Sheesh...Well, this is going to be a combination blog(Hi there Mr. Chinese food guy, I'd like one Kung Pao chicken with combination white and brown rice please!)...I just finished Margaret Atwood's The Penelopiad a few minutes ago, and finished Dennis Miller's Ranting Again last Friday but as yet have not had the time to write about it...Two extremely different books, with opposing styles...First I'll talk about Miller's book...Hehehehehe...He always makes me laugh. One of the things that I did like about the book was that all of the "articles" or essays if you will, were directly taken from his monologues at the start of his HBO shows, the really funny parts where he just rambles on and on and finishes by saying "Well, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong." It's written pretty much exactly how he speaks. However, this was also annoying...He uses "okay" a lot and starts sentences off with "You know," and of course every essay starts off by saying "Now I don't want to get off on a rant here..." but, of course, it goes with the title of the book I guess. Anyway, he has some extremely insightful and witty things to say about American politics, feminism, OJ Simpson and the human race in general(though he does use Pavarotti as a whipping post a little much)...I just loved his outlook on movies(made Chris read it while I was up in Canada, by the end we were both pissing ourselves laughing and I'd already read the essay at least once and was still laughing) and abortion and fashion...but he had a few quotes I really loved. "Remember, xenophobia doesn't benefit anybody unless you're playing high-stakes Scrabble"(Miller 22). And my favorite, which Kate will laugh at since we spent a year at least being Family Feud ADDICTS(I LOVE LOVE LOVE game shows): "Your family are the people who cut you the most slack and give you the most chances. I mean, when Richard Dawson says 'Name something you find in a refrigerator' and you say 'a dictionary' and the rest of America is screaming 'You moron' at their TV sets, who's clapping and saying 'Good answer! Good answer!'? Your family, that's who" (ibid 18). I've always loved Dennis Miller and been one of his biggest champions, even when he did start pulling all that right-wing nonsense, I still believe his humorous intellect is unsurpassed...If he was a chick, wow...But now I should move on to the chick, that ever prolific Atwood...What is somewhat dismaying to me(though not entirely surprising I guess), is that as I peer over my personal writings: my poetry especially, I find a lot of similarities to Margaret Atwood's work, I guess making her a somewhat subconscious inspiration. When I was first really getting exposed to her in Canada, I felt like she was being shoved down my throat, and that especially in the states she's recognized as the great Canadian voice...this is quite disheartening as since embarking on my book project and also having been exposed to wonderful Canadian writers over the past several years, I've found many amazing Canadian voices, all uniquely gifted in their own personal and national expressions. I must admit, though, that as I've read more of Atwood(and not just all of her poetry, some short prose and several novels)I've really come to respect her work and her themes not only in terms of what she writes about but also how she views her role as the writer...Murder in the Dark is a great collection of short prose and prose poetry in which she explores the notion of poet as murderer, reader as victim( I shouldn't be dismayed that I subconsiously emulate her, I suppose). But, I'm digressing. I just finished The Penelopiad, the first in a myth series that has been started by Canongate books, in which modern authors rewrite classic myths...many authors I greatly admire have been set up for the challenge. The Penelopiad documents the story of The Odyssey from Penelope's point of view, giving it a distinctly feminine voice...this is combined with a "Greek chorus" of 12 maids who give narration of their own, not only commenting on the story as told by Penelope but also dictating their own lives in which they are subjugated first as slaves in Odysseus' house, then subsequently as the rape victims of Penelope's persistant suitors and then finally their brutal slaughter at the hands of the man who could have, if circumstances perhaps had been better, been their protector. Leave it to Atwood to bluntly show the shitty turns that women's lives take at the hands of men. It's not a terrifically long book, especially in light of some of Atwood's novels, and I also found it to be extremely straightforward, which is also, I feel, unlike Atwood, especially the more recent novels...but a writer can change their style given subject matter I suppose. However, in true Atwoodian fashion, her character's voices give way to biting social commentary that is point on...This quote, from the beginning of the book, just struck me. "The teaching of crafts to girls has fallen out of fashion now, I understand, but luckily it had not in my day. It's always an advantage to have something to do with your hands. That way, if someone makes an inappropriate remark, you can pretend you haven't heard it. Then you don't have to answer" (Atwood 8). The maidens themselves are full of the comments that only Atwood could provide, and tell a much more violent story than their protagonist does, almost leaving Penelope in the wings of the theatre when she is supposed to, at least in this arena, be taking centre stage...but the mix of narrative voice makes this book so much greater than its lack of length may deceive. Mmmm...I'm looking forward to the Winterson version of Atlas, which I'm reading next...Fiction junkie is still on GG/Pulitzer vacation...