A NOTE ON THE SPOILERS
A while ago I got a comment tantrum from a semiliterate rando because apparently some people are too stupid to understand a SPOILER WARNING, so I thought I’d elaborate on my exact definition of a spoiler. I AM GOING TO SUMMARIZE THE ENTIRE BOOK, INCLUDING THE ENDING. Think of me as a very niche Wikipedia. If you have a problem with that, you are welcome to stop reading at any time. I don’t make money from this content. I don’t care how many people read it.
This is your legacy, Fedup: an extra line on an obscure book blog that probably doesn’t even have ten followers. It’s not exactly a Nobel prize, but it’s still quite a nifty little achievement. Your parents must be so proud. Please seek help.
Stone Mattress
Margaret Atwood
You’re off the edge of the map, mate. Here there be spoilers.
Cross another one off the list of old reads that were long overdue for an overanalyzing: several years after I first read it, I am finally ready to overshare all of my intrusive thoughts on one of my very favorite short story collections. I love it so much that I have it in French and I don’t remember anymore if I requested it specifically or if my dad just found it and thought I’d like it, but if he did he was right. To be honest, it wasn’t really on my radar UNTIL ONE DAY I for some reason started thinking about “The Dead Hand Loves You” – which, aside from the titular “Stone Mattress,” is my favorite in the collection – which led me to reread it, which in turn led to me rereading the entire book from start to finish and not skipping over TDHLY the second time because what is a reread but an excuse to go ham.
I’ve never reviewed an anthology, and I technically still haven’t: this post got categorized as a book bite rather than a formal review because I will only be discussing the first three stories, which I’ve been calling the Riverboat trilogy. The series starts with “Alphinland,” in which a popular fantasy writer hallucinates the voice of her dead husband while reminiscing on her most significant boyfriend, a mediocre poet whose indolent entitlement indirectly launched her career; proceeds to “Revenant,” which follows the aforementioned ex as he bemoans his decades-younger wife and general loss of creative inspiration; and ends with “Dark Lady,” which examines the death of their relationship from the perspective of the other woman’s brother.
Alphinland
As a polar vortex sweeps down on Toronto, presumably in the early 2010s or somewhere thereabouts, newly widowed Constance Starr – known as C. W. Starr to her loyal fans, who are legion – collects storm-weathering supplies (as instructed by the disembodied voice of her dead husband, Ewan) and attempts to hunker down for a few quiet days of worldbuilding. This honestly sounds like a dream, up to and including the rotisserie chicken she buys from the convenience store and eats with her bare hands, but she is troubled by Ewan’s suspected infidelity and plagued by memories of Gavin Putnam, her first live-in boyfriend, whose abusive behavior somehow made him more attractive through the “bUt He’S a PoEt” loophole. The relationship went to shit when Constance walked in on Gavin getting it on with Marjorie, a volunteer bookkeeper at the Riverboat coffee house where the boho kids hung out in the mid-sixties, but it wasn’t completely for naught: Constance walked away with a fairly solid skeleton for Alphinland, a sprawling fantasy series frequently described with words like “brain-damaged” and “ludicrous.”
Alphinland grew from a series of tawdry short stories Constance wrote to pay her and Gavin’s bills, and her actual talent is derided by other writers (though granted they are biased against her); however, the books she later published raised an entire generation, and the series now generates a level of fanatical hype comparable to Harry Potter. Think midnight release parties, dedicated cosplayers, sci-fi convention interviews, people trying to correct her dragon lore, the works. As a side benefit, Gavin and Marjorie have both been written into Alphinland: Gavin is squirreled away in a private corner and his presence is not technically canonical, but Marjorie has been immortalized as the Scarlet Sorceress of Ruptous, trapped in a stone beehive and tortured daily by a hundred emerald and indigo bees, like, jeez, Constance. Meanwhile, her own family is intensely ashamed of the source of her money, if not of the money itself, and her daughters-in-law have launched a determined campaign to get her into a senior living community, as they are quite sure that she’s quietly going bats.
Anyway, the polar vortex knocks out the power before Constance can really get started on her latest Alphinland-related ideas, leaving her with little to do but fret over the affair Ewan might or might not have had several years ago. Ewan himself is as unforthcoming on the subject as he ever was; his go-to is “Pull yourself together,” and if that doesn’t tell you everything you need to know about the relationship then I don’t know what to tell you. His otherworldly interventions cease when he suffers a meltdown after apparently witnessing an extremely erotic Gavin-based dream, and he ghosts her altogether when she informs him that he is dead. Unable to locate him in the physical world, Constance concludes that he has disappeared into Alphinland, where he will of course get lost because he shared her children’s shame and doesn’t actually know the series, and she sets out to rescue the silly boob from her own creation. Not really sure about her exact plan when both Ewan and Alphinland are fictional, but you do you, girl.
