Wilderness Tips

by Margaret Atwood

Hardcover, 1991

Status

Available

Publication

Nan A. Talese (1991), Edition: 1st, 227 pages

Description

Fiction. Literature. Short Stories. HTML:From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Handmaid's Tale In each of these tales Margaret Atwood deftly illuminates the shape of a whole life: in a few brief pages we watch as characters progress from the vulnerabilities of adolescence through the passions of youth into the precarious complexities of middle age. The past resurfaces in the present in ways both subtle and dramatic: the body of a lost Arctic explorer emerges from the ice, a 2,000-year-old bog man turns up in an archeological dig, a man with dark secrets marries his loverâ??s sister, a girl who disappears on a canoe trip haunts her friend many decades later. The richly layered stories in Wilderness Tips map interior landscapes shaped by time, regret, and lost chances, endowing even the most unassuming of lives with a disquieting intensi… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member knittingfreak
It seems that I've been on somewhat of a Margaret Atwood binge here of late. It started with the Handmaid's Tale, then Cat's Eye, followed by The Penelopiad. In addition, I ordered and have sitting on my shelves Alias Grace and the Blind Assassin. I finished my latest helping of Atwood a couple
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days ago. Wilderness Tips is a short story collection, which deals with a lot of the same types of themes that Atwood is known for in her writing. Women always play prominent roles. For the most part the women are strong or are struggling against oppression to exert their strength. There are ten stories in this collection, and I can honestly say that I enjoyed them all. It would be extremely difficult to pick one as a favorite. I guess if I had to single one out, it would be "Weight" simply because I continue to think about this story.

It begins with a woman trying to get a businessman to make a charitable donation over dinner. It's obvious that she's willing to do whatever it takes to secure his donation for her cause -- a battered women's shelter. In fact, she lets us know that this is not the first time that she's used her sexuality to get what she wants from a man. She's never married and doesn't think she ever will. She's not sure that she wants to. But there is some ambiguity there. As the story progresses, we learn that she and her friend, Molly, started adult life as young, idealistic attorneys who were going to help women and change the world in the process. She describes Molly as optimistic and caring -- someone who sees the best in others and believes that she can make things better for them. As the story continues, we learn that Molly eventually marries and has children, but things are not as they should be. She considers leaving her husband and discusses it with her friend. I can't really say any more about the story without giving too much away. However, I think it's interesting that the author decides to put an educated, middle class, feminist into this particular situation. I think society often assumes that women who find themselves in destructive relationships are often poor and uneducated. They stay with their man because they have no other options or don't know what else to do. That's one of the things that I really like about Atwood. She doesn't always follow the conventional wisdom. She looks at things from all angles and her characters are multidimensional.

Though feminist in nature, her writing doesn't paint all men as evil and all women as victims (thank goodness!). It's much more complex than that. No matter what I've read by Margaret Atwood -- novel, short story, poetry -- she always makes me think.
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LibraryThing member exlibrisbitsy
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
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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.

Favorite Quote:
It's the forties look," she says to George, hand on her hip, doing a pirouette. "Rosie the Riveter. From the war. Remember her?"
George, whose name is not really George, does not remember. He spent the forties rooting through garbage bag heaps and begging, and doing other things unsuitable for a child. He has a dim memory of some film star posed on a calendar tattering on a latrine wall. Maybe this is the one Prue means. He remembers for an instant his intense resentment of the bright, ignorant smile, the well-fed body. A couple of buddies had helped him take her apart with the rusty blade from a kitchen knife they'd found somewhere in the rubble. He does not consider telling any of this to Prue.
--Wilderness Tips
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LibraryThing member sageness
I really enjoyed several of the stories in this collection. A few didn't really grab me, a couple were really excellent, but they were all readable...so I'm giving it an arbitrary 4.

These stories are pretty much all about middle-aged white English Canadian women in the context of Canada, Canadian
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identity, and various points in Canadian history (mostly 20th century). There are different sorts of women and I found a lot of them utterly fascinating. But the little details of growing up Canadian -- things like historical events, name brands, and the maze of the Toronto underground that people raised elsewhere have no context for -- are really wonderfully drawn. I'd be happier if there were more of a social conscience (beyond white, mostly-middle class feminism), but it's unfair to judge the social conscience of a book published in 1989 by the attitude shifts of the past twenty years.

Still, some fascinating characters... :)
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LibraryThing member Vivl
Margaret Atwood's usual high standard, in the format of satisfying and well-seasoned servings of story. A thoroughly enjoyable collection which I eked out over several months and thus extended the joy it gave me. She writes deceptively simple plots that powerfully evoke place and character--great
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stuff!
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LibraryThing member AuntieClio
This is a typical collection of Margaret Atwood short stories. And by typical I mean, eminently readable and thought provoking. When I read Atwood, it feels like there's something just skimming below the surface which I can see shadows of, but not the entire something. I love books which make me
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think.
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LibraryThing member streamsong
This is a fairly early collection of short stories by Margaret Atwood. I was intrigued when I found out that many of the stories took place in the woods, at summer camps and vacation cabins – all places where I spent childhood and teenage years.

But even though I had a connection with the
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locations of many of the stories, I felt the stories themselves lacked the punch of her more recent collections such as A Stone Mattress. Not bad, but not memorable.
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LibraryThing member BrokenTune
I'm going to have to take a break from Margaret Atwood. I love her novels, but her short stories have left little impression on me. (And let's not even mention my recent run in with The Heart Goes Last...).

There are only two stories in Wilderness Tips that I can remember and that were of some
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interest to me - Uncles and The Age of Lead.
The latter caught my interest because it makes reference to the Franklin expedition, which is an event I have some interest in.

Other than that, the stories are well written and quite subdued. Each deals with some quiet desperation involving its main characters. There are no punches or fireworks, but a long and slow unfolding of the story or theme.
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LibraryThing member stef7sa
One of the best collections of short stories I have read till now. Masterfully composed, interesting, full of psychological insight, moving and with irresistible wit, dark humour. Atwood has a way of perfectfully introducing the characters and slipping in all background information the reader needs
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to get full understanding of what is happening.
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LibraryThing member JBD1
A collections of perfectly okay short stories, but none of them were particularly memorable. "The Bog Man" and "The Age of Lead" were the two I liked best.
LibraryThing member Helenliz
This is an odd little colleciton of stories. They are set at different time periods, but they all seem to have an air of nostalgia about them, even the most contemporary of the short stories has that air of the best of life having been in the past. While most are set in, or referring to, nature,
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this is nature raw in tooth and claw, it's not necessarily a safe nature.
There's not a lot that actually happens in each story, but each one has undercurrents and they hint at hidden depths. It's an intriguing set of stories.
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LibraryThing member saschenka
Collection of 10 short stories following familar Atwood themes: women surviving men and society. Soft nostalgia tinged with relief re previous eras; good vignetttes but no real surprises in style or genre (old pre-Depression Toronto and early 60s thru 70s), yet stories do stay with you. Atwood's
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strength is in characters that are never completely fathomable, and always recognizable in ourselves/others.

Isis in Darkness has best desciption of good poetry ('Nothing else could drop him throught space like that, then catch him; nothing else could peel him open.') and the role of historians: 'He is the one who will sift through the rubble, groping for the shape of the past. He is the one who will say it has meaning. That too is a calling, that also can be a fate.' Isis in Darkness, The Bog Man, Death By Landscape, and Uncles are the best in this collection.
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Awards

Toronto Book Award (Nominee — 1992)
Trillium Book Award (Winner — English — 1992)

Language

Original language

English

Barcode

11222
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