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Cat's Eye
  
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Cat's Eye [Large Print] (Hardcover)

by Margaret Eleanor Atwood (Author)
4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (77 customer reviews)

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1 new from CDN$ 69.76 3 used from CDN$ 3.33

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Product Details

Product Description

Amazon.ca

Cat's Eye is one of Margaret Atwood's most intriguing novels, a ruminative, symbol-laced, and deceptively loose book that encompasses many of the concerns of her earlier works, compounding them with a new awareness of aging and the curious vagaries of memory. Its premise is simple enough: Elaine Risley, a successful painter living on the West Coast, returns to Toronto, the scene of her childhood and artistic development, for a retrospective of her work at an independent feminist gallery. As Risley arrives in Toronto, she begins to examine her past in that city, from her early girlhood through to the final days of her first marriage. Risley's memories dominate the book; her exhibition is a light but important counterpoint to all that has gone before it.

In a sense, Cat's Eye is a feminist deconstruction of the artist's coming-of-age novel, but Risley's feminism is skeptical and detached. Her painful girlhood friendships haunt her through her middle age, and she has far more sympathy for men than she does for the women who have supported her career. As a result, Cat's Eye transcends orthodox feminism and rigorously examines troubling questions of gender, sexuality, and art from a wryly nonpartisan perspective. Fans of Atwood's more recent novels will love Cat's Eye, but it is a book that deserves the attention of her numerous detractors; perhaps it will encourage them to give her a second look. --Jack Illingworth --This text refers to the Paperback edition.



From Publishers Weekly

Atwood writes in an autobiographical vein about a middle-aged Canadian painter who is thrust into an extended reconsideration of her past, including one particularly strange friendship, while attending a retrospective of her work in Toronto. PW praised Atwood's incisiveness, saying that she "takes the measure of a coercive, conformist society."
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.
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Customer Reviews

77 Reviews
5 star:
 (41)
4 star:
 (19)
3 star:
 (6)
2 star:
 (5)
1 star:
 (6)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.1 out of 5 stars (77 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most helpful customer reviews

 
3.0 out of 5 stars so true..., Mar 23 2005
This review is from: Cat's Eye (Paperback)
I am a seventeen year old girl and this book really struck a chord within me. The things that the girls did to Elaine sent a chill down my spine but they didn't shock me. At all. I had friends much like Elaine's and I wouldn't be surprised if I had once been a friend like that.
The novel was well written and the first half of it had me entranced but as the novel continued on, I felt as though Atwood had grown bored with the plot. I forced myself to finish the book just because I had read two of her other novels (The Handmaid's Tale and Oryx and Crake) and loved them.
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5.0 out of 5 stars ...a sustained poem., Mar 31 2003
By Cipriano "www.bookpuddle.blogspot.com" (Planet Claire) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   
This review is from: Cat's Eye (Paperback)
Being male, I found that reading this book along with my female friend helped me to appreciate it more than I would have on my own. She commented, several times, that "language and observation make this book a sustained poem" and I agreed several times. Her perspective was needed and appreciated. It is definitely a book ABOUT women and FOR women, but us dudes can get something out of it too... because it is brilliantly written.
It is not only an "Atwood" but one of the better "Atwoods"!
The author has stated that Cat's Eye is "about how girlhood traumas continue into adult life" and that is it in a nutshell.
When the painter Elaine Risley returns to Toronto for a retrospective of her work, she is confronted with the memories of her childhood... mysteries to unravel, others to tie up and lay to rest. Elaine the child, had a temperament that allowed other girls to belittle and dominate her.
In a word, she was bullied.
And no one bullied her as much as Cordelia did.
When Elaine is brought back to the geography of her past, she finds that she has to come to terms with her feelings about Cordelia... this retrospective of her WORK turns into a retrospective of her LIFE.
Through flashbacks galore, and in writing that is spare and bleeding with cut-wrist exposure, Atwood leaves no part of Elaine's wounds unsalted.
Here is a question that I think the thoughtful reader will be asked to ponder:
Does "closure" mean annihilation/renunciation of memory, or acceptance/reconciliation of memory?
Or as my friend and I put it: Does Elaine still have her Cat's Eye with her when she returns to Vancouver?

This is not a plot-driven, but a personality or character driven book. Those who think that sound-bites on T.V. are too lengthy should probably stay away from it.
Cat's Eye would be a great Book Club selection because of the discussion and opinion that it is sure to stimulate. I'm going to rate it closer to five stars than four.

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4.0 out of 5 stars One to keep, Feb 27 2002
This review is from: Cat's Eye (Paperback)
This was a book that was loaned to me and I read it to kill some time. It has become one of my favorite books. I actually read that original copy to pieces. I would suggest this book to anyone that wanted a good rainy day afternoon book.
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 		 Most recent customer reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Magical Marbles Don't Help Elaine
"Cat's Eye" was a good example of the cruelties that little girls face during their childhood. Read more
Published on Feb 15 2002 by Whitney Homan

2.0 out of 5 stars Cat In the Cat's Eye
Reading Margaret Atwood -her work, the "cats eye" was emotive in a vituperative out pouring of all that wants to be seemingly human and ratiocinatively inhuman in torrents that... Read more
Published on Dec 8 2001 by Stephen Deed Locust

5.0 out of 5 stars One of Atwood's best books
I've read all of Margaret Atwood's books, except Alias Grace. I read my sister's copy of Cat's Eye when if first came out and remember thinking: "hmmm, kind of a rehash of... Read more
Published on Dec 3 2001 by Dale Hrabi

3.0 out of 5 stars Relationships
This was a wonderful read about the growing pains that most young women go through and the way that we learn to become functioning adults. Read more
Published on Nov 29 2001

4.0 out of 5 stars A Haunting Novel
Other reviewers have used the word "haunting" to describe this novel, and I must agree. This book stayed with me long after I finished it, and compelled me to read even... Read more
Published on Oct 21 2001 by debra crosby

4.0 out of 5 stars A rich and compelling book
I enjoyed this book a lot. Although parts of it were quite disturbing, Atwood refrained from going too far. Read more
Published on Aug 2 2001

5.0 out of 5 stars painfully beautiful
This book is so colorful! I don't so much like the last 150 pages or so as much as I like her girlhood accounts. Read more
Published on Jul 31 2001 by actual_daisy

2.0 out of 5 stars First half good, second part really dull
I enjoyed reading the first part of this part, about Elaine's childhood--and could very well relate to the cruely and power plays which do occur among young girls in our society... Read more
Published on May 6 2001 by Justine Cardello

4.0 out of 5 stars Survivor's Guilt
When push came to shove, Elaine shoved back at Cordelia the destructive projections that nearly klled her, and became the survivor of the headgame. Read more
Published on April 18 2001 by Catherine

4.0 out of 5 stars The real story of girlfriends
Sort of an anti-"Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood", "Cat's Eye" is the sometimes brutal, sometimes comical, and always truthful story of the nature of female... Read more
Published on Mar 8 2001 by Amy Krug

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