My Atwood Project, Part 13: Moral Disorder

This is the third of three short books that Atwood published in the six years between Oryx and Crake (2003) and the second book of the MaddAddam series, The Year of the Flood (2009). I was looking forward to rereading Moral Disorder (2006) because my favorite Atwood story, “My Last Duchess,” is in it. What an eye-opener to find that every single story (or chapter?) is autobiographical to a certain extent. 

As Atwood says in the memoir: "It’s a mix of Nell and Tig stories—these two characters would appear later in Old Babes in the Wood, and they bear more than a coincidental relationship to Graeme and me—and stories of childhood…. The last two stories, however, are valedictions. A valediction is an act of bidding farewell. The first valediction, ‘The Labrador Fiasco,’ is for my father, who had died ten years before. The second—’The Boys at the Lab’—is for my mother..."

In fact, this seems like a practice memoir, or a first draft of one. The full title is Moral Disorder and Other Stories, and each section has a title on its first page, but in the the table of contents they are simply labeled with chapter numbers, as if it were a single narrative rather than a collection. The title comes from a novel that Graeme started but never finished.

Chapter 1, “The Bad News,” is a Nell and Tig story, which begins in the present and then transposes them to Roman times to show how the more things change, the more they stay the same.

The next four stories are about Atwood’s childhood and youth, all with analogs in the memoir. 

• In Chapter 2, “The Art of Cooking and Serving,” first-person narration, Atwood as a child prepares for the birth of her sister Ruth. It’s an anxiety-inducing time, as their mother is older than is usual -- forty-two, we learn in the memoir.  
• Chapter 3, “The Headless Horseman,” also first person, is about a Halloween costume passed from Atwood to younger sister Ruth.
• Chapter 4, “My Last Duchess,” also first person, is about Atwood’s final year in high school and early boyfriend. I love it because I can relate both to young Margaret, a strong student with a boyfriend, and also to the English teacher, as I became one later. I also love the title poem, which I have taught, and Tess of the d’Urbervilles, which they also study. 
• Chapter 5, “The Other Place,” first person, recounts in a vague and general way Atwood’s restless first years out of college. 

In Chapter 6, “Monopoly,” we return to the Nell and Tig stories. This is about when Atwood was officially introduced to Tig and Oona’s (Graeme and Shirley's) children as Graeme’s new -- girlfriend? The narrator decides during the story that Oona/Shirley considers her a governess, a glorified babysitter. All this harks back to Life Before Man, the fictionalized story of Graeme’s disaster of an open marriage with Shirley, before committing to Atwood.

 

In Chapter 7, “Moral Disorder,” we continue with Nell and Tig, and all the animals on the farm: how they are acquired, and often, how they die. Considering all this come and go in the animal world leads Nell/Atwood to the realization that Tig/Gibson does not want to marry, or for Nell to have children

Chapter 8, “White Horse,” is also in the Nell and Tig framework, but it’s mostly about Atwood's sister Ruth, called Lizzie in the story, and her mental health struggles. When Atwood let Ruth know that she’d have a chapter in her memoir, Ruth replied, “I don’t actually need one, it's all in Moral Disorder.” 

In Chapter 9, “The Entities,” Oona/Shirley insists that Nell/Atwood buy her a house. Then she dies in it. Again, it’s all real, and in the memoir.

Chapter 10, “The Labrador Fiasco,” returns to the first person, and tells of Atwood’s father’s decline. It contains a story within a story: Atwood’s mother is reading to him an account of a real expedition to Labrador in the Canadian wilderness. The expedition is a fiasco, due to inadequate knowledge and poor preparation. Atwood’s father gleefully imagines how he would have done better. I view this as a reflection on his life as a man who was a successful wilderness trekker.

 

Finally, Chapter 11, “The Boys at the Lab,” continues in the first person and tells of Atwood’s mother’s decline. I found the connection to these “boys,” the students who assisted Atwood’s father, intriguing. I get the impression, from the many cold and abandoning mothers in Atwood’s work, that her mother was not as warm with her children as she was with other adults, that perhaps she regretted leaving behind an independent and unconventional life to become a mother.