Cat's Eye

Rating:
Summary: Not her best, but definitely worth reading...
Review: When I find an author I like, I read as many books as I can by that author. MY favorite Atwood books are 'Lady Oracle' and 'Life Before Man.' When I read these books, I had the experience of playing "catch-up" with an old friend I hadn't seen in a while. You know...you care about them, they've been away, and you have to hear all their news.

Usually, a friend has little endearing quirks you recognize--a favorite use of phrase or an overused word which you see or hear and say to yourself -- "Yup, that's her all over." With Atwood, I sometime feel my friend has multiple personalities.

The protagonist in this book is hard to "get next to" although you care about her. She's the friend who hasn't always been very good to herself, sometimes you want to shake her and say fight back, and sometimes you want to protect her but you know she's got to stand up for herself. Then one day she begins to change and you breathe a sigh of relief because you were getting tired of the beating she was taking.

I hand off many of my books to others, but I kept this one (it's a paperback). I couldn't tell you why as I don't think I'll read it again. It affected me on some level, and I'm glad I read it. I still like 'Lady Oracle' better though.

Rating:
Summary: This is one of the most important books I've ever read.
Review: With Cat's Eye, Margaret Atwood handles deftly two complex situations--the relationships women have with each other, and the cyclical nature of abuse. Often in literature it seems as though women are only affected by their relationships with the men in their lives: fathers, brothers, lovers. Atwood vividly shows that a young girl can be profoundly affected by the friendships she forms with other girls. Elaine is changed and wounded deeply by her relationship with Cordelia; and also haunted by it. But Atwood offers no easy answers; Cordelia has also been wounded. As is the case with a lot of Atwood's work, this book is thick with descriptions of the smells and colors of food and furniture. This only pulls the reader more deeply into Elaine's world. Like a later book of Atwood's, The Robber Bride, (another book about the relationships among women), Cat's Eye is at times bleak, but never hopeless. Atwood looks at the reader straight in the eye, and doesn't flinch.

Rating:
Summary: Margaret Atwood, master of imagery
Review: I read this book every few years because it's a multi-sense experience - I swear, you will smell and taste and feel and BE with the characters of this book. More than anything, it's the strength of Atwood's words that keep pulling me back to this book. Margaret Atwood is a master at manifesting imagery from words. I highly recommend this to anyone who wants a nice, slow read that's to be savored like dark chocolate.

Rating:
Summary: My personal attatchment to Margaret E. Atwood's " Cat's Eye"
Review: I first read Cat's Eye upon it's publication in 1989. I was twelve years old and at that time particularly enjoyed the bits about her adolescence. However, I did not fully understand the painful magic, that is the real beauty in this tale, until the age of 20. This novel is a woman's struggle to deal the demons of her past, her intense love/hate relationship with the elusive Cordelia, and her own life as a woman relating to other women. Although the main charachter, Elaine, claims to " not understand girls" and is openly heterosexual, there is a searing lesbian melodrama that lurks within her obsession with Cordelia. This subtle element provides taut frustration to the story. The grisly description of life in Toronto in the 40's and 50's is also a wonderful, perhaps educational, bonus. Ms. Atwood's clever insights into the cruelty of children, the secret relationships of women, and the workings of universe-according to Stephen Hawking, Physicist and a blurry, unaccepting and somehow unbelievable God- are truly what makes this novel an unforgettable reading experience for anyone, male or female.

Rating:
Summary: Good potential
Review: I read Cat's Eye after several of my friends recommended it to me. The book centers around the peer pressure and mental bullying girls can encounter during childhood and adolescence with other girls that often goes overlooked in favor of the typical physical schoolyard bullying that boys endure and how these interfaces can still influence women's self-esteem into adulthood. I feel as though many women can probably relate to the situations faced by the main character, Elaine. Atwood is really brilliant here at weaving in the minute details of childhood that stick in one's memory: a harsh quip from a friend, the one object that you MUST have to fit in with your peers, etc. In that respect Cat's Eye is a masterpiece. Why, then, did I only give it three stars?

The book runs out of steam about 3/4 of the way through. I wanted to give up on it after the story shifted gears from Elaine's childhood to her adulthood. I found that I just didn't care about her trials as an adult. Her obsession with Cordelia when she was a child is understandable and empathetic, but her continuing obsession as an adult lacks substance and doesn't really have a point. Perhaps I just had a different experience with my own personal Cordelia than Atwood did.

If you're an Atwood fan, definitely pick up this book. Atwood writes so many concise words of wisdom in Cat's Eye that I regret not picking up a highlighter. If you're interested in reading a better story, however, I would recommend picking up A Handmaid's Tale instead.

Rating:
Summary: Nostalgia ain't what it used to be
Review: Material which is fresh and immediate in The Edible Woman loses its edge in this rehash of scenes from the Toronto of yesteryear. Retrospective wisdom and insight which might compensate for the loss of intensity is in depressingly short supply. A lazy and derivative book.

Rating:
Summary: A Gem
Review: Never before has the pain and laughter of childhood been illustrated with such unique and yet accurate detail, at least for this reader. Atwood's writing is impeccable as she weaves a past-and-present story with fluidity and style, and ingeniously blends dark humor into serious themes. The novel is both poignant and bitingly funny, thanks to Atwood's insight, wit, and her ability to create characters who are hauntingly alive. An outstanding reflection on the consequences of human behavior.

