Yellowcake - M's review

Yellowcake by Margo Lanagan

 

Yellowcake is very good and I’d highly recommend it to a variety of people of all ages. It’s a fantasy collection of ten short stories.  They’re all a bit weird, thought-provoking and rumbling. I’ve heard some readers say they enjoy fantasy because it provides a form of escapism. Yellowcake is quite the opposite and forces you to look at biological human life and social associations in a very non-sentimental, yet richly magical, consideration of mortality. As a whole, the collection seems to explore relationships through all of the seven senses and gets stuck right into the stickiness of our living, decaying and judged physicalities. Anyone interested in inclusion and diversities should take a look at this anthology.

If, like me, you’re neither a short story nor a fantasy fan but enjoy a good story and are curious, Yellowcake will probably appeal to you. The stories are short enough for quick dips. And now, I may return to reading Lanagan’s novels because her writing is gorgeous and her ideas are both playful and daring: I started reading her novel, The Brides of Rollrock Island, a while back, and while the writing was atmospheric and compelling it was a bit too discomforting for me. The short stories in Yellowcake are similar – atmospheric and compelling – and they push you: but because they’re short they let you go from the detail quicker than a novel and I really liked that. But of course, short stories leave so much unsaid leaving you to fill in lots and lots of gaps – if you dare.

 

My favourite stories included 'Ferryman' (living people who ferry the dead), 'Night of the Firstlings' (based on a biblical story) and 'The Point of Roses' (altogether unusual and if you can’t smell roses while readers it...!). My least favourite story was 'An Honest Day’s Work' (all about dissecting a creature).

Yellowcake has nothing to do with yellow, cake or nuclear production. Once you’ve finished reading, make of the title what you will – Lanagan has confirmed it has nothing to do with any of the stories but that each of her short story collections has a colour in the title.

 

Reviewed by M

 

Publication details: David Fickling Books, June 2013, Oxford, paperback (originally published in Australia, 2011)

This copy: received for review from the publisher

Moral Disorder - M's review

Moral Disorder by Margaret Atwood

 

Reviewed by M

 

I don't read short stories very often. Sometimes they're too intense and often smack me in the face or punch me in the gut. I can't take much of that. But sometimes, they deliver a slow burn. Whether they burn bright all the way through or fizzle slowly out at the end is something else. A bit like life.

 

Moral Disorder  reads as a slightly jumbled life story and confused me. I couldn’t decide if it was a collection of short stories or a life story about Nell written as a collection of chapters that could work independently as short stories. As a life story, I’m sure there were some small anomalies – like number of siblings, ages, and naming Nell (person and a horse). Of course, many of the chapters had been previously published in separate periodicals as short stories, so.... But the arrangement in Moral Disorder suggests something more interlinked.

 

Perhaps if I'd read Moral Disorder as short stories and mixed the reading order up rather than progressing from front to back, I wouldn’t feel this way. Currently, I feel like I’m forcing something onto the collection, willing it into being a cohesive novel, which is something that it doesn't really attempt so can't deliver (unlike Snapper which was intended as a novel and clearly is because it’s relatively linear). But, if I hadn’t read Moral Disorder from front to back, that would have messed up the chronology that does seem to follow in the chapters on Nell and Tig at the farmhouse. As short stories, many of them are a delight: The Boys at the Lab is perhaps my favourite.

 

But, did I enjoy it? On the whole, yes. Like Snapper by Brian Kimberling, I dipped in and out, happily picking it up to read over a period of months. As a life story, Moral Disorder runs through birth, death and everything inbetween often reflecting on themes of family, belonging, identity, growing up, being a woman, and being ‘other’. Set in Canada, the stories also convey a strong/atmospheric sense of place.

The voice in Moral Disorder bears many similarities with The Edible Woman – quietly humorous and possibly hallmark Atwood (note: this is the probing but not the speculative fiction Atwood). The narrator for each story, whether it was Nell or someone else, always sounds slightly detached from events and gives the strong impression that, unlike those around her, she’s on an even keel – even when her stories suggest that balance is not always possible and is often teetering. Of course, they’re retrospectively narrated so I suppose that enables an emotional and rational distance for the narrator.

This wasn't my favourite Atwood but I think I'm developing a taste for short stories. If you like the slow burn and a keen sense of humour, either Moral Disorder or Snapper could be a good place to start.
 

A small spoilery aside:
Was Gladys’s death necessary? Does it add anything to the White Horse story? I’m not sure what it is, but there’s something going on here. There’s a photo of a fat white horse at the beginning of this edition, and a usually dependable horse call Nell appears in the final story.

 

Publication details: 2007, Virago, London, paperback

Originally published: 2006
This copy: my own; bought for me as a birthday gift from Daddy Cool as part of my mission to collect Margaret Atwood's entire works of fiction (so far, I have 11 ).

A Little, ALOUD for children - M's Review

A Little, ALOUD for Children edited by Angela MacMillan

A Little, ALOUD for Children is an anthology of poems and stories to read aloud. It is aimed at children but really it is suitable for all ages.  Some pieces may be too difficult for young or less confident readers to read themselves but all of the pieces can be listened to by everybody. Each piece gives an estimated reading time and some are as short as 6 minutes while others are quite a bit longer.

Quiet, calm relaxation, a few chuckles and a sleeping dog.  That was the effect of the stories being read aloud to an audience in our house. But then came the poems! That was a much noisier affair. Legs and arms clambering about the room and hands rushing to grasp the book to be the next reader. Who can resist Shakespeare’s Witches Chant from Macbeth or Edward Lear’s The Jumblies?

A Little, ALOUD for Children - Angela MacMillan (ed)

The thing we find about reading aloud in our house is that it creates a lot of laughter and chatter.  We’re probably supposed to be talking about the literary merits of the writing or something like that….but - if we ever do - that only ever comes second or third to laughing and having fun.

In our house, nothing seems to be funnier than mum stumbling over ‘cumulonimbus’  (unless it’s dad stumbling over the made up words in Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky). And there’s always a long intake of breath while everyone waits to see what the next person is going to choose to read out loud. Will you groan or clap?

The selection in this anthology is a themed mix of poems and extracts (mostly from novels) and includes some contemporary pieces (like David Almond’s Skellig) as well as older classics like Dickens’ Great Expectations. We preferred some over others. I’m not a big fan of extracts because it frustrates me rather than tantalises me. But of course, not all readers will feel the same way as me.

We haven’t read the whole book but the absolute treasure so far in this anthology, for me, is Neil Gaiman’s Instructions: whatever you do, “Do not look back.” Little M has delightedly discovered Siobhan Dowd’s The London Eye Mystery and Frank Cottrell Boyce’s Cosmic.

The royalties from the sale of this book go to The Reader Organisation, a charity that works to connect people with great literature – and each other.

Here is an article on the Booktrust website on why reading aloud with children is so special.

Publication details:

David Fickling Books, June 2012, paperback

This copy: received for review from the publishers