What is the role of the writer? Prophet? High Priest of Art? Court Jester? Or witness to the real world? Looking back on her own childhood and the development of her writing career, Margaret Atwood examines the metaphors which writers of fiction and poetry have used to explain - or excuse! - their activities, looking at what costumes they have seen fit to assume, what roles they have chosen to play. In her final chapter she takes up the challenge of the book's title: if a writer is to be seen as "gifted", who is doing the giving and what are the terms of the gift? Atwood's wide and eclectic reference to other writers, living and dead, is balanced by anecdotes from her own experiences as a writer, both in Canada and on the international scene. The lightness of her touch is underlined by a seriousness about the purpose and the pleasures of writing, and by a deep familiarity with the myths and traditions of western literature.

http://rivkat.livejournal.com/220691.... ( )

I like some of what Atwood has to say. I do feel that she is a little too omniscient at times, especially in the last chapter where she lets us know what the dead really want. But, she does make some fine points and does it with tact. The literary allusions got me down though, made me feel that I had read nothing at all. This book leans heavily on the ideas of previous texts, but I think Atwood shows that this book, like all fiction and poetry, must. ( )

From my librarytart blog: http://librarytart.wordpress.com/2009...

50-word description
Negotiating with the Dead expands on the six-part Empson Lectures delivered by Atwood at Cambridge University in 2000. Her lectures focus on writing and being a writer and the book delves into unravelling writers’ motivations and the relationships between writer, reader and subject.

150-word review
The book opens with Atwood’s enthusiastic acceptance in 1998 to present the 2000 Empson Lectures and escalating doubt and writer’s block as the months and weeks fly past. She deconstructs why we write what motivates us to feed the often undefinable compulsion to create something literary out of nothing but a blank page and an urge.

Quotes and examinations of poetry, fables and novels introduce and usefully expand on the questions raised in the six chapters on the definition of a writer, the two-faced role of hands-off observer and keen-eyed documenter, art for art’s sake or financial success, the inevitable meeting with social and moral responsibilities, the relationship of writer, reader and book, and writing’s role alongside the ticking clock of mortality.

By no means is the book prescriptive or instructive — and Atwood often throws more challenges than she answers with the sly wit imbued in many of her fictional characters — and that’s the main charm of this intriguing book.

Read
Jan 09

Rating
Fascinating ( )

An interesting visit to this author's mind. She makes it all look so easy and logical. An inspiring read. ( )