It’s my sixth year participating in the annual Margaret Atwood Reading Month (#MARM), hosted by indomitable Canadian blogger Marcie of Buried in Print. In previous years, I’ve read Surfacing and The Edible Woman, The Robber Bride and Moral Disorder, Wilderness Tips, and The Door; and reread The Blind Assassin. Wish a happy belated birthday to MA, who turned 84 earlier this month. As it happens, today is my husband’s 40th birthday and I am tapping away at this in the passenger’s seat of the car as we hurtle through the freezing fog toward Slimbridge for some wintry birdwatching. I spent much of yesterday making his German chocolate cake (delicious but very involved) from a Hummingbird Bakery cookbook.
Bodily Harm (1982)
I had literally never heard of her fifth novel before I spotted it on the library catalogue and decided to have a go. The fact that nobody talks about it is evidence, I think, of an overbaked plot and more successful treatment of her trademark themes in other books. Nonetheless, it was perfectly readable and had its highlights. Renata Wilford, “Rennie,” is a journalist for hire from Ontario who has recently had her life turned upside down by breast cancer and the departure of her boyfriend, Jake. She flies to the Caribbean island nation of St. Antoine to write a travel piece, coinciding with the first elections since the British left. It’s a febrile postcolonial setting of shantytowns and shortages. Rennie tries to focus on boat trips, cocktails and beach lounging, but Dr. Minnow, who she met on the plane, is determined to show her the reality of his country – cold truths that include assassination and imprisonment.
Alongside the thriller plot are the more expected literary flashbacks to Rennie’s childhood, her life with Jake, and the cancer surgery and her crush on her surgeon. Her old friend Jocasta is an amusingly punky feminist and a counterpoint to Lora, the fellow Canadian and bad girl Rennie meets in St. Antoine. There are no speech marks in the sections set in the past, and there are some passages of direct monologue from Lora recounting her abusive upbringing. I felt Atwood was stretching to make points about cultural imperialism and violence, whereas the title is more applicable to the physical threats women face from illness and misogyny:
“The body, sinister twin, taking its revenge for whatever crimes the mind was supposed to have committed on it. Nothing had prepared her for her own outrage, the feeling that she’d been betrayed by a close friend. She’d given her body swimming twice a week, forbidden it junk food and cigarette smoke, allowed it a normal amount of sexual release. She’d trusted it. Why then had it turned against her?”
(University library) 
Stone Mattress (2014)
I was tempted to call this my first ever audiobook, but that is not technically true: 11 years ago, we had a David Attenborough book on in the car on the way to Cornwall. However, this definitely felt like a landmark. I’d long meant to catch up on Atwood’s last but one story collection, but my library had withdrawn the physical copy and only had the book on CD. How would I fit it into my life, I wondered? Others have told me they listen to audiobooks while commuting, cooking or cleaning … er, I don’t really do any of those! But I amassed a goodly list of tasks involving my hands but not much of my brain to complete while listening to the CDs through my PC speakers:
• Prepared two clothing recycling parcels (37 socks off to the London Sock Company’s Sock Amnesty programme; 3 shirts and 2 sets of pyjamas to Rapanui’s 100% cotton recycling scheme)
• Mended 13 socks, 4 shirts, 3 gloves, 2 cardigans, a shoulder bag strap, and a purse strap and lining
• Framed a photo for a Christmas gift
• Baked the aforementioned German chocolate cake
• Wrapped my husband’s birthday presents
• Wrote a couple of Christmas cards
Nonetheless, I found it frustrating that it took so long to get through a story/disc, surely longer than I would have spent reading with my eyes (and so I have only managed 7.5 of 9 stories so far), and it was slightly harder for me to concentrate. It was also disorienting to not have visual cues, such that I had no idea how much of a story was remaining, and sometimes didn’t know how place or character names were spelt. One interesting novelty, though, was the reader voices. There are five different voice actors on this audiobook, three women (including MA herself on the title story) and two men. It is interesting to ponder how their intonation might affect my reaction to a story. For instance, Rob Delaney’s deadpan delivery really makes “The Freeze-Dried Groom,” a witty work of mild horror in which a fraudulent antiques dealer finds an entire wedding, complete with groom, abandoned in a storage unit.
