Book Review: Cat's Eye

Is it cheating to count thesis work as a part of my fun little life activities? My excuse? I don't have much time for anything else these days, so when I finish a thesis related book, it's best to pretend it was for school AND fun. And a warning - this gets a little long. Those looking to ignore my thesis psychobabble, scroll down to the italicized "synopsis" heading.

I've read Cat's Eye likely a half a dozen times in the last 2 1/2 years. Actually, not that I actually count back the months, it doesn't seem as much. I first read it for my class on the author, the prolific, Canadian, Margaret Atwood. I delivered my first graduate seminar on the use of game play, ultimately asserting that it is, as Elaine's mother quickly suggests, Grace who is the keeper of the rules in the game that is Elaine's life, and not Elaine's tormentor, Cordelia. To this day, I still remember the crickets that followed the conclusion of my argument. I still don't know whether I had argued that eloquently or that incompetently. Despite it seeming quite obvious to me, I believe I found very few critics who even tangentially mentioned the argument.

Despite this perceived failure (because that first term of graduate school makes you a glass-is-half-empty kind of girl), Cat's Eye is the single most quoted from source in my thesis, playing a major role in two chapters - the first on the liminal space between the wilderness and civilization binary (that is: the point where the forest and the city meet) and the third on the projection of the truth onto another, creating a liminal space between self and other mimicking the Gothic "ghost" (kind of like the whole: "what you hate in others is actually what you hate in yourself" thought, but with a couple oogey-boogey men in there).

Despite being fodder for my graduate-level pretention (I am, of course, referring to Chip Morningstar's hilarious essay: "How to Deconstruct Anything" which most upper level literature and philosophy students should read... though having not read it in quite some time, I am fearing it is slightly homophobically bent), the book is a surprisingly easy and enjoyable read, despite it's length.

Synopsis (I promise to stop going off on thesis tangents!!)

Elaine Risley arrives in her former home city of Toronto to be honoured at a retrospective of her artwork. In moving through the city, she is unable to repress the memories she has kept buried for years of the childhood trauma she faced. Having grown up in the backwoods of Southern Ontario, she is unaccustomed to the unspoken rules of society, and is continually psychologically abused by her supposed friend, Cordelia, Grace, and, at times, Carol. As these memories surface, Elaine finds herself exhibiting the same feelings of isolation, trying to seek solace in remembering the past as she wishes it to have been; both fearing and hoping she will encounter Cordelia randomly on the street. Unable to face her childhood tormentor, she returns to her new home of Vancouver, where she will continue to live the life she believes fulfills her, far from the reach of the setting of her troubled past.

Whether you like psychology, quantum physics, or art, Atwood masterfully weaves these subjects together, questioning how we can know the past, and whether it is actually in the past.

Image yoinked from Chapters Indigo