“If I waited for perfection… I would never write a word.” (Margaret Atwood)

/ madamebibilophile

This is the second of my two posts for Margaret Atwood Reading Month 2024 (#MARM2024) hosted by Marcie at Buried in Print.

I really wanted to get this posted in time, but those of you who read my previous post will know I’m currently getting over labyrinthitis. So the same disclaimer applies: please bear with me and apologies in advance for inadequacy/incoherence!

Old Babes in the Wood (2023) is a collection of short stories split into three sections. Tig & Nell contains three stories about the titular couple, My Evil Mother contains eight stories and the final section returns to Nell & Tig with four stories.

I find it hard enough to write about short stories even when my ears aren’t making life extremely trying, so I’m just going to focus on the final section for this post. The Nell & Tig stories explore what it means to be part of a long-established, now elderly couple and the challenges of aging, illness and bereavement.

These issues form a large part of my working life, and I thought Atwood nailed it with her characteristic insight, wit, compassion, and lack of sentimentality. I’m not one for biographical readings generally, but it is worth noting that Graeme Gibson, Atwood’s partner of 45 years, died in 2019 and Old Babes in the Wood is dedicated to him.

In A Dusty Lunch, Nell is sorting through Tig’s father’s belongings. The Jolly Old Brigadier – JOB – fought in the war and covered his PTSD with relentless joviality which didn’t quite fool anyone.

“The Brig had been shunted off to peacetime babysitting, a headquarters here, a headquarters there, a defence attaché in Washington decorating cocktail parties, but for what? Soldiers in peacetime are superfluous: celebrated once a year for something they once were, avoided in the here and now for what they have become.”

As Nell sorts through his belongings she realises the myriad stories that make up a life, and how many remain unspoken and therefore unrealised by even those closest to the person. She has no idea what to do with the deeply meaningful accoutrements of a life that hold no meaning for her, including the ghosts that haunted the Brig.

“What about the silent people, some alive, some dead, who sit in armchairs but aren’t really there, […] Because they’re part of it too.”

This will resonate with anyone who has had to sort through the material contents of another’s life. By placing it with the war generation, further emphasis is given to silent enduring traumas and the cost of choices made for domestic life in peacetime.

Widows is an epistolary episode, capturing the inadequacy of responses to the bereaved as Nell writes to her friend Stevie:

“You were always a well-meaning busy body. I don’t fault you for it – you have a kind heart, you are filled to the brim with good intentions, but I don’t want any casseroles or oblique, probing questions, or visits from professionals, or nieces talking me into buying an assisted-care condo. And no, I do not wish to go on a cruise.”

And really, responses can only ever be inadequate in the swirling disorientation of immense grief:

“Time has ceased to be linear, with life events and memories in a chronological row, like beads on a string. It’s the strangest feeling, or experience, or rearrangement. I’m not sure I can explain it to you.”

In Wooden Box, Nell is working out how to manage the demands of the everyday, when her whole life has been entirely disrupted by Tig’s death:

“It’s like being a student again: the same disorganisation and fecklessness and sudden bursts of intention, the same formless anxiety, the same bare bones meals. How easily she has slipped back sixty years, give or take: grazing, dubious leftovers, no ceremony.”

The titular box is one Tig made in school, with a few bits and pieces in it, which evade Nell as to their meaning. She is baffled and overwhelmed as to what to do with them, the box symbolic of her entire widowhood.

The final story which gives its name to the collection, Nell and her sister Lizzie are sorting through their childhood summer cabin, layers of memories alongside layers of dust and ancient belongings. In line with the fairytale title, Nell recognises her magical thinking, whereby Tig is both absent and ever-present.

“It’s an optical illusion, the retreating figure dwindling, growing smaller and smaller and then disappearing in the distance. Those retreating stay the same size. They aren’t really diminished, they aren’t really gone. It’s just that you can’t see them.”

Old Babes in the Wood is as accomplished as you’d expect. The collection overall is a varied one, including elements of sci-fi, fairytale and even whimsy (in The Dead Interview Atwood communes with George Orwell via Mrs Verity, a medium.) Atwood completely understands the form of whatever she turns her hand to. She always has something interesting to say and she does so with humane understanding.

To end, Margaret Atwood reading one of the earlier Tig & Nell stories, Morte de Smudgie:

18 thoughts on ““If I waited for perfection… I would never write a word.” (Margaret Atwood)”

  1. Hope your recovery is going smoothly and you soon feel totally back to normal. Thank you for this insightful review. Margaret Atwood is an author that I’ve somehow never been especially drawn to, but now I have put two books (one is this one thanks to you) on my wish list in one week (the other is Cat’s Eye). Better a late starter than never; I am a late developer, taking time to ripen!! You’ve selected some appetising and moving quotes. I can imagine they would have particularly resonated with your experience in your working life. As one who has always felt more comfortable in the company of the elderly rather than babies and children, I do like books with well drawn more mature characters.

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    • Thanks so much. I’m getting there!

      I’m a big believer that books find us at the right time, so I hope now is the right time for you and Margaret Atwood 😊

      It’s been years since I read Cat’s Eye but I thought it was fantastic. I really hope you enjoy it, and this collection.

      I really like books with mature characters too. Although I fit in that age bracket now, like you I’ve always been drawn to them. Have you read Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf? A lovely novella about two older people.

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      • I’ve not read Our Souls at Night and I had not even heard of Kent Haruf (following you lovely book bloggers is like going through the back of the wardrobe!). I’ve already done some exploring and I think I would very much like to read Our Souls at Night. Moreover, I can order a copy from my library – hooray 😊 Thanks for mentioning that one. I think next year’s reading resolution might have to be to try to start reducing the toppling tbr and stop adding to it! (On the other hand, I do derive a warm fuzzy feeling of comfort and satisfaction just casting my eyes down the spines and reading the titles of treats to be enjoyed!)

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  2. Sorry to hear about the Labyrinthitis, Madame Bibi. Hope you are feeling better now and recover fully soon! Sounds a wonderful collection and that section you’re featured is especially poignant. The final quote and the feeling of absence/presence is so very real rather than fairytale-ish!

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    • Thanks so much Mallika! I’m definitely improving.

      It was a great collection and the final section was really moving. She really captures that unreal/magical thinking element of grief, that as you say, is grounded in something so real and inescapable.

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  8. Aww, I hope it didn’t take too much out of you to post this while you are still recovering. Although, of all the Atwoods, I think these stories would be fairly good company while one’s unwell, because there is humour all the way through. I haven’t read the second section of Nell and Tig stories (the very stories you’ve focussed on here) but I did love the first trio. (The first appeared in Moral Disorder, if you’ve read that one?) Somewhere in recent Atwood reading, I learned that she wrote all the poems in Dearly while Graeme was still alive (but had been diagnosed) and I wondered how many of the Nell and Tig tales were written before he passed too. It was also nice to hear Morte de Smudgie in her voice. Her wit comes across in her delivery. Thanks for posting about these stories and for your steady contributions to MARMs over the years.

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    • It was nice to have a distraction, even though my brain is very foggy! They were good company, as you say. I really enjoy Atwood’s humour.

      It’s hard to tell which of these stories were written when, but she certainly captures the complete disorientation of grief here.

      Thank you so much for hosting MARM each year – they are always a joy!

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