A collection of short stories narrated by and about women. in the main. Some were better than others, but there were no real stand outs. A mixture of emotions, it's quite a thoughtful collection. She has a beautiful turn of phrase at times. ( )

I like her sci-fi better. It's boring to read about middle and upper class white people; they've got no culture. Yawn. ( )

Writing effective short stories is probably more difficult than writing effective novels. You have very little space; you have to create viable, breathing characters in paragraphs instead of chapters; you have to weigh every word and know that it is essential or it must go; and you must convey something important, an idea, a thought, that lasts or has impact. Margaret Atwood does that like it is a science.

I’m not generally a fan of short stories. They seem too often to leave me feeling as if there is more to the story if only the author had had the time and pages to flesh it out. Atwood seldom left me with that feeling in this collection, although I admit to loving some of the stories and feeling a little confused about others.

The ones I loved:

Betty Almost a coming of age tale, with the adolescent narrator who doesn’t quite understand the world of the grown-ups that she observes. Betty is part of “Betty and Fred” the couple who live next door at the cottages where her family is spending the summer, and the girl and her sister are a bit taken with Fred, but it is Betty who makes them welcomed and treats them well. Fred seems so ideal to their young minds. About half way through the tale, our narrator observes, “I began to think that I might not want to be married to Fred after all. He unrolled from Betty’s mouth like a long ribbon of soggy newspaper printed from end to end with nothing but the weather.” That simile said all.

Under Glass I wanted to scream at this narrator who is involved in a relationship with a man who has just committed an infidelity and shrugs it off in a “boys will be boys” style. I wanted to tell him what no one’s ever taught him, how two people who love each other behave, how they avoid damaging each other, but I’m not sure I know.” and “He won’t come near me, touch me, doesn’t he that’s all he needs to do? He’ll wait for me to cool off, as he puts it. But if I go away like this I won’t be back.” She wishes she didn’t love him, but my question would be, why does she?

The Grave of the Famous Poet A tale of alienation and breakup that felt perfectly heartbreaking to me. The setting is right for romance, but the narrator knows the romance is over. ”I pull him into me, wanting him to be with me, but for the first time I feel it’s just flesh, a body, a beautiful machine, an animated corpse, he isn’t in it any more, I want him so much and he isn’t here.” If you have ever experienced the end of love, you will recognize its shadow, whispering your name.

The Sin Eater Joseph is an unorthodox shrink, who we meet through his "client" (because he doesn't call them patients or believe they are sick). "This world is all we have, says Joseph. It's all you have to work with. It is not too much for you. You will not be rescued."

I could turn that last one into a mantra and share it with everyone who is young and struggling, middle-aged and feeling unsure of the path they have taken, old and feeling their time run out. You will not be rescued, but then Joseph and Atwood would probably tell you that if you pay close attention you will discover you can rescue yourself.

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Read three stories out of this collection. "The Man from Mars" and "Travel Piece" were both good, but "The War in the Bathroom" was exceptional. Dark and creepy without a word wasted. ( )

I have thoroughly enjoyed short story collections by Margaret Atwood before – many years ago reading Bluebeard’s Egg – very pre-blog and more recently Stone Mattress and Wilderness Tips. Several of these stories really do stand out and are every bit as excellent as I have come to expect – however some of the others didn’t work quite as well for me. Overall, I liked the collection but didn’t love it.

The men and women in these stories are frequently unable to communicate with one another – they are often separate themselves either physically or mentally. These stories explore the complicated relationships between men and women.

In the opening story; The man from Mars an awkward, slightly overweight student finds herself pursued by a foreign student from an unnamed Eastern country. Christine – living in the shadow of her more glamorous mother and sisters, is unused to such attention. So, when a short, bespectacled oriental looking man begins to follow her around after having once stopped her to ask directions she really doesn’t know what to think. The student is horribly persistent, but also rather pathetic. His attentions are perplexing, and irritating, but he doesn’t seem dangerous. Nevertheless, eventually the police are involved. It is a wonderful story to kick off the collection, there is a deliciously wry humour in the description of Christine’s faithful pursuer – and of a strained little tea party, Christine’s clueless mother insists she has for a man who might turn out to be boyfriend material.

“As the weekdays passed and he showed no signs of letting up, she began to jog-trot between classes, finally to run. He was tireless, and had an amazing wind for one who smoked so heavily: he would speed along behind her, keeping the distance between them the same, as though he were a pull-toy attached to her by a string. She was aware of the ridiculous spectacle they must make, galloping across campus, something out of a cartoon short, a lumbering elephant stampeded by a smiling, emaciated mouse, both of them locked in the classic pattern of comic pursuit and flight.”
(The man from Mars)

Betty – one of those two stories added to this collection in place of others – is the second story in the collection. The story narrator looks back to a time when she was growing up – remembering the neighbours Betty and her husband Fred who she met when her family rented a small cottage for the summer between house moves. Betty hadn’t interested her young neighbour when she was a child – instead it was Fred who absorbed all her interest and fantasies.

“It seemed as if we had lived in the cottage for a long time, though it was only one summer. By August I could hardly remember the apartment in Ottawa and the man who used to beat his wife. That had happened in a remote life, and, despite the sunshine, the water and the open space, a happier one. Before our frequent moves and the insecurities of new schools had forced my sister to value me.”
(Betty)

Now, as an adult looking back on that time, she realises she can no longer remember Fred’s face – though she remembers Betty with great clarity. She remembers how Betty changed after Fred betrayed her – how over the years Betty kept in touch, and the family watched as she re-invented herself yet remained much more of a mystery than Fred ever was.

That foreign ‘otherness’ that is explored in the opening story is present again in the title story Dancing Girls. Set in a boarding house, where Ann and her landlady – wonder about the new man – who has what the landlady calls a native costume in which she politely asks him to appear from time to time. We witness the clash of cultures again, although I felt the story petered out a bit at the end.

Other stories which grabbed me were: When it happens; in which we see a woman who remembers well living through the Second World War is preparing for what she thinks is the end of the world – or some kind of cataclysmic event that will bring almost everything to an end. The Resplendent Quetzal is another superb story – in which the broken relationship of a married couple on a bird watching holiday is beautifully explored. In Hair Jewellery we meet a woman who loves someone who never really returns her feelings. She has romanticised their future break up – which when it comes is nothing like her fantasy – eventually she finds she can never quite leave him behind.

I enjoy Margaret Atwood’s writing – and there is certainly a lot to enjoy in this collection, those stories which I was less keen on stop short of actually being disappointing – they just didn’t grab me. ( )