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Margaret Atwood: You Have Been Warned!

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When you're in the middle of a story,

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it isn't a story at all, but only a confusion.

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A dark roaring, a blindness,

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a wreckage of shattered glass and splintered wood.

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Like a house in a whirlwind,

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or else a boat crushed by the icebergs, or swept over the rapids,

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and all aboard powerless to stop it.

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It's only afterwards that it becomes anything like a story at all,

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when you're telling it, to yourself, or to someone else.

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The celebrated and eminent Canadian novelist, poet and critic,

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Margaret Atwood.

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I have been reading a lot of stuff about you,

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trying to find out about Margaret Atwood.

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I've read a lot of stuff,

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but I still don't know anything about Margaret Atwood.

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You have a marvellous sense

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of not communicating anything about yourself.

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You haven't asked me anything about myself.

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Do you think you frighten people?

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-Do you ever get that sense?

-Oh, yeah, sure I frighten people.

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GENTLE LAUGHTER

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Don't ask me why, it's not my problem.

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LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

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During a writing life spanning more than seven decades,

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Margaret Atwood has made a deep impact

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across continents and generations.

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I think about what Atwood broke through.

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I think about the prejudices, I think about the preconceptions.

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She just blew away all the borders,

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all the shut doors, she just blew them all open.

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Her best-known work, The Handmaid's Tale,

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remains a terrifying warning against the misuse of power...

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WHISTLE

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INDISTINCT SHOUTING

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..and following recent political events,

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the novel has taken on an alarming new resonance.

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You know what? It's time in our country

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that we had somebody with a strong temperament, I hate to say.

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She does sort of warn us, I feel.

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This is what will happen if you pursue this route.

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She's a visionary. She's as much a visionary...

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as HG Wells was.

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As a writer and a woman coming of age in post-war Canada,

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Margaret Atwood forged into uncharted territory.

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She was and is a literary pioneer,

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who blazed a trail that others would follow.

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Margaret had, like, 40 years of being a creative force.

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It's been inspiring for me to work with her and learn from a master.

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Our country is large in extent but small in population,

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which accounts for our fear of empty spaces...

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And also our need for them.

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Much of it is covered in water,

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which accounts for our interest in reflections...

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..sudden vanishings,

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the dissolution of one thing into another.

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Much of it, however, is rock,

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which accounts for our belief in fate.

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Margaret Atwood was born in Canada in 1939.

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At the time, the country was not known for its literature.

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What could there be to say about such a vast expanse of nothingness?

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But Margaret Atwood would change all that.

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And when you were a child,

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there were hardly any of these buildings here?

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-They weren't here at all, no.

-None of them?

-Nothing.

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The highest building was the Royal York Hotel,

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which looks so short now, was considered immense.

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At what age did you become aware of not just Canada,

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but what its place was in the world?

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-What year are we talking about?

-Let's talk about your teenage...

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My American boyfriend, when I was 18,

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used to tell me about Chicago and how big it was and how much more

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-wonderful it was.

-I mean, what did you tell him about Canada,

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-if he told you about Chicago?

-Nothing! What was I going to say?

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The Canada that I grew up in thought of itself as a cultural backwater.

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First-rate artistic items - books, films, music -

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were known to come from elsewhere.

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If you wanted to be serious about writing,

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it was taken for granted that you had to leave the country.

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You yourself, as you were growing up,

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could see that somehow literature and culture in Canada was either,

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you know, borrowed or acquired?

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You know, basically, I didn't think much about it

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until I was writing about it.

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So I passed my teen years in a state of blissful oblivion.

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It was an unusual childhood.

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Margaret's father was an entomologist,

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and her family spent most of the year in the backwoods of Canada

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while he studied insects.

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Every spring, my parents would take off for the north.

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Every autumn, when the snow set in, they would return to the city...

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..usually to a different apartment each time.

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At the age of six months, I was carried into the woods

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in a packsack, and this landscape became my home town.

