Two Scorched Men

by Margaret Atwood, Carol Jacobanis (Narrator)

In her Everand Original story Two Scorched Men, Atwood takes a personal turn and returns to characters and places drawn from her own life. Her unnamed narrator pays tribute in fictional form to two men Atwood knew during the years she and her partner, Graeme Gibson, spent in Provence: John, a hotheaded Irishman who served in the Royal Navy during World War II and barely survived the deadly battles in the South Pacific; and François, a wry and affable Frenchman, who was once an operative in the French Resistance and led a life shaped by tragedy. As Atwood writes here, both men knew “I would someday relate their lives for them. Why did they want this? Why does anyone? We resist the notion that we’ll become mere handfuls of dust, so we wish to become words instead. Breath in the mouths of others.”

Breathed into rich and dimensional life in these pages is the exquisite yet vaguely haunted house that the narrator and her husband, Tig, rented from John; the adjacent ancient forest and its allures and dangers; the rough country roads walked and retraced in dreams; the bloody history of the south of France, including the atrocities visited on medieval heretics and, centuries later, the guerrilla fighters who murdered Germans in an effort to free France from occupation. But at the center of the story is the touching friendship between John and François: how they indulge each other’s eccentricities and forgive each other their faults and psychic scars. With great precision and affection are their voices inhabited: John’s uproarious rants at human foolishness, his boasts about his playboy days as an advertising man, and a tempestuousness that so clearly covers for wounds that may never heal. By contrast, François is given to teasing misdirections and wordplay in the name of fun and a love of the absurd that draws everyone in. Tig, the husband of the narrator and a character so often featured in Atwood’s stories, speaks here as well. Practical, he’s a voice of reason and anchors the story’s narrator, much as John and François anchor one another in the world.

In these enduring and endearing relationships, so much of Atwood’s art and wisdom are on display: how ably she balances life’s inevitable injuries with beauty and humor, the pain of loss with the curative powers of the imagination. What better time in Atwood’s creative life—in fact, in our collective lives post a global pandemic—to accept that none of us gets out of life unscathed, that we are all mortal, perfectly imperfect, but that there is solace in friendship and laughter in remembering? Indelible detail by detail, sentence by sentence, Atwood is instructing her reader on resilience. We do what we can for each other, she tells us here, and thank goodness for that.

Genres: Audiobook, Fiction

Audiobook

First published July 30, 2021

About the author

Margaret Atwood was born in 1939 in Ottawa and grew up in northern Ontario, Quebec, and Toronto. She received her undergraduate degree from Victoria College at the University of Toronto and her master's degree from Radcliffe College.

Throughout her writing career, Margaret Atwood has received numerous awards and honourary degrees. She is the author of more than thirty-five volumes of poetry, children’s literature, fiction, and non-fiction and is perhaps best known for her novels, which include The Edible Woman (1970), The Handmaid's Tale (1983), The Robber Bride (1994), Alias Grace (1996), and The Blind Assassin, which won the prestigious Booker Prize in 2000. Atwood's dystopic novel, Oryx and Crake, was published in 2003. The Tent (mini-fictions) and Moral Disorder (short stories) both appeared in 2006. Her most recent volume of poetry, The Door, was published in 2007. Her non-fiction book, Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth ­ in the Massey series, appeared in 2008, and her most recent novel, The Year of the Flood, in the autumn of 2009. Ms. Atwood's work has been published in more than forty languages, including Farsi, Japanese, Turkish, Finnish, Korean, Icelandic and Estonian. In 2004 she co-invented the Long Pen TM.

Margaret Atwood currently lives in Toronto with writer Graeme Gibson.

Associations: Margaret Atwood was President of the Writers' Union of Canada from May 1981 to May 1982, and was President of International P.E.N., Canadian Centre (English Speaking) from 1984-1986. She and Graeme Gibson are the Joint Honourary Presidents of the Rare Bird Society within BirdLife International. Ms. Atwood is also a current Vice-President of PEN International.

Reviews

[Louis · Rating 3 out of 5]

A meh story, but it's still our Margaret, and we love her.

