Book Review: Old Babes in the Wood by Margaret Atwood

This is my first book by Margaret Atwood. The Handmaid’s Tale gets talked about a lot, but I never actually got around to reading it. This book somehow ended up in my house, so I read it - and I’m glad I did.

The crux of this book, a collection of stories, is relationships - with parents, children, friends and pets; learning to love them despite their flaws and imperfections; of loving and losing them; and of dealing with loss. It is about being thankful for the good times while dealing with overwhelming memories alone. I found the stories deep, but humorous - a difficult combination to achieve with such a sensitive subject matter.

The book is divided into three parts. The first third is about a middle aged couple reflecting on their life so far - amazed at all fearless things they did when younger, things they now believe were fraught with risks. But, they realize, in the midst of such “reckless” living they did build a life full of wonderful memories - “Obliviousness had served them well”. The second third of the book is a collection of assorted stories that deal with very relevant social issues like women’s rights, cancel culture, colonialism, war and communism, while still based on inter-personal relationships. The last third of the book is about dealing with the loss of a partner. It is very personal, and I felt disquieted reading it - it was like I was intruding on the narrator’s private moments - the moments that cause outpourings of grief, like finding a note, or a favorite piece of clothing. These made me uncomfortably aware of how devastated I would be if something happened to my partner.

Despite the common underlying themes, the stories are not repetitive. In fact, they approach the themes from such widely divergent angles that often you’re so immersed in the story that you don’t realize the theme until the end. In “Morte d’Smudgie” the narrator loses their cat, and deals with it by re-working Tennyson’s poem Morte d’Arthur to fit Smudgie the cat, comically lamenting how un-heroic Smudgie was. “Widows” comprises two versions of a response to a letter of condolence - one brutally honest and sassy about the narrator’s emotions after the loss of her husband and the other more socially conventional - revealing the difficulty of people dealing with loss to connect with others. The complexity of relationships is in full evidence in “My Evil Mother”; the narrator hates her mother growing up - it is likely that the mother had a clinical condition that got worse over time. But towards the end, she realizes that her mother, raising her singlehandedly, did her best to make her feel safe, and reconnects with her again. In “Two Scorched Men” an unlikely friendship between two men with completely opposite personalities forms the basis of understanding relationships.

Through the realistic stories we meet relatable characters; we’ve known or heard of such people: a war hero with severe PTSD, an academic viciously attacked on social media because people extrapolated something she said completely about fungus to human gender, a friend who likes to make things up for dramatic effect. Many characters are eccentric - the “evil mother” who thinks she’s a witch, or the war veteran landlord who spews invectives at everyone and everything except his wife and an unlikely friend - but eminently relatable. All stories deal with multiple themes - and that actually gives them a realistic feel. It would be strange indeed if all people in our lives coincidentally went through the same experiences at the same time.

Through events in “Death by Clamshell”, “Dead Interview” and “Airborne” set in different centuries, Atwood adroitly shows us, humorously and collectedly, how the prejudices and cruelty remain unchanged since ancient times. Humankind has certainly not become kinder or more humane - a fact noted, in a detached manner by the spirit of Hypatia, making it all the more chilling. Civil rights, socialism, women’s rights, communism and war are all touched upon intelligently and amusingly in “Dead Interview.” War’s impact on the survivors is a recurrent theme. Particularly poignant is the poem written by a Brigadier after the war was won:

“No wild frivolity, our joy

Lies deep within our heart.

As an ardent lover curbs his love,

So we face today and smile,

For fear that tears will start”

This story was particularly hard to read: Atwood’s expertise captures the horrors of war and its aftermath all too well.

Not all stories are serious, though all are deep with clever premises. What is really important for a happy life? Ask a snail’s soul trapped in a human shell. What would an alien think of human culture? What would you ask George Orwell if you could talk to his ghost? Atwood creatively buries important issues in these humorous stories.

Atwood’s brilliance with the language shines through the clever use of words and phrases throughout the book. For example, how strange to say “returned from the war” about a soldier, as though talking about returning an unwanted package. In “A dusty lunch”, she shows that is unfortunately very close to the truth about war veterans back in civillian life. In “Two scorched men” we see her expertise in French: one of the characters writes a story about his surreal experiences under anaesthesia in French, consisting of hilarious puns on words. This was the only time in my life I wished I had learnt French. There are many memorable lines throughout the book that I know will stay with me: “Rigidity is the symptom of a limited mind” or “There are different ways of being alive” and “Veils are obligatory these days. They cover a multitude of sins.”

In short, read this book for a thoroughly satisfying literary experience. You will end up with a lot more.