Revenant
While Constance battles the storm and her husband, Gavin (~early seventies) and his third wife, Reynolds (~early forties), bask in the Florida sunshine. They normally live in British Columbia but are currently on vacation, though the enjoyability of said vacation is debatable when Gavin is determinedly unpleasant and needs round-the-clock care. His old age has pitted them against each other in a neverending battle of wills: Reynolds wants him to get out and do fun things; Gavin wants to be an asshole. Reynolds wants him to realize that bullying is Not Nice; Gavin wants to be an asshole. Reynolds wants him to stop sexually harassing every woman he sees; see above. Sexual harassment is about all he gets up to these days because after marrying three of his graduate students he has finally learned to keep it in his pants, but this is literally only because it doesn’t work anymore. To add insult to injury, Gavin’s moderate literary talent has shriveled like a pea, and the carnal poems that built his career (“My Lady Bends Over”; “My Lady’s Mouth on Me”; “My Lady’s Ass Is Nothing Like the Moon”; etc) now serve as taunting reminders of a time when the inspiration flowed without limit. As he associates this earlier productivity and carnality with Constance, he frequently mourns the death of their relationship with so little self-awareness that one would be forgiven for kicking his feet out from under him.
It is in this state that he is introduced to Naveena, a graduate student who (according to Reynolds) is writing a thesis on his work. Gavin cooperates, sort of, through a few questions and a viewing of an interview given by Constance at a sci-fi convention, but the meeting quickly descends into chaos when he learns that Naveena is actually studying Constance’s work, and he is not, in fact, the center of the universe. This discovery so enrages him that he harasses Naveena into leaving halfway through the interview with her questions still unanswered. An exasperated Reynolds goes out for the evening, leaving Gavin to fend for himself at home. After a desultory attempt to write a poem about the high schooler who cleans the pool that came with their rental property, Gavin trips and falls on his way back into the house, splitting his head like a watermelon. In his final moments, as Reynolds frantically pleads with 911, he is visited by the youthful ghost of Constance, who welcomes him to death.
Dark Lady
Back in Toronto, Martin (“Tin”) learns of Gavin’s death from his twin sister, Marjorie (“Jorrie”), who regularly reads the obituaries and cackles triumphantly every time she finds someone she hated. Though tightly knit from birth, the twins are quite different in temperament: Tin is a cautious academic who grew up hiding his sexuality and has spent a lifetime trying to save Jorrie from her own worst impulses (fashion-related or otherwise); Jorrie is brash and earthy, incapable of deciphering Tin’s frequent literary references and uninterested in trying. Where Tin has devoted his last several decades to a more colloquial translation of Martial’s epigrams, Jorrie has devoted hers to flashy fashion and obscenely expensive vacations, and unhealthy relationships. All of this means that Tin has observed Jorrie’s love life with gentle horror, including the disastrous affair with Gavin and the breakup that took place shortly after Constance dumped his ass, and he naturally tries to talk her out of attending his funeral, which they both know Constance will likely attend. All attempts failing, he agrees to go with her, fully intending to steer her discreetly away if she tries to go for Constance’s jugular.
During the reception, the twins find Constance under siege by Naveena, who spoke briefly at the funeral and is now attempting to gather information on the Alphinland series. This seems a bit tacky but Gavin was an asshole, so I don’t actually care. Despite Jorrie’s efforts to be subtle, Constance recognizes her immediately and addresses her directly, even as she seems to be answering Naveena’s question. After definitively identifying Jorrie as the Scarlet Sorceress of Ruptous (to Naveena’s amazement), Constance finally hears Jorrie’s side of the story, which is quite different from Gavin’s. Upon realizing that Gavin purposely slandered Jorrie, Constance tells Jorrie that she will release her from the bees, and the two begin to find a sort of mutual peace. This is bewildering to Tin, who begins to wonder if Jorrie has other dimensions he’s never seen, while Naveena laps it all up with delight.
One trope that tends to characterize Atwood’s work: her women might hate the men they’re with, but they hate each other even more. This is something I did not notice when I was too young to know any better, but it has grown steadily more troubling as I’ve gotten older. These are not girl’s girls. With the exception of The Robber Bride, in which three profoundly damaged women inadvertently build a strong, lasting friendship (because all their men got stolen by the same woman), her female characters usually do not have close female friends. Alias Grace doesn’t really fit the bill when Grace’s ONE friendship is cut short by Mary Whitney’s death; nor can I count The Edible Woman, whose protagonist has a handful of female acquaintances whose company she doesn’t really seem to enjoy. I was therefore unsurprised, if mildly displeased, to see that Gavin was excused for his abusiveness, and that he was even carefully locked away and cherished, while Marjorie – who played no role whatever in the verbal or emotional abuse inflicted upon Constance – was sent off to get tortured by bees.