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You must not think electricity, you must not think running water.

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You must not think lavatories?

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No, you must not think those, no.

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Margaret's father came from rural Nova Scotia.

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Her mother was the daughter of a country doctor.

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They met while they were still at high school.

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My dad saw her sliding down the banister of the central staircase

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and said to himself, "That is the woman I will marry".

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It took him two tries, but he finally accomplished it.

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She had never tented outside or done any of those woodsy things,

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so what he introduced her to was a way of life

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that did not involve getting dressed up

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and putting on a hat and gloves,

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which she basically hated, or very much housework,

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because in the woods you don't have to do a lot of housework.

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There are no vacuum cleaners.

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So she said, "I would just sweep up the dirt and throw it out the door".

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For Margaret and her older brother Harold,

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it was a close-knit, carefree childhood

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that seemed alien to visitors from the city.

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We met as teenagers at a summer camp.

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She was called Peggy Nature then,

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and I used to visit her up in Kipawa, in northern Quebec.

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I was this city kid who found myself extremely uncomfortable

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in a situation where there was no running water

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and there was no electricity or anything -

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but they were totally in sync with it,

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it was fine, they never had a problem.

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I remember, there was a mouse running up and down the rafters

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of the exposed brick roof,

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and I was kind of freaking out

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because I thought it was going to end up in my sleeping bag,

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and Margaret had a humane trap

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that caught the mouse and then we got in a canoe

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and we took the mouse to a neighbouring island.

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That's the way she was.

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From an early age, we got instructions

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about avoiding lethal stupidity.

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Don't set forest fires, don't fall out of boats,

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don't go swimming in thunderstorms, that sort of thing.

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Squeamishness and whining were not encouraged.

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Girls were not expected to do more of it than boys.

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Crying was not viewed with indulgence.

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Rational debate was smiled upon,

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as was curiosity about almost everything.

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Did you see yourself as a bit of a tomboy, yourself, or not really?

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No, I did not consider any of this in any way unusual.

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You don't wear frilly skirts in the woods.

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-Right.

-For several reasons -

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but one of them is that the black flies and mosquitoes

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would get up under them. You don't want that.

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As well as being well-drilled in woodland survival,

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the Atwood children were schooled at home.

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The University of Toronto Library

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holds hundreds of their early creative works.

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This is Annie The Ant, which was my first novel, and it...

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Could you read me a bit of Annie The Ant?

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Well, it's very boring at the beginning.

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Well, why don't you go straight to the middle?

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You have to go from the beginning

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to realise that I've learned something about narrative,

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which is that you shouldn't be so boring

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at the beginning!

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It starts in a quite boring way, because Annie is an egg.

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Then Annie is a larva.

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"The larva that would produce Queen Ant had to be fed royal jelly,

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"but she was just a worker,

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"so she could eat all the crumbs and things that the grown-up worker ants

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"brought in and in a while she'd be able to turn into a pupa

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"and then into an ant". You hooked yet?

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Yeah, yeah, actually I'm enjoying this, go on.

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So inside the pupa...

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"She was slowly turning into an ant.

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"When it was time, Annie came out.

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"She looked around at this strange new world,

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"then she went out and worked with the other ants".

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Kind of like Brave New World, isn't it?!

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-Yes.

-Very much.

-And how did it end, the Annie book?

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How did it end? "The end".

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So, not nearly as exciting, I would say...

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As The Handmaid's Tale?

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For instance!

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In 1945, the family moved to Toronto

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and Margaret began to have more to do with cities,

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and with other children.

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After moving between several different schools,

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she arrived here, at Leaside High.

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For a young girl used to home-schooling,

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the rigours of the school routine came as something of a shock.

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It was the military phase of schools.

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The girls marched in the girls' door,

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the boys marched in the boys' door,

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and then you had to sit in rows and put up your hand

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and all of these kinds of things -

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and also the pace at which things moved was glacial.

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So I think I did develop an ability to look very attentive

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while thinking about something else.

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Elements of that experience of school

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would one day feed into her novel Cat's Eye.

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"So I am left to the girls, real girls at last, in the flesh,

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"but I'm not used to girls or familiar with their customs.

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"I feel awkward around them.

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"I don't know what to say.

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"I know the unspoken rules of boys...

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"..but with girls, I sense that I'm always on the verge

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"of some unforeseen calamitous blunder."

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Cat's Eye is about a girl who comes to a new environment,

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she's come from the country,

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rather like Margaret Atwood did herself,

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and goes to school and can read no codes.

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And, as we all know, the codes of girlhood are just...

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They're labyrinthine, they're mean, they're set for exclusion,

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they're set for cliques, all sorts of things.

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-FILM:

-Why don't you come over to my house

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and we'll work it out together?

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And I remember when we published that book, that people said,

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"Oh, it's like Lord Of The Flies, for girls".

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People hadn't really put it on the page before,

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what little girls do to each other, actually,

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and how wicked that is, and how they can destroy people.

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I mean, that's a brutal book in lots of ways, isn't it?

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"Perhaps she's forgotten the bad things, what she said to me,

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"or what she did - or she does remember them, but in a minor way.

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"As if remembering a game, or a single prank,

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"a single trivial secret of the kind girls tell and then forget.

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"She will have her own version - I am not the centre of her story,

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"because she herself is that...

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"but I could give her something

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"you can never have except from another person -

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"what you look like from the outside, a reflection.

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"This is part of herself I could give back to her.

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"We're like the twins in old fables,

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"each of whom has been given half a key."

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Although Cat's Eye contains elements of Atwood's own childhood years,

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the plot itself is purely fictitious,

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a fact that many critics were determined to ignore.

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People make the very naive connection between what they read

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in your books and who they think you are,

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often feel cheated when you tell them that you have invented

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things in your books, but truly that's what a writer is.

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-Yes.

-A writer is a person who writes, you know, fiction or poems,

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and that's different from...

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..factual books, books of biography.

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Yes, if your novel was merely,

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or your poem was merely an autobiography...

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-You could only write one book.

-Yes.

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By now it was the late 1940s.

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Women, no longer required for wartime production,

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had been herded back into the home.

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The baby boom was on.

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Marriage and four kids were the ideal,

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and remained so for the next 15 years.

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In the '50s you were given a guidance textbook, which was grey.

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This was supposed to help you choose your future career...

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..and in this guidance textbook,

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there were a lot of future careers for persons of the male gender.

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There were five for girls.

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Let's see if you can guess them...

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Nurse.

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Public school teacher.

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Airline stewardess - that was a new one - new, very glamorous

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at that time - you got the pillbox hat.

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Secretary...

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and home economist.

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I was 15 when Elvis Presley made his debut.

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This was the era of sock hops, of going steady, of drive-in movies,

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of well-meant articles by grown-ups

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about the dangers of necking and petting.

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Take me home!

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The pill was far in the future.

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Girls who got pregnant disappeared from sight.

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Gee, I haven't seen her since she left school.

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Either they'd undergone abortions, which had killed or mangled them,

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or they'd had shotgun weddings and were washing diapers...

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..or else they were hidden away, in homes for unwed mothers.

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This was a fate that needed, at all costs, to be avoided.

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Given such conditions, how is it that I became a writer?

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It wasn't a likely thing to have done,

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nor was it something I chose,

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as you might choose to become a lawyer or a dentist.

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I was walking past the football field and I wrote a poem,

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and then I thought, "This is what I want to do."

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-Just like that?

-Just like that.

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It was completely ignorant, you know,

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I had no idea what that might involve -

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but the main thing is that my parents being Depression-era

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-Nova Scotians...

-"Make some money."

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"You're going to have to support yourself,

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"how are you going to do that?"