As in a number of Atwood’s later works, recurring themes of ageing and the writer’s craft intertwine. I most enjoyed the opening linked trio of “Alphinland,” “Revenant” and “Dark Lady,” which orbit SFF writer Constance and her one-time lover, macho poet Gavin. The first story has Constance slipping between her fictional world and the real one, in which a winter storm is impending and her husband Ewan has been dead for four days. In “Revenant,” an elderly Gavin holds court as a scholar comes to interview him. Imagine his ire when he learns she is there to question him about Constance for her PhD research. “Dark Lady” brings the three major women from Gavin’s life into a face-off.
Funniest was “I Dream of Zenia with the Bright Red Teeth,” a The Robber Bride mini-sequel in which three ageing women fend off an interfering male with the help of a potential reincarnation of their late friend. I was reminded of the setup of Charlotte Wood’s The Weekend, not least for the presence of an annoying dog. Least engaging has been “The Dead Hand Loves You,” about Jack Dace, the author of an international horror classic who has always resented having to share his profits four ways with his early adulthood housemates because of his promise to catch up on his back rent from his creative earnings. I thought this one would never end. In general, though, this has been classic MA, mixing realism and fantasy in clever and witty ways. And I’m sure it won’t be my last audiobook. I was gifted an Audible book for my birthday by a blind friend, to start with. Now to store up some more busy work… (Public library audiobook) 
Bookish Beck = Rebecca Foster. American transplant to England. Freelance proofreader and book reviewer.
Bookish Beck 
I read Stone Mattress quite a few years ago, but I haven’t heard of the other one. That reminds me that I haven’t explored much of her earlier work. I’d like to read The Robber Bride, for example, just because of the title.
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She has a huge back catalogue to choose from!
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I am sure!
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First of all, I’m jealous of your no cooking, cleaning, or commuting lifestyle 🙂 Cleaning is about the only time I listen to audio these days (and usually podcasts). I wish I *could* listen while cooking/baking, but I get too distracted and worry I’m missing ingredients, or adding them twice…
The Stone Mattress audio sounds good! I bet Rob Delany would be a good narrator.
I had also never heard of Bodily Harm. She’s so prolific it’s hard to keep track!
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I clean for a few minutes every once in a while, never for long enough to bother putting on a CD. My husband does the vacuum cleaning because the machine is a little heavy for me and it’s a hated task of mine. My other option would be while using the crosstrainer in my office. In the winter I’m in such hibernation mode that I tend not to exercise, though.
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LOL Yes, Laura!! That’s exactly what I was thinking. #lifegoals
But I do understand your point, Rebecca, that with a CD you feel as though you need to have a listening session, not just a few minutes of wiping counters. Maybe with your Audible book, you’ll find it lends itself to a few minutes here and there more readily. (But not if you’re still listening through your PC, I suppose.)
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I haven’t figured out yet exactly how I’ll listen to the Audible book. I don’t really have a separate device I can think of for putting it on, so it probably will have to be via the PC speakers again.
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This time, it’s not your book reviews that have attracted my attention (not an Atwood fan), but your recycling ideas – both these companies were unknown to me. Mind you, my only redundant socks have in all cases lost their lifetime partner. How DOES that happen? Happy birthday to your husband!
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That’s why it’s great that the sock amnesty accepts odd socks and holey ones! One final bag of reject clothing will be going off to the council with next week’s recycling collection (they take bags labelled “Textiles” for rags; I’m told charity shops do the same). I’d had two large bags of damaged clothing sitting around for literally more than a year, so this was a good excuse to finally get to it.
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Yes, I always have a rag-bag on the go for charity shops. But your suggestions are good ones too.
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I am impressed by your ability to type while in a moving vehicle. I can barely type when the keyboard is perfectly still! And happy 40th to your husband!
I have never read Bodily Harm, but I loved Stone Mattress. I remember it being even funnier than I thought it would be and it was one of the books that got me back into read MA after a long break.
Your reasons for not listening to audiobooks are the same as mine, except for two differences: I do cook but could never listen to a book while cooking or baking because I’d mess up the recipe for sure. And, I do have a lot of dishes to do almost everyday. That’s when I get most of my listening done – probably about 45 minutes per day. I started listening to books while doing dishes after our dish washer broke 2 or 3 years ago, and now I’m happy without one so I can listen to my books!
