When I asked Margaret Atwood to do this podcast she said 'okay, but I don't want to talk about me, me, me. You come up with something to discuss.' "Okay" I said: "Over the past 20 years, in an effort to understand "the book" and, just as importantly, my fascination with it/them, I've interviewed hundreds of "book people" about what they do, how they do it, why they do it, and why it matters. Over the past 70 years, you have played many of the roles these people play, and have worked closely with many more who have filled many others. You have done this incredibly successfully. Who better to talk with about what the book means then, than you? How its various parts connect; how the whole dynamic process of making them works; why they're important; why they matter? Who better than you to provide me with an understanding of what I love, and an answer to why? Since she didn't want to go on about her, her, herself, here's a quick thumbnail gleaned in part from a bio I read by Rosemary Sullivan. It just serendipitously popped up in a used bookstore about a week prior to our encounter: Atwood comes from Atter wode (P.G.?) which means 'pearl of the wood.' Margaret's person is tiny, endowed with a 'taut, electric intensity.' She's a magpie, interested in everything, with a capacious understanding of the world. A formidable challenger of assumptions and conventions, she's a woman who has, unusually, managed to take control of both her artistry and her life. Not a role model, she possesses a 'high jinks' brand of humour (whatever that is), and a mysterious artistic confidence - a total belief in herself as a writer (it comes from childhood); she speaks in a slightly imperious monotone. Delivery is deadpan. Her voice strikes deep resonant chords in her readers. From years of training and willed attention she has wrapped long, gnarly mythological roots around, across and into her writing. She's someone who exhibits an implicit, sometimes explicit, pleasure in provocation, who didn't attend a full year of school until she was in grade eight, who has an ancestor who was a witch, and who has a skeptical, laconic style that overlays a generosity and helpfulness that comes out only after it becomes clear that you aren't malevolent, or an idiot. She's against wasting things, time, talent, and human life - and believes in using one's wits. She's a woman whose interest in metamorphosis began with her father's passion for moths. He loved chopping wood, fww, plus he kept his daughter from being squimish. He seemed to know every bird and most animals by their calls, and could mimic them all. He taught 'Peggy' about plants too. This kind of training in naming, and in precise and disciplined attention, is invaluable for a writer, says biographer Rosemary Sullivan. Peggy's mother valued cheerfulness and productivity. Margaret read a lot of comics, and was shy as a kid. She fell in love with the idea of the book early on. At five she created one of her own, remembering it as a totally satisfying object. Books became essential companions for her in childhood, notably Grimm's Fairy Tales, the unexpergated version. Her favourite was the Bluebeard story. She liked the most gruesome stuff. She adopted a stance of needing to be strong enough to protect others - her 'girl scout' persona. She recognized that fiction writing is a celebration of the physical world, partly elegiac, partly an attempt to stop or bring back time. She has a precise knowledge of woodlore. Big into natural edibles. Confidence, Margaret explains, depends upon whether the child is appreciated as a human being. The more familiar parental architype is hyper-critical. She was not trained to please. She once said, if you aren't annoying someone, you're not really alive. So, let's start living, and listening - to what MA has to say about 'best' practitioners she's worked with over the years, and, to start off with, some thoughts she has on the Steven Galloway atrocity.