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So I figured out, "I will be a journalist," said I.

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My parents...

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..dredged up a real journalist, who was a third cousin or other -

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we had a lot of those -

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and invited him to dinner to tell me about journalism,

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and obviously dissuade me from doing any such thing.

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And what he said was...

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..that if I worked for a newspaper, as he did,

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as a female person I would end up writing the obituaries

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and the ladies' pages, and that's it.

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So I thought, "OK, I'm not going to be a journalist.

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"I guess I'll just have to go to university."

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I was 17 when I enrolled at the University of Toronto.

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The year was 1957.

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Our professors let it be known that we were a dull lot.

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By and large, they were right.

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The boys were headed for the professions.

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The girls - for futures as their wives...

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..but there were also the others.

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The others wore black turtlenecks.

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They were few in number,

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often brilliant, considered pretentious,

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and were referred to as the "artsy-fartsys".

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At first they terrified me...

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then I, in turn, terrified others.

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"It is dangerous to read newspapers.

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"While I was building neat castles in the sandbox,

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"the hasty pits were filling with bulldozed corpses,

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"and as I walked to the school, washed and combed,

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"my feet stepping on the cracks in the cement, detonated red bones."

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All of this time I'd been writing, compulsively, badly, hopefully.

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I used my initials instead of my name.

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I didn't want anyone important to know that I was a girl.

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I want to ask you now about your first acceptance letter.

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-It must have been quite a moment when somebody said, "Yes".

-Yes.

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Yes. That was a now-defunct little magazine called the Canadian Forum.

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That was a thrill. So I ran out to the kitchen and said to my mother,

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"I just got an acceptance letter from the Canadian Forum",

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and she said, "What's that?"

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It was kind of crushing!

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Not everybody was in my world, Alan.

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By the late 1960s,

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Margaret was confident enough to write under her own name

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and published her first novel, The Edible Woman.

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Set in Toronto,

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it was the tale of a bright young woman

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who found herself pressured into an ill-advised engagement.

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As a result, she gradually became unable to eat.

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The thing that I found most winning about The Edible Woman

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was the way in which it tackled very serious issues,

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but with a kind of light, comic touch.

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That was the thing that won me over and made me think,

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"I'd like to read more work by this author."

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People come up about The Edible Woman and they say,

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"Did you ever stop eating?" And I say, "No."

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And they get all upset about this,

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-because usually they have.

-Mm-hm. Yes.

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Usually they have had the experience that I have written about

0:21:070:21:10

and they can't figure out, how come I have written about it

0:21:100:21:13

without having had it? But it's very simple, you say,

0:21:130:21:17

"Well, did Agatha Christie really commit all those murders?"

0:21:170:21:20

Mm-hm. Yes.

0:21:200:21:21

It wasn't just the subject matter -

0:21:220:21:25

the Canadian setting was also unusual.

0:21:250:21:27

The setting of Toronto really just jumped out at me.

0:21:290:21:32

I, later, as an academic and a scholar,

0:21:320:21:35

discovered that one of the early drafts of the novel

0:21:350:21:38

placed the events of the novel in a city called Goronto,

0:21:380:21:43

which I couldn't help but think was a kind of playful acknowledgement

0:21:430:21:46

that Toronto had yet to make its way into literary fiction.

0:21:460:21:48

Atwood's rise as a writer coincided with Expo 67...

0:21:550:21:59

..a world exhibition in Montreal

0:22:020:22:05

billed as the greatest show on earth.

0:22:050:22:07

For the first time, Canada felt forward-thinking and modern.

0:22:110:22:15

A player on the world stage.

0:22:160:22:18

If you think that the Canadian flag as you know it today...

0:22:200:22:24

We only got that in 1965,

0:22:240:22:26

so there was a lot of feeling of something starting.

0:22:260:22:29

Lots of conversation, I do remember this.

0:22:320:22:34

"What is the Canadian self-identity?

