Introduction: Praise for Margaret Atwood can be found in countless places. What follows is a few examples.
“Atwood is a writer who has scratched her name on the tablet of the English language. She belongs to the world.” – The Globe and Mail
“What every reader wants.” – The Miami Herald.
“Atwood is… one of the most eminent women writers in English.” – The Atlanta Journal Constitution.
“A pleasure to read: erudite, talky with a heady humour.” – The Daily Telegraph.
To label Margaret Atwood “prolific” is being guilty of understatement. She has written fiction (23 works) writing for children (6 works), non-fiction (9 works) and poetry (14 works). It is not just the number of her efforts that make her work stand out but more the quality of her work.
Chapter 1
Orientation – Who Do You Think You Are?
Writing, writers, the writing life – Is this an oxymoron? So questions the author. Writing is an ordinary activity, says Atwood. Anybody literate can do so. There are countless writers, young and old in our nation. Some are quite good but others are mundane or worse. Professional writers are people who are lauded by their communities, for few of us can write in a way that others wish that they could. Margaret Atwood is such a writer.
Our author tells us that her parents were from Nova Scotia. The connection with the literate emanated from Margaret’s mother who was a school teacher. This, it seems was the birth of Margaret Atwood, writer of eminence. Our author relates the fact that backgrounds of writers differ greatly. This is not surprising, since people of other vocations come from different backgrounds. In addition, some writers have had quite isolated backgrounds.
Our author tells us that she wrote a play “around the age of seven.” This, obviously, marks her as precocious. Many seven-year-olds don’t know what a play is. She says that her play was not a “success.” She says that her brother and his friends actually “laughed at her effort.” This, our author tells us, may have been her introduction to literary criticism.
Atwood read the complete works of Edgar Allan Poe. How many children of her age can say that? She was one who was drawn to literature of all types. She published her first collection of poetry at the age of 26. She was quite proud of this accomplishment, as expected.
She relates that in 1957 she tells us that, according to her professors, she and her fellow students were “a dull lot.” Why professors would do such a thing is unexplainable and plain wrong.
The first group Margaret got involved with was the theatre group. It was a small group but she felt at home with it. At this time, she was writing “compulsively” in all forms. Soon. She began publishing in-campus literary magazines.
When she received her first literary magazine acceptance she “walked around in a daze for a week.” As a long-time poet, I know the feeling. It generally comes after a number of rejections by editors.
Margaret learned of “coffee houses” at about this time. They were meeting places for kindred souls. For several years I patronized one in Detroit and met a number of literary people.
Atwood tells us that most people believe that “they have a book in them.” Margaret put things in perspective by saying, “everybody can dig a hole in a cemetery but not everyone is a grave digger. At this time, she was growing almost daily as a literary figure.
Chapter 2
Duplicity
The author tells us that she grew up in a world of “doubles.” There was no television at the time. Comic books were very popular. This was a time for “superheroes.” Examples were superman and batman.
Margaret has an epigram tacked to her office bulletin board. It said, “Wanting to meet an author because you like his or her work is like wanting to meet a duck because you like pate.” She implies, of course, that you will be disappointed.
She says she was fated to be “a writer or a con artist or some other kind of criminal – because she was endowed at birth with a double identity. She believes that “all writers are double, for this simple reason that you can never actually meet the author of the book that you have just read. Why this makes hem “double” is difficult for this reviewer to fathom.
Atwood says she remembers the twins first catching her interest in a magazine advertisement when she was 12 years of age. Why this is so, again, is a mystery. The author instructs us that twins and doubles are very old motif in mythology, (e.g., Jacob and Esau, Romulus and Remus, and Cain and Abel.
Chapter 3
Dedication: The Great God Pen
Apollo vs. Mammon: At whose altar should the writer worship?
Margaret begins the chapter by informing us that, “long ago… images were worshipped as gods, and were thought to have the power of gods. Then they became allegorical. This is information unknown to most of us.
Ms. Atwood reminds us that a writer can spend years working on a book he isn’t sure would ever sell. Why does he or she do it? Is it money/fame? Personally, the explanation she subscribes to is similar to why an actor acts. The writer writes because they have to. It is like asking the question, “why does a beer drinker drink?” Margaret tells us that, “When I found out that I was a writer (at age 16), money was the last thing on my mind, but it shortly became the first.” Margaret admits that few writers make a living at writing. As a poet I can tell you that virtually no poet makes a living with his poetry. It seems that people who are money-oriented should seek other occupations.
Ms. Atwood says that there are four wars of arranging literary worth and money, good books that make money; bad books that make money; good books that don’t make money and bad books that don’t make money. How books are rated as their goodness or badness is an interesting question.
The author advises writers to get an agent who can, among other things, mediate in between the realm of art and that of money. It will also save the writer from haggling.
“The truth shall make you free,” said Jesus. Truth is beauty said John Keats… Margaret reminds us that “beauty” is open to interpretation.
