Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Publication
Virago Press Ltd (2007), Paperback, 320 pages
Description
Fiction. Literature. Short Stories. HTML:Atwood triumphs with these dazzling, personal stories in her first collection since Wilderness Tips. In these ten interrelated stories Atwood traces the course of a life and also the lives intertwined with it, while evoking the drama and the humour that colour common experiences �?? the birth of a baby, divorce and remarriage, old age and death. With settings ranging from Toronto, northern Quebec, and rural Ontario, the stories begin in the present, as a couple no longer young situate themselves in a larger world no longer safe. Then the narrative goes back in time to the forties and moves chronologically forward toward the present. In �??The Art of Cooking and Serving,�?� the twelve-year-old narrator does her best to accommodate the arrival of a baby sister. After she boldly declares her independence, we follow the narrator into young adulthood and then through a complex relationship. In �??The Entities,�?� the story of two women haunted by the past unfolds. The magnificent last two stories reveal the heartbreaking old age of parents but circle back again to childhood, to complete the cycle. By turns funny, lyrical, incisive, tragic, earthy, shocking, and deeply personal, Moral Disorder displays Atwood�??s celebrated storytelling gifts and unmistakable style to their best advantage. This is vintage Atwood, writing at the hei… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member RidgewayGirl
I felt as if I were groping through brambles in a night so dark I couldn't see my own hands. At my wit's end had been, before this, merely an expression, but now it described a concrete reality: I could see my wits unrolling, like a ball of string, length after length of wits being played out, each
This is the story of a woman's life told in short story form. While the stories can stand alone, they work beautifully together to create a portrait of a life. Nell comes of age just before the sixties and seventies upended the social order, turning her from an independent spirit into someone just not adventurous enough. Her life is an ordinary one, but beautifully told. My favorite story is His Last Duchess, in which Nell thinks about the women she reads about in her literature class. While I love Atwood's more adventurous novels, like Oryx and Crake and The Blind Assassin, I think this quieter story allows her writing and nuanced characterizations to really shine.
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length failing to hold fast, breaking off as if rotten, until finally the end of the string would be reached, and what then? How many days were left for me to fill -- for me to fill responsibly -- before the real parents would come back and take over, and I could escape to my life?This is the story of a woman's life told in short story form. While the stories can stand alone, they work beautifully together to create a portrait of a life. Nell comes of age just before the sixties and seventies upended the social order, turning her from an independent spirit into someone just not adventurous enough. Her life is an ordinary one, but beautifully told. My favorite story is His Last Duchess, in which Nell thinks about the women she reads about in her literature class. While I love Atwood's more adventurous novels, like Oryx and Crake and The Blind Assassin, I think this quieter story allows her writing and nuanced characterizations to really shine.
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LibraryThing member tripleblessings
This is a very accessible collection of related short stories, centred on one woman from old age to childhood, back to middle age, and taking care of elderly parents. The stories are told mainly from Nell's point of view, with important portraits of her sister Lizzie, her mother, her partner Tig,
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and even farm animals. I loved the book. I was a bit distracted by the notion that this is one of Atwood's more autobiographical books, because I kept wondering if she herself had similar experiences and similar relationships. While the book is easy and pleasant to read, the emotional and political content is rich. Departments of Women's and Gender Studies will have lots to analyze here with the ways Nell learns about the role of women, lives through the sixties and the "feminist revolution", struggles for independence and happiness, takes care of others and wonders who will take care of her. Themes of love, marriage, divorce, rural versus urban life, parenthood and childhood, mental health, dependence and independence, recur in many of the stories. However I noticed these themes more in hindsight, and mainly enjoyed getting to know the characters, smiling at their conversations, and finding out what would happen next. I know I will re-read this book, and recommend it to my family and friends. Show Less
LibraryThing member rosencrantz79
How is it that Margaret Atwood can pack so much meaning into, say, four words? Her prose in Moral Disorder is so economical, so concise yet full of impact and emotion. Moral Disorder is unique in that while it's novel-like in its arc, it is arranged as a series of interconnected stories, any one of
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which could be plucked out to stand on its own. The tales follow Nell through childhood into adulthood and a complicated relationship, then circle around back to childhood again as she cares for her own ailing parents. Show Less
LibraryThing member Niecierpek
It’s a collection of eleven inter-connected stories with an autobiographical theme. They take us from the first story- Bad News- thoughts on aging of the main character- through childhood, adolescence and complicated middle-age life back to aging when the main character is taking care of her
