Thursday 10 October 2013

Maddaddam - Atwood Trilogy ends

Much sadness last night at 3am when, disturbed and restless I woke unable to get back to sleep, so I finished the final chapters of Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake trilogy.

It's been a ten year read on and off waiting for the books to appear. The first was in the early noughties when I was living in California and lucky enough to have one inscribed by the great lady herself. in person (not by the remote pen she invented for the task, just to be clear).

She's the only novelist whose books I buy in hard back the minute they are published and this is why:  a) she's the queen of distopian fiction,  b) she mashes up point of view and narrative voice and sophistication, and  c) it's a darn good tale.

Pity she didn't win the Nobel today, but hats off to Alice Munro, Atwood's countrywoman and another cracking storyteller. Whoever said subsidising a nation's creative writing wouldn't produce work of merit was wrong, very wrong.

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