Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth

Margaret Atwood's Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth was a surprise.  Atwood decided to deliver her 2008 Massey Lecture on debt because it was a topic she was curious about but knew very little.  But rather than talking about debt in a personal finance sense, she takes a very literary look at debt through human history.

Atwood starts by examining the human (and indeed primate) innate sense of fairness.  Debt couldn't exist without this (for who would lend money without it - you would never be paid back).  She then moves into a discussion of how debt has been considered sinful (both for the person in debt and the person lending the money), and how people have gotten around various moral quandaries (such as Christians, who weren't allowed to charge interest amongst themselves, using other religious groups such as Jews to get around this stipulation).  She also goes on to examine the shadow side of debt (and how some debts are moral in nature, and can be satisfied in blood rather than money).  Her third chapter, Debt as Plot, was very interesting: she looked at how culturally the idea of debt has changed; where once it was considered sinful to be frivolously blowing wealth on things, by the time Charles Dickens was writing Scrooge, capitalism had firmly taken root and so it was a sin to be miserly and not spending your money).  

Her final chapter took a bit of an unexpected turn though; she examined what a modern day Scrooge might look like, and tied everything back to the debt humanity's progress now owes Mother Nature (this definitely reminded me of A Short History of Progress...)

Even though the final chapter in some ways felt like a departure from her main topic, I quite enjoyed reading Payback; it is a fairly quick and very interesting read.  I liked Atwood's conversational tone (it seemed rather frivoulous at times, which strangely suited the work as a whole). 

The Handmaid's Tale

After reading The Lovely Bones, I wanted something that was not depressing so I started reading Island: How Islands Transform the World by J. Edward Chamberlin.  My thought was that a nonfiction book should be the opposite of depressing. Unfortunately I was having a really hard time reading it; I would get twenty pages in and have to stop.  After this happened the second night, I reached over to my shelf and grabbed The Handmaid's Tale.  And read 90 pages in one sitting!  

Now make no mistake, from looking for a non-depressing book, The Handmaid's Tale was not a great choice.  It tells the story of Offred, a woman of the Gilean Republic.  Gilead is what became of the United States after some disasters destabilized the world.  Part of the disasters is that many people (men I think?) have become sterile.  So women of childbearing age have become handmaidens, or women who are present only in the hopes that they will get pregnant.  There's a very clear household hierarchy, where the man's wife is ruler of the household; the wives only tolerate the presence of the handmaidens because they can no longer conceive themselves but they want babies.  (I got the feeling that the wives in question were too old to be bearing children).

So Offred goes about her life, explaining what it has become but also remembering what it was like before, when she had her own name, and lived in the United States with her husband, daughter, and cat and was able to see her best friend Moira.  

I really liked the juxtaposition between the two stories, particularly in the beginning.  The beginning of the novel was so good.  Unfortunately I felt like it started to fall apart a bit as it progressed because the plot isn't really that interesting.  Offred's Commander starts inviting her into his rooms at night to play Scrabble (so illegal on many levels - he should not be alone with her, and she should not be using reading skills).  He eventually invites her out to the Commander's "club" (it's very much one of those types of clubs with women everywhere in weird/skimpy costumes).  There she is reunited with Moira for the evening.  After that, the Wife has set her up to have sex with their hired hand Nick because the Wife really, really wants that baby.  Offred starts having an ongoing affair with Nick, risking everything and also losing interest in a lot of the other aspects of her life (this was probably around when the story felt boring to me, plot-wise).  Eventually she is whisked away, whether to a horrible fate or to freedom, we are not made to know.

Except that we know something: the end of the book has a lecture from the future, where professors have uncovered her story, which was left on cassette tapes.  So she at least got away long enough to tell her story to someone (and to have it recorded).  I thought the lecture was a really neat touch to end the book with.

The Handmaid's Tale really felt like something I should have read while I was in school (particularly in University).  It's one of only two stories I've read so far by Margaret Atwood (the other two being "Bluebeard's Egg" and The Edible Woman).  It feels oddly topical right now, with what is going on in the United States.  It's an interesting story with some major flaws in its execution (as one reviewer pointed out on Goodreads, the setting makes no sense because the United States wouldn't go from the way it is today into a weird oppressive society in like a year's time).  I think it was very much worth reading, but it is by no means a favourite book of mine.

School Book: The Edible Woman

Margaret Atwood's The Edible Woman is the last school book I have to read before Study Week (which is two weeks away!) The Edible Woman is the first book by Atwood that I have ever read (and only the second story, the first being Bluebeard's Egg which I read for Contemporary Children's Literature last term).

The Edible Woman started out as a typical story. The main character, Marion, goes about her life; she works for a survey company and lives with a roommate. She goes out for dinner with her boyfriend and an old friend from college. And that's when it happened: she had a couple of panic attacks and ran away.

Yes, the main character literally runs away. Her boyfriend and friends have to chase after her. It was so random! I really couldn't believe it! But it happened! To top off the randomness, her boyfriend eventually catches her, and although he is rather annoyed with her, he proposes to her!

The book takes another weird turn at this point. Part 1 was written in the first person perspective. Part 2 is all written in the third person perspective. I didn't really understand it at the time, but once you get to the end of the story, it all makes sense. Anyway, part 2 is where it starts to happen: Marion slowly loses the ability to eat. It starts with meat; her stomach and mouth rebel whenever she tries to eat meat. She starts thinking about whatever she is eating in terms of what it once was. But steadily, she stops being able to eat eggs, vegetables, and then everything!

I was really impressed by Atwood's work. The Edible Woman has incredible descriptions throughout its pages. The characters were distinct and believable. I enjoyed every word of it! This book is definitely a great introduction to Atwood's work!

The Bloody Chamber

While I was studying for my Children's Lit exam, I came upon a reference I had written in the margins of my notes of The Tiger's Bride by Angela Carter. The Tiger's Bride was supposed to be a modern rescripting of a fairy tale, much like Bluebeard's Egg by Margaret Atwood (which we were studying). And so, after my exam, I decided to head to Chapters to get a copy of the book which The Tiger's Bride was in.

The Bloody Chamber is a collection of short stories by Angela Carter. There are eight tales in the book, all inspired by folk and fairy tales.

The first tale, The Bloody Chamber is based off of Bluebeard. The next two, The Courtship of Mr. Lyon and The Tiger's Bride are both based off of Beauty and the Beast. Puss in Boots is obvious. I'm not entirely sure what The Erl-King is based off of. The Snow Child is based off of Snow White, while The Lady of the House of Love is based off of Sleeping Beauty. The next two, The Werewolf and The Company of Wolves are based off of Little Red Rising Hood, and the final one, Wolf-Alice is based off of Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There.

All of these tales were quite good, even though they are very heavy with description (which I'm not overly fond of). Most of them were of a sexual nature, which makes sense as they are based off of fairy tales (and most likely the originals, not the kid-friendly Disney versions). All in all, this was a good read, which really makes you think about the stories in a new light.