0:22:340:22:36

"What is the Canadian self-identity?"

0:22:360:22:39

And literature was definitely asking that.

0:22:390:22:40

Expo 67 coincided with the birth of the Anansi Press,

0:22:430:22:48

a progressive publishing house that championed Canadian authors

0:22:480:22:51

in their native country.

0:22:510:22:54

At Anansi, populist how-to guides funded new work by upcoming talent.

0:22:540:23:00

Margaret Atwood was involved from the start.

0:23:020:23:05

We had this line of books.

0:23:060:23:08

Do you know the Idiot's Guides?

0:23:080:23:10

-Yeah.

-OK, so this was early Idiot's Guides.

0:23:100:23:12

One of them was called Law, Law, Law,

0:23:120:23:14

and it was how to write your own divorce and your own will

0:23:140:23:17

without having to pay a lawyer -

0:23:170:23:19

and one of them was called VD.

0:23:190:23:22

It was the first VD book.

0:23:220:23:24

So we were sitting around having an editorial meeting...

0:23:240:23:27

..a financial editorial board meeting,

0:23:290:23:32

and what was going to be our next thing?

0:23:320:23:35

Should it be a cookbook?

0:23:350:23:38

Those kinds of ideas -

0:23:380:23:39

and I said there isn't really a relatable and understandable

0:23:390:23:44

direct book on Canadian literature,

0:23:440:23:48

something that answers the question that people are always asking me,

0:23:480:23:51

which is, "Isn't it just second-rate British or American?

0:23:510:23:54

"Why should we bother? Surely it's just a blank on the map."

0:23:540:23:58

So we decided that we were going to write the VD of Canadian literature.

0:23:580:24:03

She called the book Survival.

0:24:080:24:11

In it, Atwood boldly made the case

0:24:130:24:16

for a unique and distinctive Canadian literature,

0:24:160:24:19

centred around victims

0:24:190:24:21

and their ability to survive the elements.

0:24:210:24:24

It's not surprising to me that she wrote a book about Canadian writing

0:24:270:24:31

because she embodies that sort of relationship, I think,

0:24:310:24:34

between a person and the landscape.

0:24:340:24:38

For me, that's a very Canadian concern...

0:24:380:24:40

..and I think that connection is really crucial to her writing

0:24:420:24:45

and really crucial to her thinking

0:24:450:24:47

and crucial to Canadian thinking, I would say, too.

0:24:470:24:49

"Every country or culture

0:24:530:24:54

"has a single unifying and informing symbol at its core.

0:24:540:25:00

"The central symbol for Canada is undoubtedly survival.

0:25:000:25:04

"Our stories are likely to be tales from awful experience.

0:25:090:25:12

"The north, the snowstorm, the sinking ship

0:25:140:25:18

"that killed everyone else.

0:25:180:25:20

"The survivor has not triumph or victory

0:25:220:25:25

"but the fact of his survival.

0:25:250:25:27

"He has little after his ordeal that he did not have before,

0:25:290:25:33

"except gratitude for having escaped with his life."

0:25:330:25:36

We thought we might sell 5,000 copies, which was big in our world -

0:25:400:25:44

and for some reason it just hit that moment.

0:25:440:25:47

When Survival was published in 1972, it sold 30,000 copies.

0:25:510:25:56

Huge, for that time.

0:25:570:26:00

Suddenly Margaret Atwood was a household name.

0:26:000:26:03

Well, it was a double-barrelled shotgun.

0:26:040:26:06

That was the moment which Farley Mowat,

0:26:060:26:09

a well-known writer of the time,

0:26:090:26:11

said to me, "Now you are a target and people will shoot at you."

0:26:110:26:15

-And was he right?

-Absolutely.

0:26:170:26:19

I think that a certain kind of thing happens to people

0:26:190:26:22

when they achieve a certain degree of work -

0:26:220:26:25

we might call it success or we could call it notoriety -

0:26:250:26:29

but people think of them...

