On Writers and Writing

I started this book before, and had trouble getting into it. All I can say about that is, the timing must have been wrong. I loved every word of it this time. Margaret Atwood writes about writing. How could it NOT be wonderful? (The only Atwood novel I have read---or even been tempted to read---is Alias Grace. I admired it, enjoyed it, and wished the subject matter of Atwood's other fiction was more to my taste, because her writing was exquisite.) This book grew out of a series of lectures Ms. Atwood gave at Cambridge in 2000. There were six lectures, so there are six chapters in the book, each dealing with a different aspect of the writerly existence. Roughly translated and conflated a bit, the topics are "what is a writer, anyway?", show more "the duplicity of being a writer", "who or what are you writing for", and "the writer's quest for immortality". Or, as Atwood says, with a wit that delighted me throughout the book, "Perhaps I have reached the age at which those who have been through the wash-and-spin cycle a few times become seized by the notion that their own experience in the suds maybe relevant to others." Despite her disclaimer that she is "not a scholar or a literary theoretician", she knows an awful lot, and dispenses a good bit of that knowledge in Negotiating With the Dead, in a manner both enlightening and entertaining. I expect I will return again and again to this collection, and that I will, notwithstanding my general aversion to dystopian fiction, read another Atwood novel before too long.

Review written January 2015 show less

A wide-ranging, perceptive and sometimes hilarious look at becoming a writer, being a writer, wrestling with the art and commerce of writing and more. If you have thought it as a writer, Atwood has -- and likely she captures it better on paper. If you've done it (even the scary or shameful stuff) -- ditto. And if you've navigated, or wanted to, the scary gap between creation and commerce, Atwood can pen BTDT in a way that will still break your heart.

This book grew out of the series of Empsom lectures that prize-winning novelist Atwood gave at the University of Cambridge in 2000. In it, she addresses a number of fundamental questions: not how to write but the basic position of the writer, why a writer writes, "and for whom? And what is this writing anyway?" Wearing her learning lightly, Atwood allows her wit to shine on almost every page. She probes her life and work along with those of many other writers and brings in myths, fairy tales, movies whatever feeds her themes. Following an initial autobiographical chapter, Atwood addresses major issues: the duplicity evidently inherent in writing; the problems of art vs. money; the problems of art vs. social relevance; the nature of the show more triangular relationship of writer, reader, and book; and, in the final title chapter, the provocative idea that "all writing of the narrative kind, and perhaps all writing, is motivated, deep down, by a fear of and a fascination with mortality by a desire to make the risky trip to the Underworld, and to bring something or someone back from the dead." Atwood is not looking to provide answers or solutions but to explore the parameters of some interesting questions. The result is engaging food for thought for all who care about writers and writing. show less

Negotiating with the Dead: A Writer on Writing by Margaret Atwood intertwines philosophy, memoir, and examples to explore the writing life. Atwood weaves together seemingly disparate parts of life to demonstrate how interconnected every aspect of life and writing are. Atwood discusses the writer's relationship to life, living, truth, deception, and shadows and the interpretation of all of these in the works they write complete with examples from a slew of writers. She explores how writers use those interpretations to communicate with the readers for whom they write. Atwood's descriptions of her journey to become and remain a writer offer glimmers of hope and inspiration for writers on their writing journey. I found concepts, show more experiences, and emotions to which I could definitely relate; however, there were also parts to which I couldn't relate. This is the nature of being a writer reading another writer's experience in the same way that it is the nature of being a human reading another human's experience. show less

The short book, Negotiating with the Dead, is a collection of six lectures Margaret Atwood gave on writing. This is not a typical writing handbook, dispensing now-cliched advice like "write what you know" and "show, don't tell." Rather, Atwood tackles the question of what does it mean to "be a writer." What is the writer, anyway, and why are writers compelled to write? She ends up posing more questions than she answers.

The six lectures each address a different aspect of the Writer. Using examples from literature, poetry, and mythology, Atwood positions the writer as six archetypes. Atwood's insights are unusual but will ring true to anyone who has felt the urge to write, or indeed, to any creator, I suspect.

Additional notes on each show more lecture are on my blog. show less

Atwood was asked to give a series of lectures at Cambridge and this book is the outcome. In six essays she covers some of the issues or challenges that all writers must confront or engage with. In the Intro she introduces the three questions 'posed to writers, both by readers and by themselves, Who are you writing for? Why do you do it? Where does it come from?" The essays attempt to shed some light on those questions, taking different approaches. In the first essay Atwood gives her own account of becoming a writer - specifics matter, but they can also ring true in a wider way and I think that was her intention - that all writers have a specific story. Next she addresses the 'split' that happens between the writer as a person just show more living a life and a person who steps back or out and observes and records - although I would say this pertains mostly to fiction and poetry. The third essay never quite came into focus for me, but in it I think Atwood is examining how artists/writers have been perceived 'over the ages' - in particular how women who devote their lives to the arts have only recently been allowed to break free of being seen as either 'a nun or orgiastic priestess' - (men broke free centuries ago). In the next essay Atwood examines the writer as a manipulator, a maker of effects, like the Wizard of Oz. She also talks about moral and social responsibilities and returns again to the fact that women writers are still judged quite differently from men. The fifth essay looks at the relationship between the reader and writer - it's not an essay that is going much of anywhere, more an exploration of the territory - the essential point being that the communication in a novel is One-on-one. The final essay, the best one, is about the writer's relationship to the 'underworld' the 'other' - it relates back to the second essay, I think, of the divided self. Atwood examines in literature the near universal theme of visiting the underworld to bring back wisdom, to bring back stories - that it is the dead who want their stories told - the presence of the essay rather than anything she explicitly states makes the point that writing is for that reason 'dangerous work' - you enter a tunnel, a dark road, not knowing where you will end up and you make this trip voluntarily (although in the first essay she is making a case that writers can't help themselves!). Who knows what my long-term take-away will be. As a writer, I am drawn to books about why writers write and this one gave me plenty to think about. But truthfully - Atwood is a bit of a heavy essay writer, her fiction is much better! **** show less

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 show more 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. show less