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dying parents in The Labrador Fiasco and The Boys at the Lab. Concise, insightful, and typically Atwoodian, and on many more themes and levels than obviously autobiographical. These stories could very easily be a novel as well as separate stories that hold their own. Very good reading. Show Less
LibraryThing member Romonko
This book has been sitting on my TBR file for awhile, and I decided it was time to read it. It's not my first Margaret Atwood book, but the first I've read that portrays her minimalist writing skills. The book is a series of "snapshots in time", or vignettes that trace a life. The book opens with
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the heroine, Nell and her husband Tig later on in their lives. Then it switches to Nell at eleven years old. Then proceeds with eight more vignettes of her life progressing from that age to about 45 years old.By that time Nell and Tig have lived a full life with all its stumbles, missteps and, in fact some positive happenings, but truthfully the vignettes depict the tough times much more than the happy ones. The book is not a happy and joyful read, but it says so much in so few well-chosen and well-crafted words and sentences. The last two vignettes are two separate depictions of end-of-life experiences. These stories are so well-illustrated that I had to stop for awhile between them to reflect and get back my equilibrium. At my age, death and dying are a fact of life, but I must admit that I don't dwell on those or on the inevitable consequences. Atwood made me examine these topics, make an assessment and then assimilate what she says so that it makes sense to me. She is a very talented writer, and her books are a journey more than just enjoyable fiction. Glad I took the time. I have one more of her books that has been sitting for ever on my shelf - The Robber Bride, and I want to dip into that pretty quickly. Show Less
LibraryThing member E.J
Horribly boring. You think in the beginning it is going to get better, it has a few good things, but you just keep thinking that through the whole thing. I didn't even finnish it, which I never do no matter how bad the book. I did it through audio, which I guess might have added to that, the reader
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being very slow and all, but it did not do the job of keeping me awake at work. Show Less
LibraryThing member gbill
Strong writing, but the subject of many of the stories was only mildly interesting to me. It seemed too domestic on the whole, with the main character taking up residence on a farm. There were some notable exceptions though - “The Headless Horseman”, “My Last Duchess”, “The Labrador
Just this quote, on aging:
“People she loves – people her own age – a lot of those people have died. Most of them have died. Hardly any of them are left. She wants to know about each death as it happens, but then she won’t mention those people again. She’s got them safe, inside her head somewhere, in a form she prefers. She’s got them back in the layer of time where they belong.”
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Fiasco”, and “The Boys at the Lab” are all very good. Just this quote, on aging:
“People she loves – people her own age – a lot of those people have died. Most of them have died. Hardly any of them are left. She wants to know about each death as it happens, but then she won’t mention those people again. She’s got them safe, inside her head somewhere, in a form she prefers. She’s got them back in the layer of time where they belong.”
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LibraryThing member atreic
I don't really like short stories, and I don't really like autobiographies. So this very autobiographical feeling collection of short stories was never going to hit the spot for me. However, my library doesn't have a huge range of audio books, and I do like Atwood lots.
I found the
Like many autobiographical things, nothing much really happens. Just normal people living normal lives, much of the drama between the cracks of the stories. Actually, they are fascinating people living interesting lives, so perhaps the fact that they feel familiar and prosaic tells you something about the storytelling. The final story, reflecting on how her mother loves to be told stories about her life when she is old, and the protagonist only knows the ones her mother has told her, and the glimpses of others she sees in the photoalbum, make you feel that this book was written as a gift to the narrators future self...
I found the
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deliberately-crypticness quite annoying, especially as it was an audio book so I couldn't flick backwards and forwards and look for clues. Was this person the same as the previous person? Was this sister the same as the previous sister? I guess this is Art, and I am just a heathen. Atwoods short stories are like a shaft of sunlight, illuminating a small patch of house from a strange angle - everything is bright and vivid, and you see it far more powerfully than you usually would - but sometimes you wish she would just switch on all the lights and tell the story straight. Like many autobiographical things, nothing much really happens. Just normal people living normal lives, much of the drama between the cracks of the stories. Actually, they are fascinating people living interesting lives, so perhaps the fact that they feel familiar and prosaic tells you something about the storytelling. The final story, reflecting on how her mother loves to be told stories about her life when she is old, and the protagonist only knows the ones her mother has told her, and the glimpses of others she sees in the photoalbum, make you feel that this book was written as a gift to the narrators future self...
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LibraryThing member msbaba
Moral Disorder by Margaret Atwood is a collection of eleven short stories. Each stands easily and delightfully alone; in fact, five of them have previously appeared in magazines. But taken as a whole, this collection gathers synergy and eventually morphs into a most uncommon and extraordinary
All the stories deal with the life of one woman, Nell, an archetypal Canadian "everywoman." What makes this woman special is the choices she makes. These are everyday choices made by a woman with a strong moral compass. With each choice, life takes a new path, thus the moral disorder of the title. This book is about the mysterious unpredictability of life. At one point Nell panics and asks, "What if I missed a turn somewhere—missed my own future?"
The stories are delivered to us like random memories. Some of the stories are told in the first person, others are written as third-person narratives. The stories span more than six decades and do not appear in any chronological order. But by the end, this structure makes complete sense and brings the reader full circle from the end, back to the beginning. There is much to be contemplated at what stories are missing from the work. For example, there are no stories about Nell’s daughter or stepsons. What is there are stories about Nell and her husband, parents, sister, and friends. There are also stories about the beloved animals in her life: a horse named Gladys, a dog named Howl, and a much-loved hand-reared baby lamb that had the misfortune of being born a male. Unnamed, this poor future heartache was destined for the dinner table.
Attwood admits that many of events in these stores have strong autobiographical roots. This becomes achingly apparent in the last two stories where Atwood delivers a heart-wrenching first-person narrative about—what is purposefully in this story—an unnamed mature protagonist serving as loving caretaker of rapidly declining elderly parents. These parents could easily fit in with what we know about Nell, and what we know about Atwood. These pieces show Atwood at the height of her talent. These are pieces woven of pure magic and unconditionally every-lasting love.
There is a character at the end of the father’s story, a brilliant young entomologist from India that comes to Canada to conduct field study with the father at his summer entomology lab located in the wilds of Labrador. He appears on the scene like a mirage, a pampered upper class man in English summer whites hauling along his suitcase and tennis racket into the mosquito-infested lake lands of wild northern Canada. This character springs to life so vividly that the reader can imagine him virtually popping off the page and asking: "Why am I here, on this page, made real in this strange book?" Atwood seems to make the character dimly aware of his own existence—his own fictional immortality. This makes the reader ponder: "Does Atwood realize that she has given her own parents a form of fictional immortality in these stories?" Of course, she does…but it is we, the readers, who are ultimately inspired and encouraged by these heartwarming inclusions!
Once the reader has completed the last two stories, the first story takes on new meaning. This first story, Bad News, plants Nell firmly in the present. She and her husband are old but not elderly. Nothing major is wrong with either of them, at least not yet. But Nell is terrified of the unknown but inevitable future that she calls "not yet"…that period in life where only one of them remains. When the reader finishes the last story, The Boys in the Lab, we know the roots of that terror. In that story, we meet Nell’s mother at the end of her life—a widow, blind, barely hearing out of one ear, and rapidly losing her memory.
If one views these stories as a novel, then this book succeeds brilliantly as a character study. Nell is unforgettable. I will have a hard time separating her from Atwood in my mind, but I do know that this person will stay alive in my memory for a very long time. Nell is a completely whole and real person—a character seared into my brain, as are all the best characters in great literary fiction. This book reminds me most of Three Junes by Julia Glass. That book, too, was a masterful character study with little or no coherent plot line other than the everyday stories of real life. It was also built upon a unique structure that added synergy to the whole.
I loved this book and recommend it highly. But it is clearly not a book that will attract everyone. This is a work that is rife with mature themes, and these mature themes are best understood and appreciated by a mature reader—one who has already spend half a century or more experiencing the moral disorder of their own lives. In this work Atwood gives us nothing short of real life—random, disordered, unpredictable—but life embraced lovingly with open arms despite all these uncertainties and the ultimate terror of that last unknown.
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novel—a first-rate character study.All the stories deal with the life of one woman, Nell, an archetypal Canadian "everywoman." What makes this woman special is the choices she makes. These are everyday choices made by a woman with a strong moral compass. With each choice, life takes a new path, thus the moral disorder of the title. This book is about the mysterious unpredictability of life. At one point Nell panics and asks, "What if I missed a turn somewhere—missed my own future?"
The stories are delivered to us like random memories. Some of the stories are told in the first person, others are written as third-person narratives. The stories span more than six decades and do not appear in any chronological order. But by the end, this structure makes complete sense and brings the reader full circle from the end, back to the beginning. There is much to be contemplated at what stories are missing from the work. For example, there are no stories about Nell’s daughter or stepsons. What is there are stories about Nell and her husband, parents, sister, and friends. There are also stories about the beloved animals in her life: a horse named Gladys, a dog named Howl, and a much-loved hand-reared baby lamb that had the misfortune of being born a male. Unnamed, this poor future heartache was destined for the dinner table.
Attwood admits that many of events in these stores have strong autobiographical roots. This becomes achingly apparent in the last two stories where Atwood delivers a heart-wrenching first-person narrative about—what is purposefully in this story—an unnamed mature protagonist serving as loving caretaker of rapidly declining elderly parents. These parents could easily fit in with what we know about Nell, and what we know about Atwood. These pieces show Atwood at the height of her talent. These are pieces woven of pure magic and unconditionally every-lasting love.
There is a character at the end of the father’s story, a brilliant young entomologist from India that comes to Canada to conduct field study with the father at his summer entomology lab located in the wilds of Labrador. He appears on the scene like a mirage, a pampered upper class man in English summer whites hauling along his suitcase and tennis racket into the mosquito-infested lake lands of wild northern Canada. This character springs to life so vividly that the reader can imagine him virtually popping off the page and asking: "Why am I here, on this page, made real in this strange book?" Atwood seems to make the character dimly aware of his own existence—his own fictional immortality. This makes the reader ponder: "Does Atwood realize that she has given her own parents a form of fictional immortality in these stories?" Of course, she does…but it is we, the readers, who are ultimately inspired and encouraged by these heartwarming inclusions!
Once the reader has completed the last two stories, the first story takes on new meaning. This first story, Bad News, plants Nell firmly in the present. She and her husband are old but not elderly. Nothing major is wrong with either of them, at least not yet. But Nell is terrified of the unknown but inevitable future that she calls "not yet"…that period in life where only one of them remains. When the reader finishes the last story, The Boys in the Lab, we know the roots of that terror. In that story, we meet Nell’s mother at the end of her life—a widow, blind, barely hearing out of one ear, and rapidly losing her memory.
If one views these stories as a novel, then this book succeeds brilliantly as a character study. Nell is unforgettable. I will have a hard time separating her from Atwood in my mind, but I do know that this person will stay alive in my memory for a very long time. Nell is a completely whole and real person—a character seared into my brain, as are all the best characters in great literary fiction. This book reminds me most of Three Junes by Julia Glass. That book, too, was a masterful character study with little or no coherent plot line other than the everyday stories of real life. It was also built upon a unique structure that added synergy to the whole.
I loved this book and recommend it highly. But it is clearly not a book that will attract everyone. This is a work that is rife with mature themes, and these mature themes are best understood and appreciated by a mature reader—one who has already spend half a century or more experiencing the moral disorder of their own lives. In this work Atwood gives us nothing short of real life—random, disordered, unpredictable—but life embraced lovingly with open arms despite all these uncertainties and the ultimate terror of that last unknown.
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LibraryThing member rfewell
I love Margaret Atwood. I can really only read short stories that she's authored.
