Bluebeard's Egg

By Margaret Atwood

By turns humorous and warm, stark and frightening, Bluebeard's Egg infuses a Canada of the 1940s, '50s and '80s with glowing childhood memories, the harsh realities of parents growing old, and the casual cruelty that men and women inflict on each other. Here is the familiar outer world of family summers at remote lakes, winters of political activism, and seasons of exotic friends, mudane lives and unexpected loves. But here too is the inner world of hidden places and all that emerges from them—the intimately personal, the fantastic and the shockingly real...whether it's what lies in a mysterious locked room or in the secret feelings we all conceal.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Dec 17, 2010
• ISBN: 9781551994871

Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood, whose work has been published in more than forty-five countries, is the author of over fifty books, including fiction, poetry, critical essays, and graphic novels. In addition to The Handmaid’s Tale, now an award-winning television series, her works include Cat’s Eye, short-listed for the 1989 Booker Prize; Alias Grace, which won the Giller Prize in Canada and the Premio Mondello in Italy; The Blind Assassin, winner of the 2000 Booker Prize; The MaddAddam Trilogy; The Heart Goes Last; Hag-Seed; The Testaments, which won the Booker Prize and was long-listed for the Giller Prize; and the poetry collection Dearly. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, the Franz Kafka International Literary Prize, the PEN Center USA Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Los Angeles Times Innovator’s Award. In 2019 she was made a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour in Great Britain for her services to literature. She lives in Toronto.

Reviews for Bluebeard's Egg

[bragan_8 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A collection of stories about the lives of women -- even the one or two that are from a male POV are really more about women -- and about relationships between men and women or between children and parents. They're mostly the kind of literary stories in which not much actually happens and in which there doesn't even necessarily seem to be a well-defined beginning, middle, and end. The one exception, perhaps, is "Uglypuss," about a woman's attempt to get at a cheating man by way of his cat. As a cat lover, I found that one highly disturbing, and part of me wishes one fewer thing had happened in it, honestly. It's definitely an effective story, though. And, like all of them, it's well written. Atwood's prose isn't showy, but it's smooth and beautiful, and full of subtlety.

[stef7sa-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

"The life she's led up to now seems to her entirely crazed. How did she end up in this madhouse? By putting one foot in front of the other ..." Quite a few stories of this collection present women stranded in their middle age, trying to understand what happened. These are the best of the collection, full of unforgettable lines and observations and presented with a type of humour all of the author's own: "Her only discoverable ambition as a child was to be able to fly, and much of her later life has been spent in various attempts to take off."

[altheaann · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A collection of short stories/writings... they tend to involve emotionally fraught , unresolved issues. Not always an easy read (emotionally), but a worthwhile one. Thoughtful and thought-provoking.

[lara335 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I read the Handmaid's tale years ago and found it astounding. So I was disappointed with these dull slice-of-life short stories, full of sad characters. Just finished it, and most of the tales are forgotten already.I presume Atwood's huge reputation wasn't based on these.

[souloftherose · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I normally love Margaret Atwood's novels so I was looking forward to this book but I found myself slightly disappointed. This is a collection of short stories by Atwood, some are autobiographical and I think these were the ones I enjoyed the most.The rest were well written but often ended abruptly and left me feeling clueless about what that particular story was about. I don't know whether I just don't like the short story format or whether these were too literary for me but I was left feeling like Atwood was trying to make some point that I just wasn't getting. I felt quite dim which is not a feeling I enjoy!

[rocjoe_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Some of the themes in these stories make an appearance in Cat's Eye. The endings to several stories seem to come along suddenly, almost shut down. This makes me wonder if Cat's Eye was the one that Atwood just didn't want to finish too soon, or if some/all of the selections is Bluebeard's Egg was a warm up. All in all, well worth the time spent as I am still thinking over characters revealed in the beginning, middle and end of the book.

[misfidget · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A lot like a box of someone else's treasures that you wish were yours...

[eilonwy_anne · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I'm still wading into the Atwood oeuvre, having only read Wilderness Tips and The Handmaid's Tale before this volume. This book, while full of well-crafted stories, didn't impress me as much as the stories in Wilderness Tips did. All the craft is there, but something was turned to 10 or 11 in her other stories which was only at 8 or 9 here. The stories are less daring, the frames (many of the stories in Wilderness Tips are framed by the protagonist recounting or remembering the events) when they occur less illuminating.This book is still good and intelligently written, but the comparison to her other work is irresistible, and where I shivered perhaps once from the beauty and horror in these pages, her other work made me lose count of the shivers.

[valerieandbooks · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I‘m not much of a fan of short stories in general anyway, but these stories were full of hapless women and mostly ambiguous endings. Yes that‘s probably trademark Atwood, but done better in novel form, I think. Warning: one story “Uglypuss” is especially disturbing, due to animal cruelty ?.