“I’m working on my own life story. I don’t mean I’m putting it together; no, I’m taking it apart.”

I borrow the The Tent from Caitlin_D after she complained that she didn’t like it, and possibly just does not like short stories. Caitlin, I am determined to prove you wrong! I love Margaret Atwood, and in fact beside Stephen King, she’s probably the one author whose short stories I actually seek out.

“I suffer from my own multiplicity. Two or three images would have been enough, or four, or five. That would be allowed for a firm idea: This is she. As it is, I’m watery, I ripple, from moment to moment I dissolve into my other selves.”

However, Caitlin_D is correct in her assessment however that The Tent isn’t really a collection of short stories. It’s more of a thought journal than anything else. I was disappointed, not because I didn’t enjoy the writing, but because I really wanted more from some of these stories. In particular, Resources of the Ikarians and Our Cat Enters Heaven both captured my imagination.

It’s a quick read, and worth the time to cross another Atwood off my rapidly-shrinking list. But by any other author, I doubt I’d bother.