LibraryThing member Periodista
As always, you can rely on Margaret Atwood. She's a quick sketch artist with a special feeling for the undercurrents of girlhood, families, changing social attitudes. Some of these loosely interlinked stories remind me of Alice Munro; the girl and woman, sometimes called Nell, that runs through
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these stories comes age in the 1960's. So she's old enough to have chafed at the old rules but young enough to take full advantage of the new ones. Otherwise, the territory reminds me a lot of some of Atwood's earlier work that seems to borrow from her own life: The parents (well, the father)involved in some kind of outdoorsy, lab related academic work, lonely spells in the wilderness, the shift to Toronto. It's been a long time since I read them, but I think that material is familiar from Cat's Eye (a great novel) and Bluebeard's Egg (short stories). Nothing wrong with that, but you might be disappointed if you were expecting more of experiments she did in Oryx and Crake. Show Less
LibraryThing member jtho
There were so many comma splices that they distracted me from paying attention to the story.
LibraryThing member 23eris
Although not a favorite Atwood of mine, I still greatly enjoyed this collection of stories. She manages to capture emotion and atmosphere in a way few writers can.
LibraryThing member SmithSJ01
It is a lovely book and well worth reading but I didn't enjoy the last two 'stories' as much as the others, hence 4/5 rather than 5/5.
The book will be enjoyed by Margaret Atwood fans and I think readers new to her work might enjoy it as a starting point because it's a simple but fascinating read.
Short enough to read in one sitting or spread out longer depending on how much you like to take in or deliberate as you're reading. Having finished this I could easily go straight on to another book by her which is testament to how different each of her books are; usually I'd have to have a break in between authors.
Well worth reading!
The book will be enjoyed by Margaret Atwood fans and I think readers new to her work might enjoy it as a starting point because it's a simple but fascinating read.
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Nothing complicated, no morals as such. It's purely a story about family life. This edition doesn't say that it's a series of stories on the front whilst others do. Therefore if you want a complete novel I'd select something else. Whilst it isn't short stories as such, in that the same characters keep surfacing; the stories are complete units of life. Having said this, they all link together somehow. Short enough to read in one sitting or spread out longer depending on how much you like to take in or deliberate as you're reading. Having finished this I could easily go straight on to another book by her which is testament to how different each of her books are; usually I'd have to have a break in between authors.
Well worth reading!
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LibraryThing member LynnB
I enjoyed these interconnected stories very much. In total, they describe the life of Nell, from early childhood to old age. A description like you would get from a series of photographs or random memories -- a description like we tend to get about family members from earlier generations, or the
Margaret Atwood is a fine writer and this is a wonderful, thought-provoking and compelling book.
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families of friends or co-workers. That could be why, in spite of several gaps in my knowledge of Nell, I really felt I knew her; because that is the way we know so many people in our fast-paced lives. Margaret Atwood is a fine writer and this is a wonderful, thought-provoking and compelling book.
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LibraryThing member neverlistless
probably not the absolute best Atwood piece ever, but wonderful nonetheless. I loved reading the descriptions of the farms that Nell and Tig lived on - once again, a home in the woods away from everyone? Sign me up! It was a moving collection though, lots of life and death topics popping up here
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and there. If you like Atwood, this is definitely one to check out. Show Less
LibraryThing member YossarianXeno
An intriguing and discombobulated novel, essentially a series of short stories that add up to the life of the lead charcter, Nell. Primarily the focus is the development of her relationships with key individuals in her life: her parents, her younger sibling and her partner, Tig. As ever with
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Atwood, she draws core themes of her novel from acutely observed events that by themselves are insignificant but taken together become a narrative. This is not a gripping book, but it is an interesting one. Show Less
LibraryThing member steadfastreader
Meh. A decent set of short stories by Margaret Atwood. Definitely not her best work. I did enjoy 'The Last Duchess' and the series of stories with Nell and Tig.
If you're a die-hard Margaret Atwood fan, give it a shot. Otherwise, skip it.
If you're a die-hard Margaret Atwood fan, give it a shot. Otherwise, skip it.
LibraryThing member verenka
It was this months book club read. It's not actually a novel but a collection of short stories which all have the same main character, Ness, but written from different point of views and different parts of her life. Most club members didn't like the fragmentary aspect of the book, but it didn't
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bother me. The first chapter almost put me off reading the book, but every story I liked a bit more. Show Less
LibraryThing member tap_aparecium
Moral Disorder and Other Stories follows one woman named Nell through different periods of her life. In the form of several short stories we see her as a child taking care of those around her, as an adult finding her way on her own, as a mistress, and a wife and mother and everything in between. We
"Yet I think of that period as having been a happy time in my life... Happy is the wrong word. Important."
