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Moral Disorder: and Other Stories

by Margaret Atwood (Goodreads Author)

3.6 of 5 stars 3.60 · rating details · 4,567 ratings · 507 reviews

Margaret Atwood is acknowledged as one of the foremost writers of our time. In Moral Disorder, she has created a series of interconnected stories that trace the course of a life and also the lives intertwined with it—those of parents, of siblings, of children, of friends, of enemies, of teachers, and even of animals. As in a photograph album, time is measured in sharp, cle...more

Hardcover, 240 pages

Published September 19th 2006 by Nan A. Talese (first published 2006)

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Mar 25, 2008 Ellen rated it 1 of 5 stars

It's me, not you, I want to apologize to Margaret Atwood. One of my all-time favorite authors, who I consider one of my oldest and best friends, although we've never met. I have fallen out of love with her. I confess to not having finished the book. This is unheard of, like not having a second slice of pizza. I won't go as far as to say there is a sense of stagnation in the stories. Perhaps she has all too successfully evoked the ennui of average life. Attempting a committed and thorough read, I...more

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May 29, 2007 Sarah rated it 4 of 5 stars

I noticed some reveiws are not so favorable for this book.
As an avid Atwoodian, I was struck by the similar themes running through this collection of vignettes about girlhood and growing up, childhood perception, adulthood reflection, memory and aging that appear in her earlier work (Cat's Eye, Edible Woman, Wilderness Tips) because it seems like a return to previous ideas but from a different vantage point informed by the deaths of family members and one's own aging. At times the stories seem a...more

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Apr 06, 2009 Marigold rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: short-stories

Margaret Atwood = writer I am most intimidated yet inspired by. These short stories form a semi-autobiographical sketch about a woman, Nell, from childhood through into her 60's, but are not in chronological order. The stories focus on her relationships with her parents, husband, sister, husband's ex-wife, and more. It's like getting a box of really cool photographs of someone you don't know, & their family, & you're trying to piece together their story from the photos & figure out w...more

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Sep 26, 2011 Steffi rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: canadian, 2011, literary-fiction

I am not a big fan of short stories in general. And I didn’t even know this was a collection of short stories because the blurb on the German edition (which I bought at a bargain!) did not make that very clear. After reading this I know why it failed to do so. This doesn’t feel like a collection of short stories at all. All stories deal with the same protagonist and her family. It has the feel of an episodic novel to it.

This was the first work by Atwood in a long time that wasn’t speculative fi...more

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Mar 04, 2008 Marissa rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: short-stories

Margaret Atwood is of course, as we all know, awesome sauce. This was definitely a work in a different vein than her science fiction stuff, but it has the same dark, menacing tone that she does so well. You can feel her subconscious twisting these stories out, which are unsettlingly mundane. The book reminded me about the vague, intuitive terror of adulthood and the passing of time that I feel the edge of almost all the time these days. Here's a quote:

"I would have to go into the tunnel whether...more

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Apr 11, 2010 Laurel rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

This is a collection of intertwined short stories providing a view into various moments in the ups and downs of one woman's life and family over a 60 year period. These brief, random snapshots give a somewhat disjointed feel to the overall picture, yet they also add depth to the main character as we traverse with her along her life-long journey.

As always when Atwood is involved, this book is both well-thought-out and well-written. There are no wasted words. Still, while I enjoyed the stories ov...more

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Apr 01, 2009 Stephen rated it 3 of 5 stars

Does anyone write crisper, cleaner English than Margaret Atwood? A few hundred of her sentences per day might help all of us write better. So, on the level of language, no complaints! In other ways, though, this is an uneven collection. It begins brilliantly and ends well, but the middle sections about the narrator and her life with Tig in the countryside just did not engage me. The problem may arise in part from the somewhat ambiguous nature of this book. Is it a collection of short stories or...more

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Jan 30, 2009 Evanston Public Library added it

Margaret Atwood has a clever way of moving through the decades in this collection of related stories. The recurring main character, Nell, is a little girl anxious about the impending birth of a sibling in the 30s, a teenager just realizing that she's miles ahead of her boyfriend in intelligence and maturity in the 50s, a slightly rootless young woman in the 90s.
Somehow this all works with Atwood's smooth handling, and as we read of the mostly trivial trials and tribulations that Nell faces, we...more

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May 01, 2012 Lo rated it 3 of 5 stars

I found this to be a pretty depressing book. I am still kind of processing how I feel about this novel.