[Siân · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked Two Scorched Men. It’s a short, gentle story but it hits hard in a quiet way. Atwood makes the two men feel real, like people you could actually know, and the way she writes about friendship and loss is really touching. It’s one of those stories that stays in your head after you finish it, even though it’s small and simple.

[Tabea · Rating 1 out of 5]

as wonderfully said in one of the last sentences of the book "What was the point"?

[Ori · Rating 4 out of 5]

I sat with Two Scorched Men for a while, reading it three times back-to-back - it’s short, don’t judge me - because I felt there was something just beyond the words that I hadn’t fully grasped.

Margaret Atwood gives us the story of two unlikely friends whose lives are marked by extraordinary experiences and tragedies, having both gone to war.

The more I read, the more I felt pulled in. There’s a magnetism and an intimacy in the way Atwood sketches these men, that I still can’t quite name — and maybe that’s why I kept turning it over in my mind.

"We resist the notion that we’ll become mere handfuls of dust, so we wish to become words instead. Breath in the mouths of others."

[Laura-Tuesday · Rating 4 out of 5]

A small but mighty slice of Margaret Atwood. Brief enough to inhale in one sitting but with that sharp emotional sting she does so well. It’s a quiet, reflective piece about friendship, aging, and the strange mix of humour and melancholy that comes when looking back on a life. There’s warmth, wit, and just enough bite to keep it from being sentimental. It’s not groundbreaking, but it’s tender, well-crafted, and leaves you thinking about it long after you close the last page.

[Steph · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m not really sure who this short story was for, or what it was about. I’m not sure why it was even written. I found it a bit boring, even with its short length (50 minute audiobook). It was rather confusing, and just started ….. and then it just stopped. Strange.

Carol Jacobanis is the narrator for this audiobook short story, and she was pleasant to listen to.

3 stars, I guess? Not really recommended.

[Ann (Taylor’s version)]

i cannot possibly rate this story, because i don't understand it. i liked some parts and even from those 30 pages or so i could imagine the men perfectly, with their opinions and all, but i couldn't for the love of god grasp what i was supposed to take from this book.

anyway i liked some of the lines and it did have an interesting writing style, so i guess it was okay.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a sketch of two men Atwood once knew. Just because she "knew [she] would someday relate their lives for them" doesn't mean it was publishable. It was short enough I'm not annoyed, though. It was fine to listen to.

[Husna · Rating 3 out of 5]

This short story came at the right time, pulling me out of my reading slump. However, I have mixed feelings about the narrative style

[Rebecca · Rating 2 out of 5]

What did I just listen to?

[JadaGunther22 · Rating 3 out of 5]

i’m idk im confused i think

[Madara · Rating 2 out of 5]

There was no rhyme or reason to this story...

[Simon Sweetman · Rating 2 out of 5]

The confused narrative style behind this story made it tricky to focus, and to care. I usually love Atwood, but this was weak. And strange.

[allie · Rating 1 out of 5]

what was the purpose of this thing??

[Cat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short lil story about two guys that was somewhat confusing with no real plot, writing was interesting though

[Justin Heredia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really random

[martyr · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nothing really special?

[Rohini Raman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Okay-ish and that is stretching the truth. The prose had some lovely bits but doesn't make up for the whole.

1.75 stars rounded up

[Adara Kirana · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.0

[Rebecca Levson · Rating 2 out of 5]

“But I’m failing to grasp the point. Perhaps there isn’t a point - perhaps that’s the point.” - Margaret Atwood, and my feeling on this short story.

[noe · Rating 2 out of 5]

nice but what was the point of this

[Katrina Fox · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was definitely not my style, and a bit odd as a piece memorializing two friends she had. It almost spent most of the time complaining about the one and very little other time on the other. There were also strange jumps and it was just all over odd. It felt more like a personal diary entry than something that should have been published for everyone to read.

Favorite Quote:
We resist the notion that we’ll become mere handfuls of dust, so we wish to become words instead. Breath in the mouths of others.