Rating:
Summary: Another winner from Margaret Atwood
Review: CAT'S EYE by Margaret Atwood

In CAT'S EYE, Margaret Atwood tells the story of Elaine Risley, an avant-garde painter who finds herself reflecting on her tumultuous childhood when she returns to her home town of Toronto for a retrospective art exhibit. It has been many years since she set foot in Canada, where she grew up moving from place to place, due to her father's career as an entomologist. The story is told in flashbacks, as the story of her current life as a painter, on her second marriage, is told in-between the story of her childhood. Two plot lines run parallel to each other, until the very end when both the past and her present collide.

Elaine's first years were spent travelling with her family, never having a best friend. It is all she yearns for, to have a real girl friend. All she had during those early years was her brother, who as he grew older drifted away from her, leaving her alone to fend for herself. When her father finally settles down and buys a house, she begins to make her first set of real friends. However, how does one define a friend? Elaine becomes part of a group of girls that seem to be living under the steel hand of Cordelia, the ringleader. Cordelia treats them all as if she was a dictator and they were her subjects, but her treatment of Elaine is totally unforgivable. Elaine is tormented to a point where her own mental health is jeopardized, and at one point one wonders how she ever survived.

But survive she did. As Elaine tells her story, we see how she developed from a very insecure and needy young girl to a woman who understands why she made the choices she did as a child, and became a very successful painter, secure in who she was and where she had come from. The key to her understanding is her friendship with Cordelia, the young girl who treated Elaine like dirt, yet towards whom Elaine felt a type of longing for, years after she had last seen Cordelia. It is a psychologically themed book, as usual, layered upon different levels of plots and subplots and characters. Margaret Atwood is the queen of this form of novel, and it is no wonder she is one of the best storytellers today. This was my fourth Atwood novel, and I will not hesitate to read my next. Although not as complex as THE BLIND ASSASSIN, nor as prophetic as THE HANDMAID'S TALE, CAT'S EYE stands alone as a great book that is a must-read for any fan. I give this book 5 stars.

Rating:
Summary: ...a sustained poem.
Review: Being male, I found that reading this book along with my female friend helped me to appreciate it more than I would have on my own. She commented, several times, that "language and observation make this book a sustained poem" and I agreed. Her perspective was needed and appreciated. It is definitely a book ABOUT women and FOR women, but us dudes can get something out of it too... because it is brilliantly written.
It is not only an "Atwood" but one of the better "Atwoods"!
The author has stated that Cat's Eye is "about how girlhood traumas continue into adult life" and that is it in a nutshell.
When the painter Elaine Risley returns to Toronto for a retrospective of her work, she is confronted with the memories of her childhood... mysteries to unravel, others to tie up and lay to rest. Elaine the child, had a temperament that allowed other girls to belittle and dominate her.
In a word, she was bullied.
And no one bullied her as much as Cordelia did.
When Elaine is brought back to the geography of her past, she finds that she has to come to terms with her feelings about Cordelia... this retrospective of her WORK turns into a retrospective of her LIFE.
Through flashbacks galore, and in writing that is spare and bleeding with cut-wrist exposure, Atwood leaves no part of Elaine's wounds unsalted.
Here is a question that I think the thoughtful reader will be asked to ponder:
Does "closure" mean annihilation/renunciation of memory, or acceptance/reconciliation of memory?
Or as my friend and I put it: Does Elaine still have her Cat's Eye with her when she returns to Vancouver?

This is not a plot-driven, but a personality or character driven book. Those who think that sound-bites on T.V. are too lengthy should probably stay away from it.
Cat's Eye would be a great Book Club selection because of the discussion and opinion that it is sure to stimulate. I'm going to rate it closer to five stars than four.

Rating:
Summary: An unforgetable book!
Review: Margaret Atwood has a talent for words ~~ and this book is one of the few books written in the English language that makes you want to read more on science and look up the meanings of the words. It is also a morbid look into the darker side of human nature and relationships between little girls and their so-called friends/tormentors. Atwood used an autiobiographical vein throughout this book ~~ drawing you into the life of Elaine, the main character who has never quite feel in place while young. Uprooted by her parents always on the search for her father's science projects, Elaine longed nothing more than to have a best friend. And when she finally has a best friend, her life changes but not necessarily for the better.

This is an indepth look at relationships little girls endure while growing up. It is also an indepth into Elaine's mind as she grows up to be a successful painter. Behind that facade of success is a lonely and terrified woman though she hides it well ~~ with a sneer and sharp comebacks to anything anyone says. Throughout the book, she relives her memories of a childhood that is not so special as she had wished for. It shaped her to be this woman that she is ~~ and stripped her dreams to reality.

It is an interesting look into women's psyche ~~ I have to admit that it took me awhile to get into the story because it was so dark and more morbid than I recall Atwood ever writing. But she has a flair for drawing readers into her stories. This is definitely one story that I won't forget so easily. It is a genuine Atwood at one of her best.

9-15-03