Atwood invests her story with mystery. Although readers may assume that the man is from Vietnam, they are never told this, nor are they given his name, age, profession, or life story.

September 19, 1982, Page 007003 The New York Times Archives DANCING GIRLS And Other Stories. By Margaret Atwood.

New York: Simon & Schuster. MARGARET ATWOOD the prose writer has always seemed closely informed by Margaret Atwood the poet. Her narrative style is as precise as cut glass; entire plots appear to balance upon a choice phrase, and clearly she writes with an ear cocked for the way her words will sound when read back. A poet's sense of fine-tuning has shown itself in each of her novels - not only in the powerful 'Surfacing' but also in, say, 'Life Before Man' and 'Bodily Harm,' both flatter in content but still beautiful to listen to. Nowhere, though, is that sense put to better use than in her short stories, which tend to combine superb control and selectivity with an almost rambunctious vitality. It may be that she feels freer to take chances with short stories. On the theory that she has less to lose, she may allow her mind to range more widely, to play with more possibilities.

Whatever the reason, 'Dancing Girls' is a stunning collection, mostly written within the last decade. Of its 14 stories, 7 are likely to linger in your mind for weeks afterward.One, 'The Man from Mars,' lingers for years, as I happen to know from having read it long ago in The Ontario Review. Another is arresting because it creates, in effect, a brand new verb tense, a sort of future-turning-imperceptibly-in to-present.

Even the slightest stories set up some vivid images. They are, at the very least, works of integrity.

'The Man from Mars' describes a foreign student - bespectacled, ugly, hopelessly obtuse and persistent, a citizen of a deliberately unnamed Far Eastern country in which eventually North starts fighting South. This student develops an attachment to an overweight American girl, and his unwelcome attentions are infuriating and pathetic, but memorable.

You want to kick him; you ache for him; you could weep for the unfortunate girl; but in spite of it all, you have to laugh. What an adroit, sly comic gift Margaret Atwood has!

Here's her description of the girl's besiegement: 'As the weekdays passed and he showed no signs of letting up, she began to jog-trot between classes, finally to run. He was tireless, and had an amazing wind for one who smoked so heavily: he would speed along behind her, keeping the distance between them the same, as though he were a pull-toy attached to her by a string. She was aware of the ridiculous spectacle they must make, galloping across campus, something out of a cartoon short, a lumbering elephant stampeded by a smiling, emaciated mouse, both of them locked in the classic pattern of comic pursuit and flight.' ' Close kin to the galloping elephant girl is the narrator of 'Hair Jewellery' - a young woman who buys all her bargain clothes too big and practically swims in a long black coat, plastic rain boots and a 'garter belt which, being too large, is travelling around my waist, causing the seams at the backs of my legs to spiral like barbers' poles.' ' The story is a rueful account of the attraction that tragedy and despair hold for the very young. Even before beginning a love affair, the narrator enjoys imagining its demise.

'I visualized (our parting) as sad, tender, inevitable and final. I rehearsed it in every conceivable location: doorways, ferry-boat docks, train, plane and subway stations, park benches. I would be wearing a trench coat, not yet purchased, though I had seen the kind of thing I wanted in Filene's Basement the previous autumn.' ' As with 'The Man from Mars,' we laugh, but we're touched by the story's conclusion, which in this case finds the heroine grown up and successful, wearing a stylish red pants suit that fits her perfectly. In fact, 'Polarities' could be the title of several of these stories, for Margaret Atwood's special concern is how certain innately unlike characters interact with each other, grate against each other, envy and resent each other's differences.

I use the app 'APK Installer' from this site: I've used this app quite a bit in development and highly recommend it. Google play services apk download for android 236. You can download their PC software which will allow you to install APKs to your device through a USB connection. First, you need to get an APK installer on your device if you don't already have one.

'Betty' features a cheery, domesticated woman who does not interest the child narrator half as much as does Betty's charming husband. By the time the narrator is grown, however, her perceptions have changed.

The husband no longer intrigues her. 'It is the Bettys who are mysterious.' 'Giving Birth' considers the polarity between the happy motherto-be, diligently attending her natural-childbirth classes, and the mother-to-be who reluctantly hangs back -both women, as it happens, inhabiting the same body.