But then I got to the end, in which Constance finally realizes that Gavin was a lying, self-victimizing asshole (despite having had literal decades to figure it out for herself), and she and Marjorie seem to agree to spend their remaining time on this earth as friends, and I will eat that shit up every time. I want this for them badly. I would love for them to have the fantasy scenario cooked up by Constance in the ’80s, when she saw Marjorie on the street by chance and imagined them going for a coffee and laughing over Gavin together, more or less as friends. They don’t have to be besties, but I would like them to have at least a casual friendship. Constance is worryingly isolated, partly because of her recent widowhood and partly because she’s a writer, and Jorrie seems to have no one other than Tin, and it would be good for them both to talk to other people. As a fantasy writer myself, I am concerned about the integration between Alphinland and the real world, to the point that Constance really does seem to believe that she can actually go into Alphinland and rescue the ghost of Ewan from the dangers therein. I frequently think about the world I’ve created but I don’t physically spend time in it, though I have to admit this is a gift I would kill to have.
As regards Jorrie, I honestly wish we had had “Dark Lady” from her perspective rather than Tin’s. Whatever we see of her story and her thoughts is by necessity filtered through Tin, who has biases and blind spots of his own. I suppose he’s there to contribute to the absolutely wonderful satirical mockery of high academia, but I was more irritated by him than not, particularly as he keeps quoting Literature at Jorrie, whose only response is “What?” Nor did I find his obsession with Martial particularly illuminating; though I am not familiar with Martial and had to look him up, I can’t say I’m impressed with Tin’s laborious translations, which apparently all read like this:
You imitate youth, Laetinus, by dyeing your hair. Presto! Yesterday a swan, you’re now a raven. But you can’t fool everyone: Proserpina spots your grey hair. And she’ll yank your stupid disguise right off your head!
The goal is “contemporary, punchy, not stilted.” Personally, I don’t see it. Contemporary, yes, but it strikes me as stilted in the manner of someone who is trying too hard to sound young and hip – or, perhaps, in the manner of a scholar trying too hard to sound human.
Having said that, I do so love the mischievous academic shading that takes place in “Revenant” and “Dark Lady”: Naveena’s research, for instance, centers around an in-depth examination of the function of symbolism versus neo-representationalism in the process of worldbuilding, which she feels is most effectively studied through the fantasy genres as opposed to realistic fiction. For the record, Gavin has no idea what this means, and neither do I. I have now looked up “neo-representationalism” twice (the second time just now), but I keep forgetting what it means because, to be honest, her research topic is ultra-academic gibberish and I’m pretty sure that was the intention. Later Tin runs into another academic at Gavin’s funeral, which is awash with such people, and speaks to him briefly about Gavin’s final, unfinished poem. Tin himself is mildly scornful, if moderately impressed that Gavin was evidently familiar enough with Hadrian to steal a line from him; his fellow academic refers to this theft as an “allusion,” and claims that it was skillfully done.
And that is exactly what I love about this short story trilogy, which covers serious topics but usually doesn’t take itself or its characters too seriously as it cheerfully skewers them all. (Me, watching Constance eat chicken with her fingers and drink milk straight out of the carton: “That’s the kind of writer I’m going to be when I’m eighty.” My mom, savage as fuck: “You’re already there.”) Gavin’s story is the funniest; he may be an asshole, but at least he’s an entertaining asshole as he derides his own poetry for the lulz, provides false information just to throw off Naveena’s data, and wails when Reynolds threatens to withhold his afternoon cookie. Though all three stories rely heavily on telling rather than showing, the narration is mostly enjoyable, aside from Tin’s, which in places seems interminable. Yet in a way this suits: Gavin and Tin are academics, after all, and interested in words, while Constance’s story is less rarefied and uncluttered by literary references.
All in all, the Riverboat trilogy is the perfect lead-in to a collection of stories that are mischievous, funny, savage, tragic, even horrifying. Most of the stories involve death in some way – it was definitely top of mind when Atwood was writing these – but I wouldn’t ever say it gets depressing, except maybe at the end, with “Torching the Dusties.” Regardless of topic, these stories pulled me out of a serious reading slump, even if only temporarily; they are well-written, compelling, and utterly bingeable. I’m probably going to buy this book on my Kindle, because I am a shameless Atwood stan and always have been. Now I just need to read it in French.
