Well if you are a Margaret Atwood acolyte, it has been a busy few weeks. Her new novel, The Testaments was released in September and resulted in record Canadian sales. The Independents and the box stores are loaded with lime green and black piles of her book. It’s a page-turning stand-alone story but is also the long-awaited sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale which she wrote in 1985.
This year, I was in Halifax and her reading of The Testaments at the Halifax Central Library was immediately sold out. We gathered around the smart TV and watch the Live Streaming of the interview. She was her usual erudite, irreverent and funny self. And remember, this is a woman doing a gruelling international book tour whose husband, Graeme Gibson recently died in September when she was in London. Yes, I am a shameless fan.
Her book is a testament to the subversive powers of the oppressed. My favourite character and this may be generational bias was, of course, Aunt Lydia. In particular, one of the sections that rang true for me was addressing generational privilege around page 287.
“struggles had ground off the softness that might have once been there.”
It is the burden of forebearers to be judged by their followers by the measures that are available to the followers. Perhaps we pre-internet, older feminists are searching for a little recognition and gratitude for the paths we have smoothed for subsequent generations of women? It is hard to be grateful for unknown experiences but more respect and tolerance and seeking to understand intergenerational differences might be more useful than criticism.
There are few other female contemporary writers with such knowledge of Christian scripture, its literary importance and how it can be interpreted and distorted. For every dictate, there is a contradiction. She likes to play with these conflicts and develops them in her three main characters. Just as I had finished the breathless reading of this page-turner and recovered from the announcement of the 2019 Nobel Prize winner for literature, (not Atwood) when the 2019 Booker Prize winners were announced. I have posted a Flash Fiction piece below that I wrote a while back about an imaginary Nobel Prize Literature Award winner.
This is the third time that the Booker judges have awarded a shared prize. Bernadine Evaristo is Atwood’s co-winner with her work, Girl, Woman, Other. This is Atwood’s second Booker. She first received the prize in 2000 for the Blind Assassin.
I attended a few readings at the inaugural The AfterWords Literary Festival in Halifax and look forward to going again next year. The Festival is supported by the independent book store, Bookmark.
On a historical note, I visited the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic where there are displays of the marine disaster trifecta: The Franklin Expedition, The Sinking of the Titanic and the Halifax Explosion.
Denman Island’s own Hilda Mary Lacon (neé Slayter) whose gravesite in the Camp Hill Cemetery and former house are included in the Titanic tour. She was a survivor of both the sinking of the Titanic (on lifeboat 13) and the Halifax explosion. And if you are interested in more explosions and local history you can watch the DuPont video about the 1958 engineered explosion that removed the twin-peaked Ripple Rock navigation hazard from the waters of Seymour channel between Campbell River and Quadra Island.
It is perfect weather for writing and attending all-candidates meetings. Hoping that you all exercise your right to vote next week.
She Goes to the Nobels
Hello!
The reporters keep pestering me with inane questions. I know it’s rude but I can’t take them seriously. I know that at most they have only skimmed a few pieces of my work. I’ve acquired a few platitudes that keep them and myself contented.
Yes, my childhood days in Ontario were influential. Yes, raising children and divorce were difficult. Writing is just a matter of instinct and hard work, lots of hard work. The best way you can become a writer, the only training is to read.
You were right, those patent shoes did crush my toes but I didn’t dare scuff them off under the table. I was drowning in a sea of spectacled, paunchy greying men compressed into naphthalene-scented tuxedos, men who were accompanied by glossy, taffeta gowned, bejewelled companions.
The banquet settings were astonishingly elaborate. There were six sets of cutlery and five different sizes of crystal goblets. The dessert was a frothy fruity meringue thing.
As I was furtively adjusting the stretchy waistband of my gown, I noticed the gentleman seated beside me pick up the delicate gold teaspoon off the table and slip it into the pocket of his white waistcoat. How could he dare to do such a thing at the Nobel Prize dinner?
He introduced himself. It was impossible to hear what he said over the loud conversations and the chinking and tinkling of all the glasses and china. My hearing aid packed it in during last night’s dinner. I had forgotten to bring the little kit with all the supplies and extra batteries.
Physics, I think he said but then I remembered there was another fellow who was also physics…particles or something. He seemed to be at a loss for conversation particularly after I identified myself as a short-story writer from Canada. It was difficult for me to talk to him without staring at the food stains on his tie.
Then before I could stop myself, I blurted out, “Did I just see you steal a teaspoon?”
He glared at me with his wide grey eyes from behind the smudged gold-rimmed spectacles that were propped beneath his two furrowed bushy white eyebrows.
“ Didn’t you take one? Everybody does. They expect us to.”
Turning away from his stare, I flushed and stammered. “They do?”
I clutched the gold-stemmed crystal goblet and focused on the tiny bubbles rising up in the remainder of my champagne. We sat in silence while I worried about what I should talk to him about next.
I wondered whom Doris had sat beside when she attended? Did she steal a spoon? And if she did, did she list it in her will for a particular grandchild? And what about Nadine or Toni? What did they do? And then I thought that perhaps I should like to keep a spoon too.
Can’t wait to get back home. See you then.
G.