Moral Disorder

Moral Disorder and Other Stories Reader’s Guide

The last two stories concern a woman's experience with her father entering dementia, her mother in extreme old age. The daughter may well be Nell, the parents may be the parents of the child in the earlier stories, but I had no feeling of recognition, of rejoining the same people at a later stage of life. The book did not quite form a whole for me, an architecture, a life story however episodic. The glimpses are brilliant, but the gaps are wide.

What the stories do have in common, though, is a clear eye, a fine wit, and a command of language so complete it's invisible except when it's dazzling. One piece is dramatically and effectively out of place. Starting with the second story, we follow Nell through the years from her childhood with sister and parents, through the vicissitudes of semi-marriage, the trials of amateur farming and late parenthood, and at last to her middle age, the daughter of parents at the edge of death.

But the first story in the book is chronologically the last, a portrait of Nell and her partner Tig in their own old age, when they are the parents on the edge of death. Why this reversal works so well I don't know; perhaps because "The Bad News" is a stunning opener, electric with wit, energy, Atwood's achingly keen sense of fear and pain. She has never been sharper, dryer, funnier, sadder. And there was wisdom in not putting this story last, because the last two are about dying, the end, and this one isn't, quite - not yet.

It's the silent not yet. We don't say it out loud. Furthermore, she sees origins of the drive to write science fiction and fantasy differently than other authors, because she sees it a natural outgrowth the habits and activities of childhood. One theory she offers from her own childhood, that since she kept failing to build a windmill from her Tinkertoy set she missed some of the necessary parts , she built fantastical structures and creatures instead. Atwood continues this might we call it Jungian? She sees archetypes washing between the various genres--comparing superheroes to Greek mythology and modern fantasy.

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Only better, because by the end of the book, you can see the big picture - maybe it's more like a jigsaw. Attempting a committed and thorough read, I It's me, not you, I want to apologize to Margaret Atwood. Margaret Atwood is acknowledged as one of the foremost writers of our time. I'd be finding things out. A collection of works and commentary by the impressive intellect of Margaret Atwood. Their real-estate agent, Lillie, is an elderly lady, a survivor of a German concentration camp. What the stories do have in common, though, is a clear eye, a fine wit, and a command of language so complete it's invisible except when it's dazzling.

She sees her own early imaginative world influencing what she writes as an adult. And in one of her most intriguing theses, she coins the term "ustopia": I find this incredibly helpful, because as we know certain individuals thrive in dystopias and find their place there, whereas every utopia is only the perfect society for those who belong to it, certainly not those who feel excluded from it. Finally, Atwood in this early section helpful defines "myth": Myths are stories that are central to their cultures and that are taken seriously enough that people organize their rituals and emotional lives around them, and can even start wars over them" Atwood offers this definition in a wide-ranging essay that considers origin myths as well as contemporary sci-fi movies, and everything in between.

It's really a lovely essay. The middle section of this book is a collection of short reviews Atwood has written over the course of her career, all on "classics" in science fiction H. Rider Haggard, Ursula K. Le Guin, George Orwell, H.

Introduction

I found this section very helpful because it introduced me to some important works with which I was unfamiliar, and also expanded my cartography of what I might map as "science fiction. Finally, she concludes with six crisp selections from her own fiction. Although these don't move the argument forward per se, they do illustrate what Atwood has been pondering in her book. It isn't every day that science fiction readers get the pleasure of reading sustained reflection on the craft by one of its outstanding practitioners.

I recommend this book highly for that reason. Timothy Haugh Top Contributor: Margaret Atwood is one of my favorite writers. And, though I've enjoyed many of her novels, the top of the list would have to be her SF-influenced novels: The Handmaid's Tale and Oryx and Crake. So, I was very interested to see what she had to say about this genre that, despite its literary gains, remains often disrespected by the establishment.

As it turns out, her thinking follows along the same lines as mine, making it very difficult for me not to like this book.

Review: Moral Disorder by Margaret Atwood | Books | The Guardian

My experience of getting into reading echoed hers, though with some different authors. Her thinking about Orwell and Huxley, two writers I much admire, is quite similar to mine. Also, she has useful things to say about a number of important writers in the genre such as Wells, Poe, and LeGuin. Even better, for me, was her discussion of writers I knew little or nothing about. I knew of the character Allan Quatermain, for example, but couldn't have told you the author who created him is H.

And, clearly, Haggard's novel She had a great impact on Atwood. I feel almost embarrassed to say that I'd never heard of this novel before.

The New Moral Disorder

But good books lead you to other good books and now I've almost finished reading Haggard's book and seen the movie, no less! So, I have to compliment Ms. Atwood on opening my eyes. In fact, my only complaints are small ones.

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First, the endnotes of each section would have been more useful as footnotes. Or the text should have had marks indicating an associated note. Second, and more importantly, in some ways, this is a book too late. Atwood herself taking on the field, SF is bordering on respectable.

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These are poignant stories crammed with richly nostalgic detail, rueful, wise, elegiac. In Moral Disorder , Atwood travels deep into the expanse of memories and language built up over her writing lifetime and offers a handful of gems to illuminate our times.

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Buy the Audiobook Download: Apple Audible downpour eMusic audiobooks. About Moral Disorder and Other Stories Atwood triumphs with these dazzling, personal stories in her first collection since Wilderness Tips. Also by Margaret Atwood.

Moral Disorder and Other Stories

See all books by Margaret Atwood. About Margaret Atwood Margaret Atwood, whose work has been published in thirty-five countries, is the author of more than forty books of fiction, poetry, and critical essays. Inspired by Your Browsing History. Looking for More Great Reads?

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