Stone Mattress by Margaret Atwood : The Influence of the Past

"You believed you could transcend the body as you aged, she tells herself. You believed you could rise above it, to a serene, nonphysical realm. But it’s only through ecstasy you can do that, and ecstasy is achieved through the body itself. Without the bone and sinew of wings, no flight. Without that ecstasy you can only be dragged further down by the body, into its machinery. Its rusting, creaking, vengeful, brute machinery."

Stone Mattress is another triumph from master storyteller Margaret Atwood, author of the critically acclaimed novels The Robber Bride, Cat's Eye and The Blind Assassin. She demostrates that she is not only able to create complex universes and compelling stories with a complex structure, but she is capable of synthetising a story still providing a gripping literary experience.

PLOT
Stone Mattress is a collection of nine short stories. I was fascinated by every tale which contains Margaret's usual sharpness and mastery of language. They were superbly written. Atwood proves once more to be an ambitious and master novelist able to create a miniature world in a story only few pages long.

Here is a brief summary of the nine tales (no spoilers):

Alphinland: A(n) (unexpectedly) famous writer gets ready for a snow storm while she reminisces of her past as she gets advice from the spirit of her dead husband.

Revenant: Gavin is the ex of the protagonist of the previous tale. He married a much younger woman and also looks back on his past as he is about to be interviewed for his work in poetry, or at least, that is what he has been led to believe.

Dark Lady: Twin brothers get ready to go to the funeral of an unknown person, a morbid tradition of their own. These three stories are intertwined.

Lusus Naturae: A teenager is diagnosed with a rare illness which requires her to drink blood and be secluded from the light. She is mistaken for a vampire as her family is uncertain of what to do with her.

The Freeze-Dried Groom: A man is kicked out of his house after his wife dumps him. He remembers how they met and got married as he gets ready for an auction where he will find unexpected items to be collected.

I Dream of Zenia with the Bright Red Teeth: The continuation of the Robber Bride, and which would serve as an epilogue of the main characters of the previously mentioned novel: Charis, Roz, and Tony as Charis gets a dog called Ouida. This novel marks the return of Billy.

Stone Mattress: The title story, a woman goes in a cruise "not intending to kill anybody", but it appears that she will. A woman runs into the man that once abused her and transformed her into whom she currently is: a golddigger.

The Dead Hand Loves You: In the past, a man wrote a story which unexpectedly became famous. However, the book royalties are to be shared with three other people even though he was the only one involved in the book project. Flashbacks show us how these three friends betray him.

Torching the Dusties: a woman in a retiring house with a visual disability discovers that an organization of young people is killing the elderly claiming they have the right to their place.

STRUCTURE
Each tale narrates the current life of a specific character while providing background flashbacks as the story moves forward.

THEMES
Stone Mattress shows brightness on all of the tales. One of the most recurring themes is writing since many of the main characters of the stories are writers themselves. The influence of the past is another important theme that is covered throughout the tales. All the tales are spiced with magic, irony and rawness.

CHARACTER: 10/10
PLOT DEVELOPMENT: 9/10
THEMES: 10/10

What are your thoughts on this collection of short stories?