November 2023 #MARM Margaret Atwood Reading Month Week One: November 1-7

Part of the appeal of MARM for me is a sense of having reserved the month.

When I heard about Old Babes in the Wood, I thought, November! And that, simultaneously, seems to create an opportunity for other reading, in the remaining eleven months. (Next year, I think I might reread The Blind Assassin: see, I’m already thinking in Novembers.)

So, I am excited about reading those new short stories, but I’m also keen to resume my slow reading of her first collection Dancing Girls. (Technically, I’ve read this collection, but it was a long time ago, and it feels completely unfamiliar. You know how that goes.)

If you are looking for a short story to read online, consider her contribution to The Decameron Project, which is tidily formatted by The New York Times, “Impatient Griselda”. It takes only a few minutes and is perfectly unsettling for Day of the Dead. (It’s also collected in Part Two of the new collection.)

MARM 2023 PLANS

Each week I’ll share links to some online sources, so that anyone with a few minutes can join in the celebrations. Some poetry and flash fiction, some interviews and reviews, some fresh reads and rereads: mostly reading with a little viewing and, in particular, short stories.

Launch (November 1)
Dancing Girls, “Rape Fantasies” (November 3)
Dancing Girls, “Hair Jewellery” (November 10)
Old Babes in the Wood, “First Aid” (November 12)
Dancing Girls, “A Travel Piece” (November 17)
Margaret Atwood’s 84^th Birthday (November 18)
Old Babes in the Wood, “Two Scorched Men” (November 19)
Dancing Girls, “The Resplendent Quetzel” (November 24)
Old Babes in the Wood, “Morte de Smudgie” (November 26)
Wrap-Up (November 29-30)

I’m also excited about rereading The Edible Woman, which I started in October, after having found an old New Canadian Library paperback in a second-hand bookstore (early editions of her books don’t seem to be easy to find, they weren’t necessarily printed in the same kind of quantity), inspired by Bill’s early selection.

If you are looking for some good listening, check out her interview with Seth Myers from earlier this year (below): they’ve got great banter and listening to them will make whatever-household-chore-you-most-dread into, if not exactly a delight, well, then, at least, less chore-some. She also talks about the book signing for which nobody showed, first-aid training, grief, an unusual family tradition, and what happen since the last time she was on Late Night.

If you are using the BINGO card from previous years (available on the event summary page linked below), you can check off two squares with just these two activities: Short Story and Interview. If you leave a comment to cheer on the other MARM participants, that’s three. #overachiever

And, speaking of, I’m not going to play with the BINGO card this year, but I’m taking a many-squared approach to my reading all the same: I’m craving a little of everything and not a lot of any one thing.

Later this week, look for the discussion of “Rape Fantasies” from Dancing Girls. I’ve also got my copy of Burning Questions close at hand. I’ve reborrowed Graeme Gibson’s The Bedside Book of Birds from the library. Along with a copy of The Tent (which I’ve either not read or I’ve forgotten to log it, which is possible, given it’s such a slim volume). And I’ll likely finish one of the books for which she wrote an introduction…by an iconic French existentialist…any guesses?

If you’re still unsure what you’d like to do for this year’s MARM, considering visiting her Substack, her website, or check out the event’s accumulating posts from around the reading world.

And how about you: what are your plans for MARM? Or, what do you hope to find in participants’ posts, if you’re not MARMing yourself?