I normally don’t like short stories. With the exception of horror stories, which don’t really require it, I dislike them because there’s so little characterization. You get a few pages to learn all you can about a person, and then it just cuts off. I want miles and miles of information about a person; their thoughts and habits and dreams and flaws and all the good stuff that makes me want to read a story.
Margaret Atwood is such a talented writer that she creates the opposite problem for me. She manages to squeeze so much about a person into just a few short pages that they don’t even feel like short stories. They feel like the beginnings of a novel that I would love to read, if she would write just a little more!
Bluebeard’s Egg contains a variety of stories, mostly about women and their inner lives. Goodreads sums it up as: By turns humorous and warm, stark and frightening, Bluebeard’S Eggglows with childhood memories, the reality of parents growing old, and the casual cruelty men and women inflict on each other. Here is the familiar outer world of family summers at remote lakes, winters of political activism, and seasons of exotic friends, mundane lives, and unexpected loves. But here too is the inner world of hidden places and all that emerges from them-the intimately personal, the fantastic, the shockingly real…whether it’s what lives in a mysterious locked room or the secret feelings we all conceal.
I still prefer novels in general, but I was very impressed by Atwood’s ability to pack so much into such a small format. I plan to seek out her other short story collections a result.
One of my favorite Atwood short pieces has always been “Gertrude Talks Back” (I think you can probably find the full text online, but it’s from Good Bones and Murders), a reimagining of Hamlet.
It’s kind of funny that you posted this now, because I’m reading a collection of short stories, and I’m not a huge fan of them generally either. In fact, I’ve read quite a few reviews lately starting with the same disclaimer.