Tennyson weighs in by uttering the following: “I built my soul a lordly pleasure house where in at ease for aye to dwell.” I said, “O Soul make merry and carouse. Dear soul for all is well.”
Atwood continues with, “If sacrifice was demanded of the male artist, how much more so of the women? Why women must sacrifice more than men in this regard is difficult for his reviewer to fathom.
Chapter 4
Temptation: Prespero, The Wizard of Oz. Mephisto and Co.
The author begins her chapter with several quotes. I will consider three of these, as follows: – One must be possessed of the Devil to succeed in any of the arts.
Voltaire
This court jester is so expensive. – Fredrick the Great, of Voltaire
The poet must not be a poet; he must be some sort of moral quack doctor – Edith Sitwell
Margaret alleges that nobody hates writers more than writers do. The most vicious and contemptuous portrait of writers both as individuals and of types appears in books by writers themselves. The author continues with, “In the 20th century writers have, on the whole, been haunted by the specter of their own inconsequence.” This reviewer takes issue with this statement. It is my contention that, at every state of history, have had major impact on their times.
A.M. Klein speaks of the modern poet’s ignominious obscurity. Klein writers thusly, “We are sure only that from our real society he has disappeared, he simply does not count except in the pollution of statistics.
Margaret says that there is “good at” and there is good for other people. In which of these ways should art and artists be “good?” This is quite an interesting question.
Atwood tells us that aspiring writers ask if it is necessary to suffer to be a writer. The author answers in the affirmative bud add by saying that suffering is inevitable. Poets, for example, have much of their poetry rejected by editors. Is this suffering? I have personally never thought of rejection this way.
Ms. Atwood introduces the idea of morality. Is it possible to write a work that has no moral implication? She tends toward the negative. I am not sure how many writers will agree. Personally, I am uncertain.
The great Canadian Poet, Gwendolyn Macewen, says that poets are, “magicians with quick wrists.” What a droll approach to poetry.
Chapter 5
Communication: Nobody to Nobody
The eternal triangle: The writer, the reader, and the book as go-between.
Ms. Atwood begins by talking about messengers. She says that “messengers” always exist in a triangular situation. The one who sends the message, the message bearer and the receiver of the message. She says that the writer and the reader communicate only through the page. She believes that the fiction writer who writes to no one is rare. Usually a reader is imagined. A common dilemma is the reader asking himself who is going to read what I write, now or ever. This question, of course, lacks an answer.
Our author says that, “for every letter and for every book, there is an intended reader. In case of a book, the reader cannot be determined.”
“Nobody is the writer, and the reader is also, says Margaret. This statement, to this reviewer is somewhat puzzling. Perhaps it was the goal of Ms. Atwood. If the writer is “nobody”, who is another? Margaret continues.
She says that there are certain stories you read –quite early in life that take on “an emblematic” quality for you. This is quite interesting to this reviewer.
The author says that one of her university professors, a poet, said that there is only one real question to be asked about any work, and that was, “Is it alive or is it dead?” Living things grow and change. I suppose that the professor was telling us that flexibility is vital in any work.
Margaret asks the question, “For whom does the writer write?” Some believe that it is for himself or herself, while others think that it is for the potential reader. Another possibility is that the writer writes mainly to satisfy the need to write. Possibly, all of these reasons are valid. One reason may be to earn money. This is certainly true in the case of writers who earn their living by writing. This is obviously true in the case of journalists.
In the case of poets the situation is somewhat different. Very few poets are paid to write poetry. This often true of very talented poets.
Chapter 6
Descent
Who makes the trip to the Underworld and why?
Our author begins chapter 6 with poetic statements by D.H. Lawrence, Jay Macpherson, Al Purdy and Osip Mandelstam.
She tells us that when she was a young person reading “everything she could get her hands on,” she came across some old books of her father in a series called “Everyman’s Library.” These evidently impressed her greatly.
Margaret tells us that narration – storytelling- is the relation of events unfolding through time. You can’t tell a story; we are told, without a metronome ticking somewhere.
The author informs us that dead people persist in the minds of the living. This reviewer considers this fact to be inevitable. How, for example, does one not carry the memory of his or her parents with them? Mexico, for example, has the “Day of the Dead.”
In the well-known poem, “In Flanders Fields” by John McCrae, we are told that we, the living, actually have a debt to the dead. This is expressed by the following: “If ye faith with us who die/ We shall not sleep though poppies grow in Flanders Field.
Ms. Atwood tells us that, “all writers learn from the dead,” As long as you continue to write, you continue to explore the work of writers who have preceded you. You also feel judged and held to account by them.
We are further informed that, “All writers must go from now to once upon a time.” It seems inevitable that the past is a large part of the writer’s expression. She goes as far as telling us that all writers “must commit acts of larceny, or reclamation.”
Margaret concludes the chapter by saying, “I will give the last word to the poet Ovid, who has the Sisibyl of Cumae speak, not only for herself but also for the hopes and fears of all writers. “But still the fates will leave me my voice, and by my voice I shall be known.”