Reading Moral Disorder was a journey in itself; At first, I was very confused as to who was the character I was following and the discontinuities at each segment's end (but that's supposed to be part of the charm of the storyline and also indicative of a Margaret Atwood book).

Then, I transitioned into comfort - like Nell and Tig I felt as if I was a part of their mostly idyllic farm life, wan...more I found this to be a pretty depressing book. I am still kind of processing how I feel about this novel.

Reading Moral Disorder was a journey in itself; At first, I was very confused as to who was the character I was following and the discontinuities at each segment's end (but that's supposed to be part of the charm of the storyline and also indicative of a Margaret Atwood book).

Then, I transitioned into comfort - like Nell and Tig I felt as if I was a part of their mostly idyllic farm life, wanting them to succeed and raise a family and a bunch of farm animals in Canada together. How do I put this, I felt warm and fuzzy, like the world was going slow enough for me to enjoy every relaxing moment and every small step was an accomplishment.

Lastly though, the book brings the happiness crashing to an end with multiple slow, agonizing deaths. Not torturous physically, but just emotionally and mentally. We watch Nell's father sucuumb to illness, and then we get to hear Atwood recount her own experience with her dying and blind mother as she struggles to remember even the happiest moments of her life. This section of the book is morbidly depressing; it almost makes you jealous of those who die young and never have to live through the trauma of watching everyone else die around you and you lose all your passion and ability to appreciate any of the things you used to love. I would analogize the transition into this segment from the warm comfort of Nell and Tig to being struck by lightning in the middle of the day while laying outside in the sun on a nice May day.

There were other facets of this book that phased me (and Atwood, you could see her resentment in the writing). Atwood seems to have a thing for weaker older sisters juxtaposed with passionate and fearless younger sisters. Although Lizzie is not "fearless" by any means, I got the feeling that she embraced every emotion and pursued her life ruthlessly (until heavily medicated, but that doesn't count either). Nell, on the other hand, just is, in her own words, a 'door mat'. I never got the feeling she was ever truly happy throughout her life because she was trying too hard to appease others and take the easy way. For me personally, I did not have a lot of respect for Nell who just lets Tig dictate her life for her. Nell's happiest moments also seem to be associated with love making, which could be a whole essay in itself about how Nell's craving for male affection leads her to become a facade of a character in order to appease her opposite male character.

Overall though, it was neither good nor bad. This is a low three (maybe even a high two). The confusion and morbidity brought the rating down in my opinion; however, the comfort and beauty that Atwood gives us in the middle (like a cream puff) makes it a three and worth the read. This would not be the first Atwood novel I recommend, but it is better than a look of the novel options on the market nowadays. (less)

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Nov 10, 2011 Jason rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

*beautiful stories that add up to a little less than the sum of their parts*

What's the difference between a novel and a collection of short stories? When the stories are interconnected, and gradually tell the life of one woman, the difference becomes hard to describe. The sections in this book could have been chapters in a novel, but somehow, they clearly aren't. There is something self-contained in each one, a complete focus on each new story's subject. Perhaps one reads a novel more porously,...more *beautiful stories that add up to a little less than the sum of their parts*

What's the difference between a novel and a collection of short stories? When the stories are interconnected, and gradually tell the life of one woman, the difference becomes hard to describe. The sections in this book could have been chapters in a novel, but somehow, they clearly aren't. There is something self-contained in each one, a complete focus on each new story's subject. Perhaps one reads a novel more porously, allowing previous chapters to directly affect the experience of the present one-- it's the same "story", after all. Here, while there is a certain sympathetic hum between the different sections due to their shared characters and reality, these sections breathe independently of each other, and are experienced unambiguously as short stories.

