 Hey guys it's Liana and I'm here today to talk about Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood. I am going to talk about the adaptation as well because I just saw it and I've been wanting to watch it since it came out but I also was determined to watch, I'm sorry, determined to read the book before watching it. As you know it came out. I shouldn't say as you know because I don't know what you know but it came out and believe it's a couple years now. I think at least two years possibly as much as five years. It's not brand new is what I'm saying. So I've been obviously not in a huge rush to read it but that was my goal. So I did finally read Alias Grace and first things first the book 5 out of 5 stars highly recommend. This book is amazing. It's a kind of book that like stays with you and if you don't know what it's about at all because you haven't seen the adaptation, heard of the adaptation, heard of the book or whatever. This is obviously, it's a work of fiction by Margaret Atwood however it is largely based on real events that occurred in Canada. It's the sort of life story and the details surrounding the arrest, conviction and imprisonment of Grace Marks who was found to be guilty of being an accessory to murder, the murder of the housekeeper of the house in which she was a maid. They hanged James McDermott who was the one wielding the axe so to speak but Grace was also found to be guilty as his accomplice. And so Margaret Atwood did a huge amount of research and she includes a lot of sort of primary sources throughout the book. Giving you newspaper clippings, pieces from Grace's confession, pieces of testimony from the trial. So the pieces that she was basing this off of she has in here and anything that was verifiably true. She left alone and didn't change anything. Everything that was as much as possible to be certain that she included and did not change. But there's obviously gaps and there's obviously some speculation as to what actually happened and to whether or not what Grace said was true or not, what if she was told to say these things, if she was lying, if she was an amnesiac. There's a lot of gray area. So the parts of the story that are a gray area, the parts of history that are a gray area, Margaret Atwood fictionalized and felt free to invent. So there's just like so much to unpack with this book and that's what I love so much about it because it's more interesting for the fact that truth is stranger than fiction and just the fact that you're sitting there not just going like oh I wonder what really happened, which is always fun in a book, like with Turn of the Screw by Henry James. That's the kind of book where people have debated for centuries what is the actual meaning of that story and what the ending actually means. However, it is entirely a work of fiction. So arguably the answer is irrelevant because it doesn't matter because it's an invention of Henry James entirely. However, with Alias Grace, this is a real person that really lived and there really was a murder. And so something did or did not happen. And Grace's part in it, like there are true facts that we will never know, basically. I mean, unless we invented time machine or something and are able to go check it out for ourselves. But because of the fact that there is something here that is unknown and unknowable and yet it did happen, that makes it juicier to me anyway. And I love that she did all this research. It just, there's a lot to this and you can see where she, it's the kind of thing you would go down a rabbit hole on, the kind of thing where if you're on Wikipedia and like one thing leads to another and Bob's your uncle, you've spent 24 hours digging through what is known. It's just like there's so much to unpack. And then the way Margaret Atwood, the parts that she fictionalized about Grace and about Grace's attitude towards the truth and Grace's attitude towards society and her obligation or lack thereof to be forthright with the powers at be the way that I just, it's absolutely masterclass. In how to write a complex character and it's just, it's so, so good. And the adaptation of it, Margaret Atwood was very involved with. I mean, if you look at the credits, she's like a producer, supervisor, whatever. So the adaptation, I was impressed by how faithful it is to the book. Really, the only thing that the adaptation changed. There's like a couple of details about a couple of characters or people. Some like added flair that isn't present in the book. But it's it's my new. It doesn't really change the story much. And then the part, the book spends a lot more time delving into the character and situation of the doctor, who is the the framing device, the psychiatrist. I don't know that I don't think they had the word psychiatrist at the time. But, you know, the head doctor that comes to visit Grace after this has already happened, because he's curious to study her mind to see if she was crazy, if she is an amnesiac or if she's lying. So he's just come to try to figure that out. And that's how this story is told to us, because she's telling her life story to this doctor. And it's sort of up to him and the audience to determine whether or not she's lying. However, Grace is a lot more forthright to the reader than she is to the doctor, because that's one of the most, again, as a character driven reader, I just ate up it was like a play, because there was, except I guess there's no way to do that on stage, but there's so many times when he asks her a question and she thinks to herself, I know what answer you're looking for. I know what it is you're trying to get me to say. And she intentionally doesn't say that. So I love watching that sort of like battle of wits almost between her and him, where he thinks of her as this, you know, delicate female, that he's going to carefully get her to admit to things or, you know, trick her into revealing parts of her memory, that she unlocking them in a way that she doesn't even realize it's happening. But she's way smarter and way savvier than him. She's been surviving in a world of men who think they have the right to control her whole life. So she sees right through him from the very beginning. And one of the first things he does, he's trying to do like a memory association kind of thing. Instead of word association, he's doing object