Margaret Atwood is brilliant with words and captures perfectly an average life and all the emotions that come along with it. I haven't read anything by her previous to this but definitely plan to check out more of her work now that I've finished this collection.
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glimpse at quirky pieces of furniture that come to define a part of her life, at a mattress on the floor of her lover's home and how knitting a cover for it can quickly become an agreement, a choice made, a path taken. While reading this I felt like a bit of a voyeur; like I was seeing through Nell's eyes as she was looking back over all of the moments she'd lived that were important to her, and all the time she had no idea I was there sharing her secrets; secrets that prove it's not only the happy moments that define us and set us on our course. As Nell says when thinking back on a particular memory..."Yet I think of that period as having been a happy time in my life... Happy is the wrong word. Important."
Margaret Atwood is brilliant with words and captures perfectly an average life and all the emotions that come along with it. I haven't read anything by her previous to this but definitely plan to check out more of her work now that I've finished this collection.
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LibraryThing member kazzablanca
Margaret Atwood is a master at taking the mundane and making it fascinating. Not a story or series of stories with a riveting plot, but rather a snapshot of the intricacies of human nature.
LibraryThing member rufioso
Imagine you are meandering through a well-organised, neatly kept and very pretty garden. You start out admiring borders of pink and white azaleas, but then with a curve in the path suddenly find yourself surrounded by bright yellow daffodils when you thought you were heading towards the lavenders
The language may be light and delicate but Atwood addresses substantial, fundamental and timeless truths, and does it with her usual exquisite irony and gentle humour. The Bad News of the first story is imagined “as a huge bird, with the wings of a crow and the face of my Grade Four schoolteacher” which drops rotten eggs. Death, anyone’s death, but especially her partner’s, is the bad egg the aging Nell doesn’t want to hear, “not yet”.
The compilation begins and ends with stories about aging and disintegration and the inevitability, if not acceptance, of death. The intervening linked stories dissect the pleasures and agonies of a girl maturing, and show how she negotiates her important relationships. We see her engage—or struggle to engage—with her sister, parents, lovers, partner, partner’s ex-wife and partner’s children, though not with her own children: an odd gap in an otherwise rich portrait of a woman’s life.
This collection also explores the relationship of reading to living, of the role of stories in influencing our understanding, our dreaming and our remembering. A cookbook, The Art of Cooking and Serving, presents the younger Nell with a more attractive, ordered, and certain world than that which she inhabits, but she eventually, suddenly, senses a future where she “no longer has to do service”. My Last Duchess weaves Nell’s analysis of the eponymous poem with her developing understanding of boy/girl relationships. In this tale it is the girl who survives.
Later stories focus less on written narratives as a source of illumination and more on other characters’ personal legends, those tellings and re-tellings and rememberings and misremembering by which we come to know each other and construct ourselves.
As Nell notes in The Other Place, “We can’t really travel to the past, no matter how we try. If we do it’s as tourists.” Atwood offers up these little tours, these little explorations of both the significant and the not-so-obviously-important moments in her character’s life. Is it Atwood’s life? It might be, or some parts of her life. That doesn’t matter. It has a sense of truth to it, whether it is true or not. Any of us who have had similar experiences will recognise the emotional and existential reality of these stories even if our details are different.
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and lilacs. Reading Atwood’s latest collection of short stories is a bit like this. Her prose has the lightness and delicacy of these flowers but the stories twist and turn in unexpected ways and as with the best gardens, you are left feeling there are shaded spaces and delightful aspects not fully appreciated in a single encounter. The language may be light and delicate but Atwood addresses substantial, fundamental and timeless truths, and does it with her usual exquisite irony and gentle humour. The Bad News of the first story is imagined “as a huge bird, with the wings of a crow and the face of my Grade Four schoolteacher” which drops rotten eggs. Death, anyone’s death, but especially her partner’s, is the bad egg the aging Nell doesn’t want to hear, “not yet”.
