Old Babes in the Wood: Stories - Margaret Atwood - ★★★.½

AUTHOR: Margaret Atwood

GENRE: Short Story Anthology

RATING: 3.6 Stars.

In a Nutshell: A collection of short stories in varied genres by acclaimed Canadian writer Margaret Atwood. Some work, some don't.

I picked up this book not because I am a Margaret Atwood fan but because I am a short story fan. I have heard plenty of wonderful things about the author’s writing (and I do intend to read her full-length works some day). So this felt like a good way of getting a glimpse at her writing style. Did it work? Not exactly.

While the author is the same across the stories, the genres and the themes are quite different. You have sci-fi, dystopian, historical, humour, dramatic, and speculative within the same book. Her writing clicks in a few stories but doesn’t for the others, and this hit-or-miss isn’t genre-specific. So if you, just like me, plan to give this a try to know Atwood’s writing style, that agenda will not be accomplished. If, however, you treat it as a regular ‘multi-genre anthology by a single author’, you will like it far better.

The fifteen stories in this collection – some new, some published in the past – are divided into three sections.

Section I – Tig & Nell – has three stories featuring the titular couple dealing with certain events in their lives. Section III – Nell & Tig – has the same characters but older, and contains four stories about Nell’s life after Tig’s death. The two central characters are the only common point; there’s nothing else to interlink the stories or make them mutually dependent. Section III was quite bittersweet, with some truly moving tales.

Section II – My Evil Mother – contains seven disparate stories, including the titular ‘My Evil Mother’ that had been a hit with many of my friends last year. This was the best section of the book for me, as most of the stories featured interesting characters, unusual plots, and a gripping writing style. Surprisingly, the popular favourite ‘My Evil Mother’ was my least favourite story in this section. (I have reviewed the story separately HERE.)

The lengths of the tales is quite inconsistent, with some being too long to be called ‘short stories’ as they were more like novellas. Nevertheless, if you go into the book expecting ‘longish’ short tales, you will not be much bothered by the varying word count.

As always, I rated the stories individually. Like in every anthology, some stories were great, other not so much. Of the fifteen stories, seven stories reached/crossed the four star mark for me, which is not at all a bad hit rate, though I did expect better. These were my top favourites:

From Section I:

Morte de Smudgie – 🌟🌟🌟🌟💫 - Nell’s poetic ode to her dead cat. Loved the writing and ending in this one.

The below are from Section II:

Impatient Griselda - 🌟🌟🌟🌟💫 – Loved the unexpected narrator of the story, and loved their narrative style even more.

Metempsychosis, or, the Journey of the Soul - 🌟🌟🌟🌟💫 – A snail’s soul somehow latches itself to a human body and tries to get used to this new “shell”. Is that imaginative or what! I loved how the title doffed a hat at Kafka’s Metamorphosis, but has the process exactly in reverse.

Death by Clamshell - 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 – Hypatia speaks to us from the afterlife, wow!!! The only 5 star story for me. Brilliant!

Other notable mentions were ‘The Dead Interview’, ‘Widows’, and ‘Wooden Box’, each with 4 stars.

As I have never read any Atwood work prior to this, I am not in a position to compare her prowess in full-length fiction with this short work. But her imagination and range has definitely left me curious to know more.

Recommended to Atwood fans, and to those wanting to dabble in Atwood waters before taking the plunge.

3.6 stars, based on the average of my ratings for each story.

PS: I love how the cover pic works on a dual level, as a partial visage of a cat AND as a bird under a tree. But I don’t think it suits the anthology well.

My thanks to Doubleday Books and NetGalley for the DRC of “Old Babes in the Wood”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.