Wilderness Tips (1991) does not merit a chapter or even an index entry in Atwood’s memoir, The Book of Lives, but it’s another great collection of her short gems.
The title story features George, a Hungarian immigrant whose real name has been deemed unpronounceable by girlfriend Prue. She takes him to her parents' lodge in the north country. He falls in love with the aristocratic setting and vows to marry one of the three daughters so he can return. I hear echoes of the Polish count from Lady Oracle; both are post-war characters soothing their scars with the balm of naive young lovers.
In the same theme of the northern wilderness, some of the stories take place in summer camp. In first story, “True Trash,” named for the type of magazine the camp’s waitresses read on their breaks, one of them gets pregnant by an unlikely candidate. In “Landscapes,” an unhappy camper disappears during a canoe trip. Her friend later becomes a connoisseur of landscape paintings, but not for their aesthetics or investment value: she imagines she sees the lost girl looking out.
Other tropes appear more than once, such as the ambitious woman working for a magazine, only to be overthrown by a more ambitious man. In my favorite of these, “Hairball,” revenge is served cold in a luxury chocolate box.
Another recurring figure is the male best friend who never quite makes it to the status of lover, such as Vincent in “The Age of Lead.” Percy Mallow in “Uncles” occupies the role of both friend and traitor. In this story, Susanna grows up under the loving gaze of her uncles, but later comes to understand the perspective of her jealous disapproving aunts. As usual, aunts do not come off well.
As is often the case in Atwood, visual artists stand in for the writer. Atwood was herself interested in the visual arts, drawing cartoons and designing posters. Next: more short fiction but of a distinctly different flavor.
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