jaswoahreads's reviews
118 reviews

This novel by Margaret Atwood is about the inevitability of cheating on your spouse.
No, wait, that’s not right.
This novel by Margaret Atwood is about having weird fetishes for teddy bears and sex robots and fushcia lipstick.
Hang on, I’m not sure that’s correct either.
What was this book supposed to be about again?

As a fresh graduate whose formative years consisted almost entirely of YA, dystopias are my bread and butter. After being drowned in the unrelenting sorrow of [b:The Road|6288|The Road|Cormac McCarthy|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1600241424l/6288._SY75_.jpg|3355573], and let down by the shaky plot and unlikable characters present in [b:The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes|51901147|The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (The Hunger Games, #0)|Suzanne Collins|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1593892032l/51901147._SY75_.jpg|71367421], I was excited to make my next read another dystopia, but this time one by certified Cool Lady of Fiction and Overall Badass Margaret Atwood. Like every other person I have read [b:The Handmaid's Tale|38447|The Handmaid's Tale (The Handmaid's Tale, #1)|Margaret Atwood|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1578028274l/38447._SY75_.jpg|1119185], and I enjoyed it. My hopes were set high. And in the first few pages I had a good time. I would venture as far as to say a nice time. And then, before long, I had wandered so far off of the path of enjoyment that all I could do was continue onward searching desperately for that shred of intrigue I had once felt. The only reason I finished this is because I cannot stand not quitting things. This book made me wish I was different.

Typical of Atwood’s work, the book takes common themes from our everyday life and says ‘hey, what if we turn this up to 11?’. In The Heart Goes Last, we follow the journey of a once-in-love but now down-on-their-luck couple Stan and Charmaine who sleep in their car and live in a constant state of fear. Their impoverished life is so dismal that waves of helplessness roll from the page as we see the pair clinging onto their once happy marriage as their last remaining shreds of comfort. They long for beds and fluffy towels and breakfasts that aren’t stale donuts. Charmaine hopes that she doesn’t have to end up as a sex worker to pay for fuel. Stan wishes for a will to live. They get suckered into a new program that promises them food and a home and security with one catch: every other month they must do a stint in prison, and the prisoners take their place. The novel raises some interesting sociological questions here; for instance, how would you behave as a prison guard, if you knew that next month the prisoner you were beating on gets to hold the stick? How much freedom is a person willing to give up for a scrap of security?

Unfortunately this appears to be where the book becomes 350 pages of sexual angst. Apparently there is only so long the gratefulness of being saved from the horrors of living on the street and fearing for your life can last before you become so hideously, unrelentingly bored that all you can think about is sleeping with anyone that’s not your spouse. A suggestion of lipstick on a piece of paper is enough to send Stan on a lusty and crazed frenzy for 80 pages (I counted). It’s all he can talk about. All Charmaine can think about is bonking her non-husband once a month. This change in prose is so startling that I thought I’d tripped and fallen and accidentally picked up another book. What happened to the interesting plotline?

Atwood seems to allude to her characters having depth but sadly this is as far as she goes. A hint of a backstory and a whiff of personality is all that we are allowed before they start another internal monologue about their vapid sexual desire. I can’t tell if this is just a bad day for Atwood or if it is central to her writing style; I remember wishing during Handmaid’s that she would delve deeper into where the characters came from to help us understand their motives and desires, however finished the novel feeling dissatisfied. The most interesting character to me, Grandma Win, exists only in snippets of adage used by Charmaine to reflect every few pages. Sadly she is about as reflective as a rusted table spoon and does not take the advice of her grandparent further than the end of the sentence.

Perhaps this book went over my head. Perhaps I did not understand it. But perhaps Atwood took the most interesting concepts of this novel and buried them under 400 pages of the nonsense chattering of a mismatched couple desperate for marriage counselling.

‘...he knows already what most women come to learn: the men will not save you.’

Over the course of approximately 4 years Matthew Hopkins, ‘Witchfinder General’, was responsible for the deaths of over 100 women who were executed for their crimes of dealing with the devil as witches. I like to believe in the existence of witches; of charms and curses and broomsticks and familiars, however I don’t believe Hopkins ever found any.