association, trying to like trick her into like revealing memories. So he brings like an apple and is like, what does this make you think of? Grace, she thinks to herself like, well, I know you like you're wanting me to, you know, talk about the tree of knowledge or Adam and Eve or good and evil or whatever. And I see you and I know what you're doing. But instead, she is very earnestly and simply is like, well, apple pie, apples are for eating and they taste good. And she's just like, it was really straightforward answers. And just sort of was like, is that not what she wanted me to say? You can't be mad at me. You ask me what it makes me think of. It's an apple. You eat it. And then he's like, oh, and like, he starts to kind of wonder like if she's playing with him. But part of him is like, oh, you know, she's a simple creature. You know, I need to try a different tack. And she's like, I see you, I see you, sir. And exactly what you're doing. Try again. So like that battle of minds that takes place between her and him is fascinating, but then also just like the pieces of the story because she herself is, I mean, she's an unreliable narrator. So maybe she really doesn't remember, or maybe she does remember and is withholding it from the audience, is withholding it from him, or is she withholding it from herself? And these are suppressed memories. There's just like so many layers to unpack when you're reading it. It's so good. It's the kind of book that I definitely see myself rereading to pick apart all of that. But yeah, but so what I was going to say with the adaptation changes or not so much changes, but fails to include is there's a lot more time in the book devoted to the doctor and his life during this time that he's interviewing Grace, what he's doing in his personal situation and his relationship with his mother, his relationship with his landlady. It's included a little bit in the adaptation, but the focus of the adaptation is like 90% grace, whereas the book is sort of 70-30. There's a solid 30 that's him, but that's chopped down to be more to give more time, I guess, and space on screen to grace. But I don't mind. I don't know that it's necessary. And I will say the because they didn't include that much of the doctor side, he ends up being a more sympathetic character than in the book, because you don't see the darker, more depraved side of him, which I think is a really interesting parallel in the book, the parallel between him being the same one, investigating her, the mentally ill one, where she seems to be a lot more sensible and logical and and moral than him. And I love that too. That parallel is just it's so well done. And I just, oh my God, chef's kiss, this book is amazing. I cannot recommend it enough. And I also cannot recommend the adaptation enough because if you like the book, the adaptation is almost like a word for word page for page, loyal adaptation. It's impressively so. And I think the casting of Sarah Gadden as grace is her fixed casting. She is a knockout. I don't know why maybe well, maybe she did get awards and I'm not aware of it, but I think she deserves a million awards for her portrayal of grace. It's so good. So all around, I would say read it, read it, read it, read it, also watch it. And I would recommend reading it first just because there's so much more detail in the book that an adaptation is necessarily going to have to cut out because of time and space. And also it can't really spend so much time, including primary sources, because it would just, I mean, it would be like a documentary then you would have to stop to constantly show you like a document or to have a narrator like Ken Burns come in and tell you some facts. So we can't really do that. So I would again, recommend reading the book first. So good. I cannot recommend it enough. Yeah, I guess I always have more to say about books I hate because I hate them and I want to round about it forever. So I don't have too much else to say other than that I love this book. And if you have read it, I would love to talk to you about it because it is one of those that's like to pick a part and to analyze and to discuss. It's something that I would really crave to do. And I don't know anybody that has read it. So if you have read it or if you do now read it, talk to me about it because it really sticks with you. And I also, I was reading this, I should say, listening to the audiobook is actually read by Sarah Gatton, who is the actress who plays Grace, which is an added little bonus and the afterword in the audiobook, the afterword by Margaret Atwood is read by Margaret Atwood. But anyway, I was listening to it over a larger period of time. I mean, it was only a few weeks. It wasn't like years. But I think because of the nature of the story that actually was, I didn't intentionally do that, but it was actually kind of the ideal way to experience it because the way that the story unfolds is this doctor visiting Grace on like on over a period of days where he visits her for an hour or so. And she kind of tells him a little bit more of her story for that hour. And then he goes home and has his depraved life. And she goes about her chores and she like has thoughts to herself about men and what they want from women. And then, you know, they meet again and she tells a little bit more of her story and they go their separate ways and they meet again and she tells a bit more of her story and they go their separate ways. So by coming to it myself about an hour a day was kind of it gave me more of this feeling of sort of living the timeline of this book and myself kind of like the doctor slowly getting more and more Grace's story. So like I'm not saying you're not allowed to read this all in one sitting. Absolutely go for it. But there it was something to be said for experiencing it over a larger period of time in sort of little snippets. It was oddly mirroring the nature of the storytelling itself. So I mean, maybe consider doing it that way. I'm just saying it was kind of perfect. Anyway, let me know in the comments down below if you've read Alias Grace, if you watched the adaptation, if you've done one or both or neither, whatever you want to let me know. I post videos on Saturdays, also other random times as well, but definitely Saturdays. So like and subscribe and I'll see you when I see you. Bye.