Which is to say that Atwood is doing something interesting here structurally, which raises the stakes a bit. If this were a typical collection of unrelated stories, that would be one thing, but because of their connectedness, we expect-- I expect-- something more, some larger, deeper, perhaps more poignant picture to emerge of Nell, the main character. How is it possible that we pass continuously from babies to adults to the elderly? How can so many different forms be a part of the same life? This is one of the mysteries of our lives, and this book, with its discrete snapshots from childhood to old age packed into 200 pages, could illuminate this mystery.

And it does, sometimes, as in "The Headless Horseman", when we see Nell's sister as a young child, and later as a middle-aged woman talking about that childhood. But, for me, the different isolated pieces of Nell herself-- her childhood, adolescence, life as a young woman on the farm, life as an older woman caring for her parents-- don't add up to an overall picture that feels true and real. Am I being unfair for expecting something so nebulous? Perhaps to a different reader the parts do add up in the right way.

Some of the stories in here are wonderful. I particularly liked the desperation of "The Other Place", the sense of foreboding in "The Labrador Fiasco". Atwood displays a knack for ending a story just right-- in such a way as to make the entire story, which until then had been pretty-good-but-not-great, suddenly crystalize into greatness. (For me this happened in particular with "The Entities", and the title piece "Moral Disorder", in which a certain sadness develops during the story, completely below the surface, which you didn't even realize you were perceiving until the story's penultimate page.) Others didn't work as well for me. (I remain not a fan of Atwood's little girl first-person voice.) But so it is with most collections and most readers.

Indeed, some great stories. I just wish that this collection, to paraphrase Infinite Jest's tennis instructor Coach Schtitt, had... occurred.(less)

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Jul 31, 2011 Emily Rae rated it 3 of 5 stars

Atwood has a beautiful way of describing life and its experiences so accurately. On the first page she writes,

"I think of bad news as a huge bird, with the wings of a crow and the face of my Grade Four school teacher, sparse bun, rancid teeth, wrinkly frown, pursed mouth and all, sailing around the world under cover of darkness pleased to be the bearer of ill tidings, carrying a basket of rotten eggs, and knowing- as the sun comes up- exactly where to drop them. On me, for one."

I am amazed th...more

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Apr 05, 2011 Sian Jones rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: literature

Sometimes, it seems true that certain writers are novelists and certain writers are short story writers, and in the case of Margaret Atwood, she seems to me to be more comfortable in the expansiveness that novels allow her. This collection is a case in point -- it's a linked series of non-chronological stories about a single woman, strongest when it acts like the novel it wants to be.

Some of the stories as stories are reasonably strong by themselves. The last two stories, "The Labrador Fiasco"...more

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Mar 26, 2010 Kate added it

This book is, to my mind, a model of what a linked short story collection should be. 1. Each of the stories can stand on its own. None read like fragments of a larger story. 2. Yet, the collection as a whole has a sense of continuity and wholeness. The whole is something more than the sum of its parts. 3. Finally, there’s a reason why it’s a short story collection rather than a novel. It focuses on the life of a single character (Nell), but in tracing that life through short stories, Atwood is a...more This book is, to my mind, a model of what a linked short story collection should be. 1. Each of the stories can stand on its own. None read like fragments of a larger story. 2. Yet, the collection as a whole has a sense of continuity and wholeness. The whole is something more than the sum of its parts. 3. Finally, there’s a reason why it’s a short story collection rather than a novel. It focuses on the life of a single character (Nell), but in tracing that life through short stories, Atwood is able to achieve something different, reveal different things, than would have emerged within the structure of a novel. I won’t try to sum up the book as a whole. I find this virtually impossible and frankly undesirable in a review of a short story collection. But I will highlight a few things about the content and the structure to support the statements I’ve made above. The collection begins at the end with a story set in the present. Then it skips back to the beginning with a story about eleven-year-old Nell, and proceeds more or less chronologically thereafter. I say more or less, because there’s considerable variation in the breadth of the time span covered by each story which creates some overlap. Arranging the collection with the most recent story first gives a sense of circling back around that creates a sense of wholeness, and knowing how it ends gives the reader a sense of forward motion as immediately you want to figure out how the characters arrived there. The overlapping of stories together with a shift in narrative voice is where the form of the linked story collection offers a different view of the subject than a novel would have done. In particular, there is a shift from first person (stories one through five) to third person (stories six through ten) and back again (story eleven). The initial shift from first to third person occurs at precisely the moment when Nell enters into a common law relationship and begins to feel less an individual and more someone in relation to others--a wife, a stepmother-- so viewing her suddenly from the outside seems exactly right. And along with that, because of the nature of the relationship, this is when Nell begins to feel less in control, so it makes sense that at that point her voice ceases to determine the arc of the narrative. It all adds up to a rich, layered, nuanced look at a life.(less)

