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Wilderness Tips

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I am a big fan of Margaret Atwood. I have enjoyed most all of her novels but, after reading "Dancing Girls", I was under the opinion that short stories were not her thing. However, I believe the collection of stories in "Wilderness Tips" is one of her best works. The stories are superb beginning with "True Trash" which takes us to a summer camp and introduces us to a young woman's secret and a younger man's sad lack of awareness of the life he's created. It ends, or rather, evaporates leaving us with unrealized expectations. "Hairball" is a marvelous story about revenge for a scorned affair. "The Bog Man" is essentially the same subject matter. "Uncles" is a beautiful story about the father figures in a girl's life. Although she doesn't know her real father, she knows her uncles. Their characters are somewhat undeveloped because it is their strength, not their personality that we need to understand. We follow the life of the girl whose security is lost after the uncles are gone. For me, the most compelling story is "Death by Landscape". The story takes place at a summer camp and involves the lives of two girls who become attached after spending successive summers together. The ending is bizarre and Atwood takes us beyond that and leaves us with eerie goosebumps. The other stories are compelling and the reader finishes ready for more. Margaret Atwood is a very gifted writer and may some day be awarded the Nobel Prize. Her insights to femininity (as opposed to feminism) are a prime element of her genius. If you haven't read Atwood, this would be an excellent introduction. If you have read Atwood, then you'll be reading this anyway (if you haven't already).

I have read many of Atwood's novels and one compilation of her short stories, "Dancing Girls," and I am convinced that she is one of the most accomplished authors writing today. I understand the comments of those reviewers who believe that Atwood's strength is the novel, and not the short story, since she excels in the psychological interplay of characters, which usually requires more time to develop than a short story will allow. However, the stories in "Wilderness Tips" are all fully realized and memorable, and when one compares them to the stories in "Dancing Girls," one immediately realizes how far she has come. Her writing here is darkly comic, witty, profound, and remarkable. She captures in each story that fleeting moment in time when someone's life has changed unalterably.

Wilderness Tips is arguably Margaret Atwood's best short story collection and eloquently shows Atwood's warmth, wit, intelligence, humanity and insight into relationships. My personal favourites are 'Hairball' and 'Bog Man' and 'True Trash.' If you have read anything else by Margaret Atwood and enjoyed it, you won't be disappointed by this collection. I also recommend Alice Munro to anyone who is a fan of Atwood; she's not quite as funny or compelling, but she does write highly polished, interesting short stories.

"Hairball" changed my life. Afer recognizing myself as the protagonist and wishing that I had a hairball to send, I was able to get away from a destructive relationship. I re-read this book every summer. I give it as a gift to people who need to get away from "Bog Men." Atwood's perceptive metaphors are more true-to-life than the visible world.

In a college English class I was introduced to "Death By Landscape," a short story from Atwood's "Wilderness Tips." Atwod has always been a favorite of mine, and her short story was no exception. Immediately I went out and bought "Wildnerness Tips." From "True Trash" to "Hairball" I was kept glued to the pages of Atwood's anthology. Simply put: I loved it. Her stories were thoughtful and complex--and even a bit unordinary.

These stories are Atwood through-and-through. Each story, even if it starts out seeming "normal" has a bizarre twist or quirk that pulls you in. The stories all (for the most part) do have similar themes, which made them somewhat predictable after a while, but their progressions were still unique. Many of the stories deal with extra-marital relationships or forbidden relationships, and, I have to admit, I did get a little tired of reading about people pining after others with whom they could never have a "real" relationship. I think I would recommend not reading the full book at once, but reading a couple stories at a time, then putting the book down for a while (and it is thus pretty good for really busy people). The stories are all a bit depressing, which does not bother me, but if you are looking for something upbeat, you probably want to look elsewhere.

Many of these stories have to do with the body and people dealing with bodily issues or the way in which others perceive them, which I found kind of coincidental and interesting because for the last two semesters, I have taken literature courses focused on the body--this book could easily have been a reading for my class. I consequently probably spent a bit too much time focused on these bodily aspects, but I think that made the stories all the more interesting.

Unfortunately, I read this a couple months ago and can't remember which stories I enjoyed in particular--some were better than others, but I feel like different stories appeal to different people. While I cannot say that any of these stories "blew me away," the majority of them were interesting and quirky, providing twists on the common theme of forbidden love.

In Wilderness Tips, Margaret Atwood writes ten short stories that are at once poignant and deeply disturbing. Each story illustrates one moment in a person's life that changes them forever. They grow from young and idealistic to old and bitter in the space of a few pages and all of the stories ended up being dark in one way or another. They all carried themes of loss, missed opportunities, mistakes, dead ends and sad realizations.

They all took place in Canada, with some containing native Canadians and some transplanted from England or Europe. They almost all featured promiscuity and sexual affairs, often as the norm, and they all had one hard earned life lesson to impart. The tales spanned the decades from "the war years" of World War II up until the late eighties and early nineties and all of the changes that took place in that time. The women's movement took special prominence in these stories as they described the changes they in particular experience over that span of sixty years of human history, especially the changing face of womanhood and feminism.

Of the stories that struck me the most there was "True Trash", illuminating the difference between the "dot dot dot" of romance in the war years and the sexually explicit romance of modern day. "Hairball" was also a disturbing look at the changing face of womanhood and what women have had to give up in order to get ahead. "Death by Landscape" was one of the more horrifying stories about a camping trip gone horribly wrong and the insight, or perhaps just blind stabbing hope, it left one of the campers with. "The Age of Lead" was especially poignant because it wasn't until long after this book was published that the bpa-lining in plastic containers was discovered to be bad and that was just more of the same of the over arching theme in this story, making this one incredibly relevant to modern day.

While the themes may have been dark all of these stories had an inner kernel of truth that both you and the characters cannot escape. Time goes by fast, change happens, choices have to be made but it is ultimately you that has to live with the consequences.

Wilderness Tips / 0-553-56046-8

This collection of short stories by Atwood includes the following:

- True Trash
- Hairball
- Isis in Darkness
- The Bog Man
- Death by Landscape
- Uncles
- The Age of Lead
- Weight
- Wilderness Tips
- Hack Wednesday

These are some of Atwood's best short stories. Most all of them delve into the dynamic of timidity, even when deeply hidden beneath the surface. Her characters range the gamut from cutting fashion queen to impoverished teenagers to cosmopolitan journalist, with external attitudes and personalities to match, yet each character struggles internally with feelings of doubt, timidity, and fears of worthlessness. This common thread skillfully unites these otherwise unrelated stories into a single theme that Atwood pounds at, over and over: How do you convince yourself that you have worth when those most important to you treat you otherwise?

~ Ana Mardoll

Margaret Atwood is my favorite living author and this is my favorite short story collection of hers. Each story is filled with regret, incisive narrative, and a cunning eye that sees right through people. If you have a dark sense of humor you will love this collection. "Hairball" is hilariously perverse and "Death by Landscape" is simply touching. I've read this collection several times. These stories will haunt you.

Most favorite being 'Hairball'. Most of us probably has had a 'stunted' relationship alike Kat & Ger's. Never before have chocolates been packaged so deliciously wicked...