Blackman gives a voice to the victims of the witch trials - we see the events through the eyes of Rebecca West, a pauper who lives in a hovel with her mother, and we see how easily a society can turn on its most vulnerable. The crime of many of those who were tried as witches were that they were women who lived on the fringes of society; they were poor, brash, non-conforming. As I said, I don’t think Hopkins ever found a witch. I think instead he was able to play on the feelings of contempt towards women who do not fit a societal expectation. For a book set in the 17th century, there were definitely some undeniable parallels with the modern day.

I loved the narrative voice provided through Rebecca. She was all at once witty and boring and bold and submissive and at times entirely awful to her mother and those who looked after her. She’s callous and unsympathetic and entirely selfish and self-serving and it was fantastic. She felt realistic. Similarly, a lot of the women in the novel reminded me of the women I know and love - frankly formidable and audacious and vulgar and all-together brilliant.

I may be biased in my love for this novel; it is always a delight to have a book set where you’ve lived. Most of the book takes place in Essex, but there are mentions of Suffolk and Norfolk too. I’ve lived in Colchester, which Blackmore says is ‘smelt before it is seen’ (still true) and rode the train through Manningtree. Reading The Manningtree Witches felt like being connected to women of the past who lived and breathed where I now stand. I wonder how they would feel about how much - and how little - has changed.

“But this is a women's war, just as much as it is the men's, and the poet will look upon their pain - the pain of the women who have always been relegated to the edges of the story, victims of men, survivors of men, slaves of men - and he will tell it, or he will tell nothing at all. They have waited long enough for their turn.”

Haynes’ iteration of the iliad transports us into the minds of the women of the Trojan war, providing a feminist lens to the classic Greek tale. Though the word iteration I believe is incorrect - instead of retelling this story, it feels as though Haynes is providing us with addendum and appendices, weaving the stories of the forgotten women where their narratives have been dropped and omitted in popular knowledge. It’s not as though women were absent in the classics, however we’re far more likely to remember Odysseus than Penelope, Hector over Hecabe, Achilles as opposed to Penthisilia.

As an absolute mythology nut I am always hungry for this kind of novel; I love the gods and goddesses and heroes and as our source material is tragically limited I appreciate all authors who add their perspectives to expand on that which we already know. I especially love when authors such as Haynes introduce us to characters that we might not have known much of before. My favourite chapters were those involving Laodamia, Andromache, Hecabe, and Cassandra. These women were not warriors or goddesses, but Haynes argues that this does not make their stories any less important, epic, and tragic.

I would definitely consider this a middle-ground novel in relation to Greek Mythology - I feel as though it would be best enjoyed by those who already know the characters and can appreciate the development provided by Haynes’, however for those who are well-versed in the myths there are certain chapters - for instance, Penelope’s letters to her husband Odysseus which essentially recount the events of the Odyssey- which drop the pace. Luckily, Haynes has such a fantastic style of writing and writes her characters in such an engaging way that this really is a novel which can be whole-heartedly enjoyed.

‘May your Paths be safe, your Floors unbroken and may the House fill your eyes with Beauty.’

I’d had this book on my wishlist for a very long time and the joint events of Susanna Clarke winning the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2021 for Piranesi, and finding this gorgeous purple-paged signed edition in my local Waterstones, finally encouraged me to pick it up. And fellas, I finished this in two days.

The novel features a man - Piranesi, though he is unsure if this is truly his name - who lives in a labyrinth filled with statues. The house is infinite, its purpose unknown, and Piranesi lives there with one he calls The Other. He knows of nothing before the House, not how he came to be or why he is there, but this is his world and he is content with filling himself with the beauty of the House. He treats his home with reverence and sees himself as a child of it. The house is his protector, though he knows little of it.

Clarke’s prose dazzles and dances like light on water. The childlike wonder of Piranesi is flawlessly executed and never feels irritating or over-done. This is truly one of those novels that you can allow yourself to be swept up in.

In terms of prose and story-telling, Clarke really hit the mark. However as a mystery this novel does unfortunately fall flat. The twists and turns of the plot were obvious from the beginning. I wish that Clarke had doubled down on the fantasy elements as it really would shine as a contemporary fantasy.