The compilation begins and ends with stories about aging and disintegration and the inevitability, if not acceptance, of death. The intervening linked stories dissect the pleasures and agonies of a girl maturing, and show how she negotiates her important relationships. We see her engage—or struggle to engage—with her sister, parents, lovers, partner, partner’s ex-wife and partner’s children, though not with her own children: an odd gap in an otherwise rich portrait of a woman’s life.
This collection also explores the relationship of reading to living, of the role of stories in influencing our understanding, our dreaming and our remembering. A cookbook, The Art of Cooking and Serving, presents the younger Nell with a more attractive, ordered, and certain world than that which she inhabits, but she eventually, suddenly, senses a future where she “no longer has to do service”. My Last Duchess weaves Nell’s analysis of the eponymous poem with her developing understanding of boy/girl relationships. In this tale it is the girl who survives.
Later stories focus less on written narratives as a source of illumination and more on other characters’ personal legends, those tellings and re-tellings and rememberings and misremembering by which we come to know each other and construct ourselves.
As Nell notes in The Other Place, “We can’t really travel to the past, no matter how we try. If we do it’s as tourists.” Atwood offers up these little tours, these little explorations of both the significant and the not-so-obviously-important moments in her character’s life. Is it Atwood’s life? It might be, or some parts of her life. That doesn’t matter. It has a sense of truth to it, whether it is true or not. Any of us who have had similar experiences will recognise the emotional and existential reality of these stories even if our details are different.
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LibraryThing member thenightbookmobile
Moral Disorder and Other Stories follows one woman named Nell through different periods of her life. In the form of several short stories we see her as a child taking care of those around her, as an adult finding her way on her own, as a mistress, and a wife and mother and everything in between. We
"Yet I think of that period as having been a happy time in my life... Happy is the wrong word. Important."
Margaret Atwood is brilliant with words and captures perfectly an average life and all the emotions that come along with it. I haven't read anything by her previous to this but definitely plan to check out more of her work now that I've finished this collection.
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glimpse at quirky pieces of furniture that come to define a part of her life, at a mattress on the floor of her lover's home and how knitting a cover for it can quickly become an agreement, a choice made, a path taken. While reading this I felt like a bit of a voyeur; like I was seeing through Nell's eyes as she was looking back over all of the moments she'd lived that were important to her, and all the time she had no idea I was there sharing her secrets; secrets that prove it's not only the happy moments that define us and set us on our course. As Nell says when thinking back on a particular memory..."Yet I think of that period as having been a happy time in my life... Happy is the wrong word. Important."
Margaret Atwood is brilliant with words and captures perfectly an average life and all the emotions that come along with it. I haven't read anything by her previous to this but definitely plan to check out more of her work now that I've finished this collection.
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LibraryThing member gypsysmom
I guess I have to confess that I'm not a big fan of short stories (except if they are science fiction in which case I usually enjoy them). These short stories were more of a continuing dialogue than individual short stories so it was more like reading a novel than a book of short stories. As I read
I think my favourite story is probably the title story which details how the couple (Nell and Tig) populate their "farm" with animals of all kinds and the difficult choices you have to make about those animals. It reminded me a lot of the farm I grew up on. Every year we would have newborn lambs being bottle raised in the kitchen. And I can still recall being butted into the fence by the ram. Atwood captures all the nuances of life on a farm.
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I suspected that most of these stories are autobiographical, a suspicion that is born out by a rather lengthy article from The Guardian. So, in a way, that made them more interesting to me. (She did have a much younger sister so are the tales about her true? And if so, how does her sister feel about that?)I think my favourite story is probably the title story which details how the couple (Nell and Tig) populate their "farm" with animals of all kinds and the difficult choices you have to make about those animals. It reminded me a lot of the farm I grew up on. Every year we would have newborn lambs being bottle raised in the kitchen. And I can still recall being butted into the fence by the ram. Atwood captures all the nuances of life on a farm.
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LibraryThing member tangledthread
A collection of loosely connected short stories. Not autobiographical, but certainly a parallel existence to the author. The construction of the writing is reminiscent of fellow Canadian writer, Alice Munro
Awards
Dublin Literary Award (Longlist — 2008)
Language
Original publication date
2006
Physical description
320 p.; 7.8 inches
ISBN
1844080331 / 9781844080335
Other editions
Moral Disorder by Margaret Atwood (Paperback)