“Moral Disorder”
by Margaret Atwood
Published: September 2006
ISBN: 0771008708

(Updated: January 12, 2008.)

From the Publisher…

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 height of her powers.

I am such a Margaret Atwood fan. The smartness and style with which she is able to turn words is unequalled. And although this is true for this book as well, it is the subject (and mabye the structure of the work) that I didn’t manage to connect with this time.

The book is a collection of short stories. Some of the stories are of the same characters. All of the stories describe perspectives on life told from one point or another. And/but although the structure of the collection might have provided another dimension to this work, it didn’t so do for me. So… I read this as a collection of short stories where some stories were of the same characters and others weren’t and/but I found myself continually looking for “more”. Maybe if I hadn’t been looking so hard I would have found it. But I didn’t.

Reading anything Margaret Atwood writes is a pleasure in itself. For that this book falls as a three out of five hearts on my scale.