Wilderness Tips (Magill Book Reviews)

At a glance:

In WILDERNESS TIPS, her second volume of short stories, Margaret Atwood reworks themes, ideas, and motifs from her earlier work but also calls into question the nature of narrative itself. Her protagonists, for the most part women, appear as storytellers within the story and manipulate language for their own purposes—dealing not only with current problems but also with predatory males. Occasionally, the males are editors, and have the power to betray, frustrate, or replace the feminist discourse. For Atwood, language confers the power to survive within the “wilderness,” which is both geographical and emotional, even moral. In the title story, an author confidently informs his 1905 reading audience about how to survive in the wilderness; such assurance is not possible for Atwood, whose “wilderness tips” are tentatively and ambiguously presented through characters who must confront real life, realize their identity, and persevere despite sensing that it’s “coming apart.”

In her ten stories set essentially in contemporary Canada, Atwood describes the impact of the past on the present. In “Bog Man” and “The Age of Lead” she compares and contrasts the preserved bodies of men with contemporary males and indicates not only the superiority of the past but also its influence on the future—“the age of lead” refers not only to the lead cans that killed earlier polar explorers but also to the present age of chemical pollutants. In “Hairball,” “Uncles,” and “Hack Wednesday,” creative journalists must deal with male envy and male “editing” in the form of jealous male coworkers, ambitious colleagues who turn on their women/creators, and editors who seek control of language and worldview. For the most part, the female protagonists are forced to confront the reality of betrayal or of banality and subsequently gain an understanding of themselves, even if, as in the case of “Uncles,” the reality must be “created” by the women. The single male protagonist is not so fortunate; he remains deluded about his predatory motives and behavior. In this volume, as in the earlier BLUEBEARD’S EGG AND OTHER STORIES (1987), Atwood’s themes are language, gender, and survival.

Sources for Further Study

Booklist. LXXXVII, July, 1991, p. 2011.

The Christian Science Monitor. December 27, 1991, p. 14.

The Guardian. October 31, 1991, p. 28.

Kirkus Reviews. LIX, September 1, 1991, p. 1104.

Library Journal. CXVI, November 1, 1991, p. 133.

Los Angeles Times Book Review. December 8, 1991, p. 3.

The New York Times Book Review. XCVI, November 24, 1991, p. 7.

The Observer. September 15, 1991, p. 62.

Publishers Weekly. CCXXXVIII, October 4, 1991, p. 78.

The Spectator. CCLXVII, October 12, 1991, p. 36.

The Times Literary Supplement. September 13, 1991, p. 20.