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Never one to rest on her artistic laurels, Margaret Atwood, author of THE BLIND ASSASSIN and THE HANDMAID'S TALE, has compiled a clever sketchbook of images and ideas; short, imaginative prose pieces, one long-form poem, all complemented by her own illustrations. Poking fun at the archaic views of conventions such as motherhood, science and love, Atwood turns these ideas on their ear, as in her piece, "Chicken Little Goes Too Far," where the well-known nervous character who proclaims that the sky is falling gets a modern twist in this version. Here, he takes his announcement to the media and forms an environmentally conscious group, only to be assassinated by the head of a large development company who builds retirement communities in the sky.
Atwood's feminist sensibilities shine through in the prose-like poem "Bring Back Mom: An Invocation." An ungrateful child pines for the way his/her old-fashioned mother used to be: a mom with shiny red hair, always with a hearty meal at the ready --- a creation the men of Stepford would have been proud of --- who ultimately gives in to despair to become yet another victim of the suburban American Dream:
"Mom, whose husband left her
For his secretary and paid alimony
Mom, who drank in solitude....
Who was carted away
and locked up, because one day
she began screaming and wouldn't stop."
"Salome Was a Dancer" harkens back to Atwood's earlier works, like THE EDIBLE WOMAN, as she tells the story of a young girl who is blessed with the looks and wiles to drive men wild. As a fellow classmate, the narrator extols just how young Salome seduces the Religious Studies teacher in order to get a better grade. When their affair is brought to light, Salome claims she was attacked by the young teacher. The teacher maintains that he was the one who was taken advantage of, but of course the school sides with Salome and her powerful father, and the young, impressionable teacher is fired and later is seen panhandling in the subway.
In "Horatio's Version," Hamlet's dear friend and confidante sets the record straight, not just on the atrocities at Elsinore, but also on the violence that always has been pervasive in our society. Through Atwood, Horatio functions as a sort of moral watchdog:
"Somehow I no longer wanted to tell Hamlet's story. I wanted to tell something a little more --- what's the term? Human, inhuman? Something bigger. But statistics pall after a time. We're not programmed to register more than a hundred corpses. In heaps they simply become a landscape feature."
THE TENT displays the broad range of Atwood's many talents --- the lyrical portrayal of even the most mundane or distasteful aspects of life, the wonders of science and nature --- all with her trademark wit and biting commentary, doled out here in this collection as tiny, thought-provoking morsels in true Atwood style.
--- Reviewed by Bronwyn Miller
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