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May 08, 2013 Cathy0584 rated it 3 of 5 stars

I haven't read any Margaret Atwood since The Handmaid's Tale--which I enjoyed very much. My suggestion is read this book if you are too happy and need to take your mood down a couple of notches. Full of anecdotes about inept parents, younger siblings with early signs of serious mental disorders and how they continue to manipulate our protagonist into adulthood. The concluding stories tell of a young woman of writing and editing promise who goes from one dysfunctional frying pan in the family or...more

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Feb 11, 2013 James rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: short-fiction, 3

I'm not sure. This one needs time to stew; I think I need to re-read some of her other prose, novels and short stories, to effectively gauge where this one lies. There are twelve stories within this collection, most of which centre on the life, from childhood to old age, of partners Nell and Tig. Because it focused so much on the same characters I feel like I was almost reading a second-rate novel. Did it feel like a collection of short stories? No. Could each story be read individually and stil...more

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Mar 20, 2011 Jennifer Barrett rated it 5 of 5 stars

I chose to read Moral Disorder for my next Atwood book because it was a book of short stories. I thought it would be a good decision as it would be easy to read during my sporadic down time. I will not go so far as to say that Atwood deceived me, however after the third story I realized how truly misinformed I had been. The picturesque narrative of a woman’s life bounds along seamlessly with ever-changing perspective from first to third person views and makes the book impossible to put down.
“Bad...more I chose to read Moral Disorder for my next Atwood book because it was a book of short stories. I thought it would be a good decision as it would be easy to read during my sporadic down time. I will not go so far as to say that Atwood deceived me, however after the third story I realized how truly misinformed I had been. The picturesque narrative of a woman’s life bounds along seamlessly with ever-changing perspective from first to third person views and makes the book impossible to put down.
“Bad News” is the story of a woman and her husband in their autumn years. As the protagonist (Nell) reflects upon the physical and mental constraints of her age she hints at the layout of the book. She muses that tenses define their lives. “Past tense, back then; future tense, not yet. We live in the small window between them, the space we’ve only recently come to think of as still, and really it’s no smaller than anyone else’s window.”
The second vignette transports the woman to the summer of her 11th year where she is stoically awaiting the birth of her sibling. She has taken on the role of caregiver for her mother during her fragile state. She mourns for her own loss of childhood with the responsibility of the new brother or sister that will soon join the family. Atwood’s skill at character development excels as she begins the third story “The Headless Horseman”. Written two years after her sister is born it is a “window” into how the sibling relationship will evolve. The elder sister reveals that the younger is anxious about everything in her world, exhibits odd behaviors, and is prone to unprovoked breakdowns. “Her approach to life was tentative.” The family must modify their way of life to accommodate this sensitive child. As the stories leapfrog from one decade to the next and back the relationship of the sisters becomes more complicated and intriguing. Nell builds her own family and becomes entangled in a non-traditional relationship where she must also contend with the emotional demands of her sister and self-imposed estrangement from her parents.
Each story is a change of tense and tone into which the reader builds a deep understanding of Nell and her strengths and weaknesses. Such an intimate knowledge of a character allows for a level of sympathy that is truly rare; and as Nell’s life progresses it is not the plot of the story that is as poignant as the rationale behind her choices and resulting consequences. Although there is no chronological continuity to the arrangement of the stories one is left with the impression of putting together a puzzle resulting in a sense of accomplishment that accompanies the completion of the book.

