Oh, Margaret, We Hardly Knew Ye

Title: The Heart Goes Last
Author: Margaret Atwood
Host: Shirley

Our February group was small, as it is during these snowbird months when half our group is south of the Mason Dixon Line cheating on us with their other book clubs. Initial chatter via email in the run-up to our book-club night had already tipped us off to how this conversation would go. And sure enough, Margaret Atwood fangirls and boys that we may be, we were already buzzing before we got our coats off. This is not Atwood's best work.

WARNING: This post contains:
+ Plot spoilers
+ Guilt, due to not wanting to be harsh about the work of any author, especially one whose work we typically admire.

Insights and Opinions

First, a little set-up. The book opens in some not-too-distant future time, when the bottom has fallen disastrously out of the economy, and society has sunk into chaos. Stan and Charmaine, a previously financially secure married couple, are now living in their car, sleeping with one eye open and scrounging for food.

When Charmaine sees an advertisement for Consilience, a planned community that promises security, jobs, food, safety, and comfort, she is immediately sold.  Stan is less so, but decides to succumb to Charmaine's desires. The only downside is that, as a resident of Consilience, you live one month in a lovely home, and then the next month in the Consilience prison. Married couples share their home with an "alternate" couple, but the two never meet. Until, in Stan and Charmaine's case, they do.

+ Only three of our group of five had actually finished the book. Joanne stopped reading midway through, and Chris was still struggling to finish, ran out of time, and admitted to finding it hard to make herself finish. "I love books that make me uncomfortable, and she does that in other books I've read and liked. I like otherworldly stories, when an author changes the rules on how society works." But Chris found this one coming up short, feeling that Atwood has done a better job in some of her other works of creating characters with whom you can find empathy.

+ We all agreed the characters were flat and uninteresting. Both Stan and Charmaine, the married couple at the center of the story, are shallow and cartoonish. We don't really care what happens to either of them.

+ Steve found the plot clever and liked the satire. As he started, he felt the book had real possibilities that were never realized. Both Steve and Chris found Conner, Stan's criminal brother, to be the most interesting character. But his potential never pays off. We feel like he's going to be important, but then he isn't.

+ Liz wondered if some of the flatness we felt was due to the fact that most of the action takes place off screen. There are many, many plot twists and turns, but we find out about them by reading people thinking. Stan is thinking about something that happened, or something that's going to happen. Then, Charmaine is thinking about something that happened, or something that's going to happen, or several possible things that might happen. All of this thinking, pondering, worrying, and considering leaches energy from the book, which could perhaps have been better shown through writing the scenes.

+ While "Heart" presents an alternative future for us that could have been fascinating, the book seems to center most on sexual obsession. Charmaine is obsessed with Max. Stan is obsessed with Jasmine and her purple lips. Ed is obsessed with Charmaine. Jocelyn is obsessed with who knows who. And, none of these obsessions are very interesting. Even the concept of mandatory love through surgery, introduced at the end, seems not to be about love at all, but about sexual obsession.

Shirley's stuffed dates looked somewhat like this,
only prettier.

+ After finishing the book, Shirley had gone to Amazon.com to review it, and gave it a score of "1," which means forget it. Much to her horror, Amazon highlighted the phrase "you don't learn anything about these people except for their sexual proclivities" and moved the review to the top. Now, Shirley fears people will buy the book just to read about sexual proclivities. Just be warned that the sex isn't very sexy.

Oddments and Telling Details

+ Shirley stuffed a bowl medjool dates for us, which was pretty amazing, and earned her extra credit.

+ Steve was heading out the next day to race in the American Birkebeiner.

+ Book recommendations from this well-read crew include: Short Loves Last Forever, The Folded Clock, The Honeydew Stories, We Know How This Ends, Purity, Brooklyn, and Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay