Tags
Last academic year I studied a Master’s for Secondary School Teachers and, in addition to science’s subjects, we had a subject about teenagers’ psychology and learning, and one of the teachers talked about bullying. We also watched a film and we had to write an essay about it. Well, while I was looking for information, I found a reference to this novel in a textbook and I decided to read it, so I took the book out from the public library of my town.
Elaine is the main character. Actually she is in Toronto because a gallery is exhibiting her pictures; a retrospective of all her work. Last time she was in Toronto was so many years ago, and while she is there and reviews her old pictures, she remember parts of her childhood.
When her family arrived at Toronto she was eight. They had moved a lot because Elaine’s father was a biologist and he studied insects and plants in different places of Canada, but now he was going to work as university teacher in Toronto, so they were there to stay for a long time.
Elaine had never had real friends because she didn’t have time to keep a friendship with anybody, although she has been happy playing with her eldest brother. But now, in their new school, boys and girls play separately and they both have to make new friends. There’s also another reason: if you’re a boy and the other boys see you with a girl, although she is your sister, you’ll be underestimated. Elaine understands this, so she tries to stay away from her brother at school. That’s not a problem because she has her own friends very soon: two girls, Grace and Carol, that live in the same place as her, so they go walking together on the way back from school. They also play together at evenings and weekends (games that Elaine never had to play: girls’ games) and the family of her best friend, Grace, take Elaine with them to church on Sunday mornings because Elaine’s family isn’t religious; at first her parents didn’t want her to go to the church, but finally they thought she should decide by herself.
Everything is going well, but the next academic year they have new neighbours: her daughter, Cordelia, who is one year older than Elaine, is introduced in the girls’ group because she goes in the same direction as them on the way back from school. Cordelia starts to mess with Elaine, but not in a physical way; just psychologically, and Elaine doesn’t know how to defend herself from her. Soon, Cordelia becomes the group leader and the other girls also attack Elaine. They say anything about her posture in the chair or they keep her walking in front of them to comment if Elaine’s walking right; they stop talking to her if she says “something wrong” and other things like that.
Elaine feels very sad; she begins to stay at home at weekends and she always has an excuse not to go with the girls. In fact, she tries to do things right: she does her homework perfectly, she studies all the psalms for the religion lessons on Sundays (Grace has the role of keeping an eye on Elaine at the Church and, then, inform Cordelia about everything she does, etc. But, if Elaine does something wrong, they say she’s stupid, and if she does things right, they say she’s too perfect. And the sadder she feels, the more aggressive Cordelia is to her because it confirms she is making damage to Elaine.
The best way of stopping bullying is acting like you don’t care about it. The aggressor will leave you alone if he doesn’t get anything (to make you feel scared or worried). I suppose this is easy to say and it’s very difficult to do because if the aggressor is hitting you, how can you act like you don’t care? It’s impossible. And Elaine didn’t know anything about this and also she couldn’t tell anybody what was happening beacuse she really couldn’t understand that situation. Finally she gets separated from them but, for the rest of the courses in Primary and Secundary School, and also after it, in art classes, she can’t make new friends. She prefers to stay alone or talking with the boys, because she feels safer with them.
When she is now back in Toronto for the exhibition, she wants to meet Cordelia again; ask her why, what was the reason. She really misses having a friend. It’s a sad story.
My review in Spanish: here
This novel has been the first one that I have read from this author and I will read The blind assassin soon because I join in an activity called “Advent with Atwood”, purposed by the blog Reading with tea. We have to read the novel and every monday of December we are going to comment different parts of the book. More information.
I like this kind of activities and, in fact, I organize a lot of them during the year in my Spanish blog, so I was looking forward to joining in one of them in English. I have The blind assassin ebook ready in my kindle, and I also took it out this morning from the public library in Spanish in case I don’t understand a word, because I really want to comment the book with other people. Hope I like it.