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I was determined to write up my MA contributions before the end of the month and that was my only time. Luckily it took me only an hour and it was a pretty easy route where my husband didn’t need directions.
You and Laura said the same thing about having to concentrate too hard on baking! I made sure I had all my ingredients and implements mise en place before I put the CD on so that it was then just work for my hands.
That’s a good way of looking at having no dishwasher 🙂 I recall that you basically only listen to nonfiction audiobooks, and that you also take audiobooks on walks. I thought maybe I could take my Discman and go on longer walks, which would surely be good for me. Though maybe not while it’s below freezing, as it is this week!
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Yes, sometimes I do listen while walking! It depends on if I feel the need to distract my self with a book or if I feel like my brain needs a breather.
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Stone Mattress was great fun – evil fun, but still fun! Have you read “The Heart Goes Last” by her? Seems to me no one knows that one but me.
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Yes, I read that one and didn’t care for it very much.
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You’re too nice a person, I guess!!!
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Novels are hard for me on audiobook. Always have been. Nonfiction I can concentrate on much easier! But I love music and podcasts so much (cleaning, driving, dishes, etc.), I hardly listen to audiobooks anyway. You’re right, it feels much faster to just read with your eyeballs.
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That makes sense. I definitely had lowered concentration for the plot of the stories. I felt like I got a good general sense of them, but you definitely couldn’t quiz me on any details, even character names.
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I can’t do audio books at all, they send me to sleep! But I don’t take in information aurally very well at the best of times, so it makes sense. I did listen to a radio play of an Iris Murdoch book in Bridlington on holiday but we had to have our breakfast then march up to our room to sit bolt upright listening to it so I didn’t drift off!!
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I can see how a particularly monotonous reader might send you to sleep. I listened in the middle of the day, or the early evening, and kept my hands busy. It was odd to be taking a story in that way, I must admit.
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Even the cheeriest, most dynamic narrator and I still drop off!!
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How exciting that you found a “new” MA to read for MARM! What a treat.
It’s ridiculous, because I know they’re all very different books, but I get this early novel confused with Life before Man and Lady Oracle all the time (I used to muddle up The Edible Women with them too but, by now, I’ve reread that one enough times to keep it distinct); I read them all in a blur when I was probably too young to be reading Margaret Atwood. (I’ve reread Life before Man once, for an earlier MARM so I thiiiink I’ve got that one figured out now too.)
The themes do seem rather stark in the earlier novels but at the time, when there weren’t so many novels exploring these themes (and when women’s books weren’t taken very seriously either), they seemed challenging and smart, subversive and disorienting (intentionally demanding that readers re-think the status quo).
The trio is my favourite part of Stone Mattress too. (Although I bet having her read the title story was good fun.) But I was thrilled to find Zenia’s story existed at the time. I wish there were more short story follow-ups to novels I love!
And I think it’s fair to count this as your first audiobook because you have to listen in the car as the driver (happy birthday to C!) can’t read from the book but, in this instance, you could have elected to read from the page instead, and opted for audio so your various projects were more enjoyable. I bake with a book if the recipe is familiar but if it’s new I have to pause a lot (which makes me impatient with both activities).
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Life before Man is the other early one I have in my sights — probably next year, again from the university library.
I also had some technical challenges with the audiobook in that the last three CDs wouldn’t play on my PC or Discman, so I had to listen on the dining room player, which meant I had to have the volume turned up loud so I could flit from room to room and get things done.
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It’s not got as much action as this one, but I think you’ll find it interesting.
That’s too bad, and it hardly encourages you to want to listen more. Am I misremembering, didn’t you get SOME kind of a phone, though not with all the usual bells and whistles, not very long ago? (I know it’s not something you want to prioritise in your life generally.)
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I’ve always had a phone (well, since 2003 or whenever), but it’s a “dumb” phone for sure; it only sends texts and makes calls and works as a flashlight.
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[…] Surfacing and The Edible Woman, The Robber Bride and Moral Disorder, Wilderness Tips, The Door, and Bodily Harm and Stone Mattress; and reread The Blind Assassin. I’m wishing a happy belated birthday to Atwood, who turned 85 […]
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[…] Surfacing and The Edible Woman, The Robber Bride and Moral Disorder, Wilderness Tips, The Door, Bodily Harm and Stone Mattress, and Life Before Man and Interlunar; and reread The Blind Assassin. Novembers are […]
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