, he takes his announcement to the media and forms an environmentally conscious group, only to be assassinated by the head of a large development company who builds retirement communities in the sky.

Atwood's feminist sensibilities shine through in the prose-like poem "Bring Back Mom: An Invocation." An ungrateful child pines for the way his/her old-fashioned mother used to be: a mom with shiny red hair, always with a hearty meal at the ready --- a creation the men of Stepford would have been proud of --- who ultimately gives in to despair to become yet another victim of the suburban American Dream:

"Mom, whose husband left her
For his secretary and paid alimony
Mom, who drank in solitude....
Who was carted away
and locked up, because one day
she began screaming and wouldn't stop."

"Salome Was a Dancer" harkens back to Atwood's earlier works, like THE EDIBLE WOMAN, as she tells the story of a young girl who is blessed with the looks and wiles to drive men wild. As a fellow classmate, the narrator extols just how young Salome seduces the Religious Studies teacher in order to get a better grade. When their affair is brought to light, Salome claims she was attacked by the young teacher. The teacher maintains that he was the one who was taken advantage of, but of course the school sides with Salome and her powerful father, and the young, impressionable teacher is fired and later is seen panhandling in the subway.

In "Horatio's Version," Hamlet's dear friend and confidante sets the record straight, not just on the atrocities at Elsinore, but also on the violence that always has been pervasive in our society. Through Atwood, Horatio functions as a sort of moral watchdog:

"Somehow I no longer wanted to tell Hamlet's story. I wanted to tell something a little more --- what's the term? Human, inhuman? Something bigger. But statistics pall after a time. We're not programmed to register more than a hundred corpses. In heaps they simply become a landscape feature."

THE TENT displays the broad range of Atwood's many talents --- the lyrical portrayal of even the most mundane or distasteful aspects of life, the wonders of science and nature --- all with her trademark wit and biting commentary, doled out here in this collection as tiny, thought-provoking morsels in true Atwood style.


--- Reviewed by Bronwyn Miller

Margaret Atwood is a literary writer from Toronto, Canada. I must now read more of her fiction. "The Tent" is a collection of short & short short prose selections. Some are full-fledged stories. Some are just brief vignettes.
This slim volume would be a perfect fit for the Coffee-to-Go Series by Coffee House Press. Most of the entries are perfectly timed to be read during a coffee break or a toilet sit down break. This is how I read this book & how I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Atwood's writing is often terse. To the point. It is stripped-to-the-bone writing. It is prose from a poet. It is descriptive writing with few adjectives. It is emotive writing with little time for long drawn out emotions. It is often humorous. It is often filled with biting humor. It is loaded with sarcasm & satire ready to explode in the face of its intended target. It is populated with animals who reject the names Adam gave them. Voices become personified & greedy. An immortal injustice collector has the tale of Hamlet stolen from his bag of stories. These creations & so many others populate these pages.
Kudos to Atwood.

This work is entitled "The Tent." It is a container for a lot of things that are only loosely related. And, yes, it's a little uneven. But what else would it be? It's not a novel or a set of short stories. It seems to be designed as a loose, jangly collection of shorter and longer vignettes. If you want short stories, read short stories. On the other hand, if you are in the mood for some startling, interesting, thought-provoking creations of Margaret Atwood's mind, in chunks and longer passages of her appealing, readable prose, read this.

I have done my master's degree on Margaret Atwood's The Edible Woman and the way Atwood critizes our male ruled society is brilliant. She refuses to portray women as victims of our society and she believes in the interaction of men and women in a "healthy" way. In The Tent Atwood gives us a variety of texts that deal with human rights, feminism, ecology and she also discusses a bit on the process of writing. I had the pleasure of meeting Atwood in Brazil and besides being extremely competent as a writer she is really kind with everyone. Buy this book now! If you liked Writing With Intent as much as I did, The Tent will add more wood to the fire! In The Tent you'll find the Atwoodian sense of humor on its best. Congratulations Ms.Atwood. I'm your #1 Brazilian fan.