From Isi 
I read Cat’s Eye recently (I’ll link it below) and I enjoyed it, but thought the ending was a little flat. The bullying aspect was ridiculous, and Elaine might have been able to get more help with it if she was willing to open up and be honest with adults about the situation. Sometimes ignoring bullying helps, but not in this case, and not in a lot of case.
http://loveatfirstbook.com/2012/07/19/cats-eye-by-margaret-atwood-book-2/
Well, I think that from an adult view it’s ridiculous, but it isn’t when you are young. Children try to stay in the group they were belonging and, because of that, the character of the book tried to “be better” and make her friends love her again.
I also think that they feel guilty and that’s te reason because they don’t ask their parents or teachers for help. This happens everyday, unfortunately.
It has been a while since I read this but Margaret Atwood is amazing.
If you haven’t read it already I highly recommend The Handmaid’s Tale. My all time favorite book.
I still haven’t read The handmaid’s tale; Cat’s eye was my first book writen by her, but I think I will read it sooner or later!
Thanks for you comment!
I have never read any Atwood before but I will be joining in with Advent With Atwood, too – my choice is The Handmaid’s Tale. Cat’s Eyes sounds good though if rather sad.
Well, you can read the rest of her books if you finally like her style afther “the Advent” 😉 I have chosen The blind assassin because I want to join in the comments about the book: I like that kind of activities because of that.
Thank you for your comment!!
Margaret Atwood es maravillosa, me alegro de que haya un especie de reto con su obra, porque es magnífica.
Hace unos meses me leí El asesino ciego, reconozco que no me entusiasmó tal y como yo esprraba es decir, me gustó pero a ratos me aburría un poco y me resultaba algo reiterativa.
Aun así estamos hablando de un libro muy bueno y muy bie escrito. Pero mi favorito sigue siendo Penélope y las doce criadas, auténtico caviar.
Bueno, tengo ya claro que el de Penélope y el cuento de la criada son sus mejores obras, así que iré leyendo primero “los peores” para que así me guste cada vez más, jejeje.
I haven’t read any Margaret Atwood, although I think I should after reading your review. I always thought she wrote science fiction. Oops!
Science fiction? perhaps she has wrote any book of this genre, but I really don’t know.
I think is a good writer, with something different in her books. Hope you like her!
I agree with Bibliosue that The Handmaid’s Tale is really Atwood’s masterpiece. Mind you I haven’t read many of her books – but I’ve also got The Blind Assassin and Oryx and Crake and can recommend both of those (although Oryx and Crake is deeply weird).
Incidentally, in response to what samstillreading says, I suspect that books like Handmaid’s Tale and Oryx and Crake do make a lot of people think that she only writes futuristic / dystopian fiction.
Oh yes, I’ve heard about her futuristic novels, but it was chance that the first one I read was Cat’s eye and I never think about Atwood as a science fiction author.
Well, when I know an author that I like, I used to try with the “worse” novels before I read the good ones, because it is better for me to be more and more interesting in their bibliography, so I think The blind assassin is perfect for now, and after it, I will read The handmaid’s tale and in the end I will swear eternal love to M. Atwood 😉
Thanks for commenting, Leander!
I found Elaine’s vision of Mary (when the other girls left her on the bridge at night) the most memorable aspect of the novel. It had all the power and ambiguity of private revelation. I al so felt the bullying was very realistic and not overdone. There was a “pack” of little girls in my neighborhood and one girl dominated it, when we were at home and even at school on the playground. When I saw her at 20 year reunion, I was surprised at the apprehensive feeling I still had toward her.
Interesting that her name is Elaine, since I thought of this book in relation to My Brilliant Friend and Elena!
Thanks for reminding me of this book, Lucy! It’s an interesting read; at the time I picked it up I was interesting in the bullying aspect, and I found the story hard to read – you just want to slap Cordelia! Now I remember the scene of Mary, but I have to admit that it didn’t say much to me, being a non-religious person. I guess Elaine just wanted to feel safe somehow when they left her alone, so she has her vision.
It’s interesting that thing you say about your own experience with that girl, especially because I have never read or experienced about a reunion between the bully and the victim years later; it makes an interesting thing to dig in through my reads; I’ll look for books on the subject.
Lots of kisses!