(less)

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Sep 02, 2010 Aerin rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: short-stories

I'm finding it difficult to convey why I loved this book so much. Sometimes when I get stuck like this, I'm tempted to write a one-word review, or maybe just a litany of superlative adjectives: Extraordinary. Heart-rending. Inspiring. Incisive. Illuminating. Because when I try to explain in complete sentences how this book affected me, I find myself sounding hollow, like one of those paid blurbs by other authors on the back of the book: "Atwood's incomparable storytelling and beguiling prose wea...more I'm finding it difficult to convey why I loved this book so much. Sometimes when I get stuck like this, I'm tempted to write a one-word review, or maybe just a litany of superlative adjectives: Extraordinary. Heart-rending. Inspiring. Incisive. Illuminating. Because when I try to explain in complete sentences how this book affected me, I find myself sounding hollow, like one of those paid blurbs by other authors on the back of the book: "Atwood's incomparable storytelling and beguiling prose weave together this collection of interrelated stories, each one illustrating a different period in one woman's life; I couldn't put it down!" That would be true, but it wouldn't be sufficient. Not at all.

What I love so much about Atwood, no matter her subject matter, is the way she taps into this deep, integral part of myself, examines it, interprets it, puts it on paper, and shows it to me. I read her books, and I learn things about my soul that I'd barely even been conscious of. Her protagonists are avatars of myself - I recognize them as soon as I meet them, and I trust the journey they're about to take me on, because I know that they get it. But what "it" is is some deep, ineffable thing I could never explain. Margaret Atwood is one of the few authors I've come across who can.

Moral Disorder is unremarkable in terms of plot - and in fact, I see that many GR reviewers have applied that label I see so often affixed to Atwood's most extraordinary books: "boring" (see also: Bodily Harm, Surfacing). And I can understand that; I truly can. Some people read books because they want something to happen, and one woman's journey toward self-embodiment, or another woman's slow and subtle descent into madness, doesn't qualify as "something happening". I can see that. And even less of an overarching plot is present in Moral Disorder; these stories are just snapshots from a woman's life, and even the snapshots often lack a clear focal point.

But taken individually, they reveal so many small and perfect and authentic and poignant truths about childhood, adolescence, adulthood, old age; about friends and lovers and siblings and parents and offspring; about choices, possibilities, disappointments; about things as they really are and as we wish them to be. And taken together, these stories construct an abridged view of a life, the way you might look back at your own life and pick out the various moments that turned out to mean everything even in their seeming banality. That Halloween costume you made the year you were twelve; the various apartments you moved through and left behind during college; that beat-up horse you owned on your ramshackle farm when you were still young and in love.

Like much of Atwood's fiction, this work is semi-autobiographical, and the very last story - an absolutely soul-shattering account of coping with the protracted death of an elderly parent - is not fictionalized at all. Knowing these stories are essentially true adds something to them, of course, gives them an air of authenticity that increases their power. But they have another level of truth, too, a deeper and more real truth that doesn't rely at all on whether the events they describe actually happened. That's the kind of truth Atwood is so good at getting at, and the kind that I can't explain in this review, even with a thesaurus full of big words at my disposal.(less)

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Jun 23, 2009 Dale rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: short-story-collections

I like Margaret Atwood a lot, even though she messes with my head. Usually when I read a collection of short stories, especially on the commute, I have to remind myself to put the book down between each story, to take a few breaths and clear my mind and let each tale stand on its own. I was doing fine with that in this collection, and it seemed even more necessary than usual because Atwood was occasionally reusing character names in different contexts. Then in the middle came three or four stori...more

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May 10, 2009 Laurie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Sadly, this is the first book I have finished in a while because I have let other life obligations take a greater role than my love of the written word. Shame.

It figures that it is Ms. Atwood that gets me back into the swing. I finished this in two days; she has that way of casting a spell. I even told myself that I need to take a break from her, explore other options and talents. But she is impossible to resist.

That being said, this wasn't her best. The description is that of a book that, thr...more

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Sep 09, 2009 Ingrid rated it 4 of 5 stars

As usual, I find myself struggling to articulate exactly why I enjoyed this book so much. The NYTimes review on the inside flap seems to fit my sentiments: "The reader has the sense that Atwood has complete access to her people's emotional histories, complete understanding of their hearts and imaginations." Indeed, the author describes her characters' feelings and situations with lovely but not overbearing detail.

