It was ok, i read it quickly as sometimes the words were a little flowery for me ( )

Elaine is a famous modern artist, returning to her hometown Toronto for a retrospective exhibit. The return conjures up intense memories, including sustained bullying at the hands of childhood friends, chief among them Cordelia. Eventually, after much squirm-inducing treatment, there is a ultimate act of cruelty, Elaine finds the courage to stop the cycle. Amazingly, the friendship with C continues --love and hate intertwines-- with Elaine finally exacting her comeuppance. Amidst the detailed descriptions of childhood there are moments of lightness: her brother's quirky intelligence and forbearance, her parents' love of all things wild, a well-meaning art teacher, etc. E's relationships with men suffers in comparison to the childhood friendships for this reader. I didn't care. E's entry into the world of art was less interesting, as well. It remains all about those pivotal childhood relationships, the casual cruelty of girls (which Atwood makes clear is due in part to their lack of power: I agree) and the see-sawing of personal affirmation and assertion. ( )

Marbles, jump-ropes, paper dolls. For the child Elaine they are the props of a childhood marked by anxiety as she navigates the playground with its baffling rules of engagement, at the mercy of “friends” who smile for the parents while whispering cruelties in her ear.

Margaret Atwood has mastered the art of time travel in Cat’s Eye; this novel is not a reminiscence. Although grown-up Elaine opens the story, it is the child Elaine who describes her first meeting with Carol, then Grace – and then with Cordelia. As the narrative shifts among the different Elaines - Elaine in her teens, college student Elaine, wife and mother Elaine, and Elaine in her fifties, there is never a hint of any other age; events recounted clearly by the child Elaine are vague and suppressed when we listen to the voice of Elaine in junior high. Toys that are very important to the child Elaine, described in loving detail, are shrugged off by adult Elaine when seen again with no memory of their importance.

There are so many themes one could explore in this book – motherhood, sibling relationships, wealth, marriage, infidelity, loss, grief – and I suppose we could do that with enough time to dissect it thoroughly. At its essence though, in addition to being beautifully crafted, this story is eminently readable.
( )

A book I read almost 40 years ago and is another example of the genius of Margaret Atwood. Simply a writer to be treasured. No need to go into the plot. Simply read it along with the many other books she has written. You will not be disappointed. ( )

Before there was Mean GIrls, there was Cat's Eye. Trying to recapture her childhood, parents, and an era, the protagonist sets them free. Coming of age for postwar (Anglophile yet changing) girl inToronto ("I am happy as a clam: hard-shelled, firmly closed") during early stages of feminism and 'contemporary' art, showing we are products of our time in varying degrees but also exist independently of it. Cordelia/Elaine dynamic = interchangable effects between frenemies, it is not our friends who define us but our enemies. "I'm not afraid of seeing Cordelia. I'm afriad of being Cordelia. Because in some way we changed places, and I've forgotten when." Read this book to start the flow of one's own childhood memories: immediacy of tastes, sounds, smells, sights, sensations and feelings points to time-space continuum, both unnerving and comforting. "You don't look back along time but down through it, like water. Sometimes ths comes to the surface, sometimes that, sometimes nothing. Nothing goes away." Also the acquiesence/suprise of aging: "We thought we were running away from the grown-ups, and now we are the grown-ups: this is the crux of it." How can other people age and places change, while we think of ourselves as staying the same? ( )