My favourite Atwood is and probably always will be Cat's Eye. It's not one of her dystopian books, but it deals with children's cruelty to each other, so if that's a hotbutton issue for you you might not enjoy it. (Personally I think that's one of the reasons I love it so much - it's like picking at a scab, painful but irresistible.)

I've seen A Thousand Acres a few places used and meant to grab it but never did. Then one time I tivo'd the movie and forgot to watch it. I probably ought to just go ahead and read it, huh?

I haven't read Oryx and Crake yet, so cannot compare. I did quite like Alias Grace, especially when she has to talk to the investigator and he asks her what her typical day of work as a lower servant is like. She sits there thinking, get up at dawn, start fire, carry water, assemble breakfast, deliver breakfast, empty slops, gather laundry, get more wood, stoke the fire, boil the water, stir the laundry... hadn't this man ever noticed all the effort of keeping house going on all around him?

I remember liking Alias Grace, and Cats Eye, but I don't remember much about them. My comparison of Oryx and Crake to Handmaid's Tale was because of how dark they both are, and dystopian, though for different reasons. I've also read Surfacing, about 10 years ago, and didn't like it, but since I've liked all the other Atwood I've read, I've got it on my shelf to give it another chance. Maybe I was too young for it.

Oryx & Crake didn't strike me as dark or dystopian. It always seemed like a sci fi fantasy/allegory made all the more interesting by fact that it sprang from scientific advances that we know are taking place right now. I know that who the reader of a book of tape makes a huge difference, so part of it is undoubtedly that the book was told in a matter of fact let's-uncover-the-mystery (of who Snowman is) way. I had more curiousity than dread in wanting to know what happened in that world.

It sounds like Handmaid's Tale is the only one of hers that's really disturbing and I've already read it, so I guess I'll just take whatever's at the library and check it out. I need a break from Agatha Raisin mysteries. Finished Agatha Raisen and the Day the Floods Came this AM. I really like Agatha, alot, and the books are fun.

Surfacing is deeply disturbing, but not in the same way.

I'm Atwood's Bitch, and woman enough to admit it. But she always makes me all "I'm not worthy. I'm not worthy."

The only Atwood I've read is Handmaid's Tale, and I remember thinking it was only eh. I saw the (crap) movie version on TV last year, and finally twigged to why I said "eh" -- I just didn't buy it. It just struck me as extremely unlikely and axe-grind-y, and it failed to grab me. So, although intellectually I can see how it's supposed to be disturbing, I reacted to it the same way I react to Bob Cormier's darker fantasies: "Such cynicism, Bob! Here, have a drink."

I think Handmaid's Tale is her worst effort.

Surfacing, which actually touches in some ways on the same sorts of issues, is a deeper, more complex, more real way of forming art from them.

Damn, that sounds wanky. I should go talk about comics or something.

The library had The Robber Bride and Cat's Eye on the shelf. Ima give Robber Bride a try.

I was willing to go along into The Haidmaid's Tale's reality completely, hence the being disturbed by it; I felt like I lived it, a tiny bit.