I also very much enjoyed the format of the book. It took me a little while to get i...more

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Feb 05, 2009 Bookmarks Magazine added it

Margaret Atwood has expressed her social vision, played with narrative form, and written about enigmatic women, sexism, and family in more than 40 books, including the acclaimed The Handmaid's Tale, Cat's Eye, and The Blind Assassin. Her newest collection contains the same dazzling intellect, writing, and suspense as her previous fiction, but critics call this semiautobiographical effort more compassionate, rich, and emotionally resonant. The stories embedded in this novel of sorts, far from bei

...more

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Mar 05, 2011 astried rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011, stories-on-a-string

Where would I be without Atwood. There's always something that saves me from being down in the dump&makes me feel someone does understand what I'm going through. This time it's in her story "My last duchess" with the following quote:

"bye-bye love, as in songs. All alone now. It was so sad. Why did such things have to disintegrate like that? Why did longing and desire, and friendliness and goodwill too, have to shatter into pieces? Why did they have to be so thoroughfully over?

I could make my...more

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May 21, 2009 Kathryn rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: short-stories

Atwood writes about women as Graham Greene writes about men. These stories were at times heartbreaking but each rang true. I rarely read a book without some type of fantasy element. Though I enjoy Atwood's sci/fi more than her fiction, she just has a way with words that I can easily relate to and this book is a perfect example of fiction worth reading, regardless of your normally preferred genre.

This book focuses on one woman, providing snipits of her life, from a young girl, through her relati...more

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Apr 27, 2011 Becky rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobooks

Well, this was my first time reading Margaret Atwood, and I think this book and I were star-crossed from the start. First thing against our pairing: I am not a short story person. I like novels. It's just my orientation and I can't help myself. Which is not to say I don't enjoy a good short story collection now and then. I certainly do (see, for instance, Interpreter of Maladies). But this wasn't it.

Partly because of reason #2: I am never convinced by books that try to condense an entire lifetim...more Well, this was my first time reading Margaret Atwood, and I think this book and I were star-crossed from the start. First thing against our pairing: I am not a short story person. I like novels. It's just my orientation and I can't help myself. Which is not to say I don't enjoy a good short story collection now and then. I certainly do (see, for instance, Interpreter of Maladies). But this wasn't it.

Partly because of reason #2: I am never convinced by books that try to condense an entire lifetime into one book. I am not interested in every damn thing that has ever happened to you. Show me the detail, embellish particular moments. That's one key reason I love all six of Maya Angelou's autobiographies: she focuses on particular time frames of her life, shows us what her struggles were then, and delves into exquisite detail--details that illuminate rather than slow us down.

These stories focused on moments in the characters' lives--but they weren't very interesting moments. Some of them read like the kind of stories that you think are interesting when they happen to you, but aren't really worth sharing with the world. I honestly at times felt like I was stuck on the phone with a lonely elderly relative who wants to be validated that her life has mattered when really you have other things you want to do but don't know how to hang up without devastating your relative.

For instance, this is a pretty accurate paraphrase of one of the stories:

"She wanted us to buy her a house. We didn't really have the money. But I had inherited some. So I bought her a house. Then she didn't want to live in the house, so we were going to sell it. But then she died."

Problem: it's not really a paraphrase because it is almost verbatim, just slightly shortened. Why did I care about her? And you? What have I ever known about any of you? Why should I care about your relationships? GIVE ME SOMETHING TO WORK WITH.

No emotion is even described at this death--not on the part of the protagonist or on the part of the dead woman's ex-husband or sons. And there isn't any implied because, although this character could have been fairly significant based on her briefly described relationships with the other characters, there has been nothing up to this point that would convince a reader to care about her.

The main character's relationship with her sister was interesting and I liked it. But that's about it. And in my estimation we don't spend nearly enough time on it. We don't really ever learn about any of her other relationships. Not with her husband, not with her stepsons, who are always referred to as "the boys" and never even given names, let alone personalities or relationships.

As a reader, the two things I really go in for are plot and characters. In both of these regards, none of these stories really stood on its own, but they didn't make a satisfying whole, either. It's a very short book, and she tries to cover too much ground. I think this book would have been better if she had gone less for the overarching...arc, and just focused on creating some really good short stories. Which I just don't think these are.

Another thing: I listened to this book on CD and I don't think I liked the narrator very much. Too much monotone. Or maybe the book just felt like the whole thing was in monotone because of how it was written and it isn't fair to blame the narrator. Who can say.

I know it's blasphemous not to like Margaret Atwood. However the opinions I have heretofore written are my truth and that's all there is to it. I intend to try Margaret Atwood again someday, but this time I'm going to try a novel, and one that I actually read with my hands and eyes rather than my ears.(less)

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May 12, 2010 Michael rated it 3 of 5 stars

I find that for me Margaret Atwood's non-speculative fiction work always takes more time to get into, like getting used to a new pair of shoes; once I'm in, and comfortable with the style, I enjoy them greatly. Much like The Edible Woman, when I started reading Moral Disorder it took some time for me to get into the book, but as soon as I did I could barely put it down and finished it too soon.

Moral Disorder is a series of shorts stories that knit together the life of a female protagonist. The s...more

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Jan 12, 2013 Alan rated it 5 of 5 stars

It's no surprise that Atwood is a great writer whose attention to details add to the impact of her words but I didn't know that she had the interest and insight into family relationships that are the center of each of the stories here. There isn't an overarching theme or purpose to the stories, though they are all related by the appearance of members of one family. Together the stories present a panoramic view of the life span, from viewing parents from a child's perspective to contemplating one...more

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Oct 10, 2012 Tara rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: short-stories

This book officially gets the label of First Book Travis and I Read Together, which was actually pretty fun until Travis lost interest in the project or forgot how to read or something and then I just finished it by myself but IT'S OKAY, IT WAS A PRETTY GOOD COLLECTION.
The cover describes it as a series of seminal moments in the lives of characters, which initially seemed like a very tired way of describing what a short story is supposed to accomplish anyway, but in this case actually had a deep...more

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Jan 17, 2011 Elaine rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011, kindle, women-authors, short-stories, strong-women-protags

Although this was marketed at a collection of short stories, all the stories are interconnected. The majority of them involve the same characters, and all of them probably connect to these characters more subtly. Looking at the book in that sense-- chapters instead of short stories-- it is a typically brilliant Atwood endeavor. Looking at it in the sense of separate short stories, however, you may feel that something is lacking-- more concrete endings, for instance. The difficultly of short stor...more

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Jul 31, 2011 Jodie rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011

This is only my second Atwood book. I have had at least a half dozen false starts with The Blind Assassin, and still have failed to finish it. For some reason I feel like I should really love her work, she is a wonderful writer, yet somehow it holds me at a distance. This book I believe is commonly held to be somewhat autobiographical. It is a set of short stories told over a 60 year'ish period. As with most books in this style, I connect more with some stories than others, and that is true for...more

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May 28, 2008 Yulia marked it as left-unfinished · review of another edition

I picked this up with interest, but felt lectured about American politics by the narrator/Atwood, whom I didn't even disagree with but who came off as too preoccupied to write fiction. I don't like to be lectured by my fiction. Tell me something I haven't read in the news.

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About Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood was born in 1939 in Ottawa and grew up in northern Ontario, Quebec, and Toronto. She received her undergraduate degree from Victoria College at the University of Toronto and her master's degree from Radcliffe College.

Throughout her writing career, Margaret Atwood has received numerous awards and honourary degrees. She is the author of more than thirty-five volumes of poetry, childr...more

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Books by Margaret Atwood

The Year of the Flood (MaddAddam Trilogy, #2)

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“She wasn't ready to settle down, she told her friends. That was one way of putting it. Another was would have been that she had not found anyone to settle down with. There had been several men in her life, but they hadn't been convincing. They'd been somewhat like her table - quickly acquired, brightened up a little, but temporary. The time for that kind of thing was running out, however. She was tired of renting.” — 47 people liked it

“I thought everyone would be familiar with this figure: if I'd studied a thing in school I assumed it was general knowledge. I hadn't yet discovered that I lived in a sort of transparent balloon, drifting over the world without making much contact with it, and that the people I knew appeared to me at a different angle from the one at which they appeared to themselves; and that the reverse was also true. I was smaller to others, up there in my balloon, than I was to myself. I was also blurrier.” — 18 people liked it

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