The accelerating pressure of time is a palpable force in the psyches of Atwood's characters in this collection. The majority of the pieces involve figures who are looking back over their lives, usually elegiacally but sometimes with downright bitterness or uncomprehending confusion. Repeatedly, the past proves its power to live on in the present in mysterious, sometimes deforming, ways. Richard, the middle-aged professor of "Isis in Darkness," has just decided to commit himself to a retrospective study of the work of a poet named Selena, a friend who had long epitomized for him the artist's quest for aesthetic and intellectual authenticity. Her slow descent into alcoholic disillusionment and literary marginality speaks to him of a martyrdom he avoided by choosing instead the safer, if soul-deadening, path of the tenured university hack. Marcia, the central consciousness of.....
This is a free excerpt of 135 words. This section contains 1,214 words. This
Short Guide contains 4,059 words (approx. 14 pages at 300
words per page).
Read the rest of this Short Guide with our Wilderness Tips Access Pass.
