‘Felt in the blood and felt along the heart’ – to quote Wordsworth out of context is to hint at the response evoked by Margaret Atwood’s Moral Disorder.
I think what I like most about Attwood is how close to poetry her prose is. Yes, she weaves a good story and yes, she has wonderful insight into life and living but really it is the quality of her writing that makes me stop and browse every time I see her on the book shelves. Moral Disorder is described as a series of short stories but it also a novel to the extent that the chapters detail aspects of the same character or group of characters over a lengthy time period that more or less equates to a life time. Rather like flicking through an old photograph album, it is a collection of moments of time, of memories, that you will want to savour slowly and that will linger with you awhile when you put the book away.