Happy New Year! Oh my gosh, it’s been forever. Hi everyone! Long time no see. Trust me when I say that I’ll definitely try to update this blog more often. I apologize again for being MIA.
Well… Now the wait is FINALLY over. This week I’m reviewing Dancing Girls. Someone mentioned that they wanted to hear my thoughts on any work by Margaret Atwood, so…Hazzah!
Dancing Girls is a collection of short stories all following the theme of people encountering normal and relatively common human experiences. However, these experiences are enhanced by Atwood’s clever as well as extensive use of metaphors, which draw readers’ attention to significant problems about life that ironically, often remain overlooked.
Some examples include two people choosing marriage as an obligation rather than possessing a genuine desire to be a married couple; therefore the relationship is stuck in a rut, with both questioning why they’re staying together, and a woman coming to terms with the status of her professional and personal ongoings when having a heavy nosebleed. (I used to get nosebleeds ALL THE TIME so I can definitely relate to her in that sense)
Additionally, another overarching idea rooted in these stories is discovering a critical attribute of oneself through unexpected means. The discoveries made by the characters in Dancing Girls really inspire me to be more self-aware and pay attention to unhealthy patterns or anything about my surroundings that maybe are not helping me grow as a person. Its funny how, often, the seemingly little things in life have the biggest impact on us. Unfortunately, because they’re always put in the background on account of their monotonous nature(s) and we’re constantly preoccupied with other responsibilities, it takes a certain world-turned-upside-down kind of event to bring them to light.
I’ve known for a while that Margaret Atwood has written many critically acclaimed novels such as The Handmaid’s Tale, (I heard of the TV series first, then later found out it was based on a book) but haven’t read her work until now. Although I concluded that Dancing Girls overall wasn’t necessarily my cup of tea, Atwood evidently is an extremely talented novelist, and I liked the topics she covered.