“Alphinland” by Margaret Atwood was beautifully written. The language was the most compelling aspect of it for me. I particularly enjoyed a sentence on page 10, “prepared for the sunset. Prepared for the moonrise. Prepared for the ice storm. What a flat existence that would be.” There were so many descriptions, like Atwood’s attention to and description of clothing, that were unique and compelling and really captured this sort of whimsical character, but there was definitely a darkness to the language as well that added something deeper.

The story unfolded really well and became more and more complex as it moved along. I thought it was really well-paced. It would present an idea, and then intermingled would be something else going on, and that something else would be a bit of a mystery for just the right amount of time to be interesting without being frustrating (like Was Gavin dead? Was she crazy? What was Alphinland? Was Gavin cheating on her? Was she going to make it home safely in the ice storm?…). I just thought it was wonderfully paced, and the way Atwood kept certain things a mystery and continued further and further into this woman’s world was what kept the story captivating all the way through. If she had laid everything out at the beginning or kept the mysteries going for too long, I think I would have gotten bored or frustrated, even with the beautiful language.

There was also so much going on in the story for a such a seemingly simple plot. There’s just an old woman in a snowstorm, but beneath that there are two fairly abusive relationships, Ewan still being “with her” in the house, and her story world. Through all of those different things we’re able to learn so much more about her character, and then through the way those things interact with each other– like the way the men both looked down upon her stories –we are able to learn even more, but the action of the story itself is very simple. I was impressed with how imaginative Atwood was throughout the story.