0:26:290:26:32

I mean, they stop thinking of them as a writer

0:26:320:26:36

and start thinking of them

0:26:360:26:37

as a kind of substitute preacher.

0:26:370:26:40

It turns you into a sort of cardboard cut-out.

0:26:400:26:42

That same year, Margaret published Surfacing, her second novel,

0:26:470:26:52

which was later made into a film.

0:26:520:26:53

It's a story of self-discovery

0:26:550:26:57

set against the landscape she knew so well.

0:26:570:27:00

'Surfacing, to me, so much epitomises a woman

0:27:020:27:06

'in a landscape in Canada,

0:27:060:27:08

'particularly in Ontario, a province full of lakes and woods.'

0:27:080:27:12

It's sort of a '60s book in some ways, too,

0:27:130:27:15

cos it's about finding yourself. It's pre-feminism in many ways -

0:27:150:27:19

but it's so much about the landscape,

0:27:190:27:21

it's so much about the water.

0:27:210:27:22

So much about diving into yourself...

0:27:240:27:27

..and I think there was that sense of mapping this country.

0:27:320:27:35

She also had this wonderful phrase, "A country needs its own voice",

0:27:350:27:39

and I think she was part of that generation

0:27:390:27:41

that were just rising all up to answer those questions.

0:27:410:27:44

For a Canadian woman coming of age in the 1960s,

0:27:590:28:02

the expectation was courtship, love and marriage -

0:28:020:28:07

and the sooner, the better...

0:28:070:28:08

..but Margaret was in no hurry to conform.

0:28:100:28:12

There were two broken engagements, and one short-lived marriage

0:28:140:28:18

before she met the writer, Graeme Gibson,

0:28:180:28:21

who would become her lifelong partner.

0:28:210:28:23

How did you meet, and was it instant attraction?

0:28:280:28:30

No.

0:28:320:28:33

It was a noisy...this noisy party at Grossman's in Toronto,

0:28:340:28:37

and she told me she thought that my book should have won

0:28:370:28:40

the Governor General's Award when hers was one of the three.

0:28:400:28:43

And conversely, you said...

0:28:430:28:44

No, he didn't.

0:28:440:28:46

I said, "My goodness..." I've forgotten...

0:28:460:28:48

I was overcome, Peggy, as I so frequently am.

0:28:480:28:51

Graeme is a gentleman, he's kind and loving, attentive,

0:28:530:28:58

totally in awe of her.

0:28:580:29:00

She's so lucky to have him

0:29:000:29:02

because not a lot of men in such a relationship

0:29:020:29:05

would be able to deal with her intensity, her drive, her ambition,

0:29:050:29:11

and yet he's there for her at every turn.

0:29:110:29:14

In 1973,

0:29:170:29:18

Margaret and Graeme moved to a farm in the rural community of Alliston.

0:29:180:29:25

Three years later,

0:29:250:29:27

their daughter Jess was born.

0:29:270:29:29

I remember what a lovely mother she was.

0:29:320:29:35

She wasn't a doting mum, and she treated Jess as a little adult.

0:29:350:29:40

"With a choked cry,

0:29:400:29:41

"Israel Hands loosed his grasp upon the shrouds and plunged headfirst

0:29:410:29:46

-"into the water."

-How come?

0:29:460:29:48

He shot him by mistake.

0:29:480:29:49

-Who did?

-Jim Hawkins shot Israel Hands by mistake.

0:29:490:29:54

Hmm...

0:29:540:29:55

OK, that's the end of that chapter.

0:29:570:29:59

When I was an aspiring female poet,

0:30:020:30:05

the notion of required sacrifice was simply accepted.

0:30:050:30:10

The same was true for any sort of career for a woman...

0:30:100:30:13

but art was worse,

0:30:130:30:16

because the sacrifice was more complete.

0:30:160:30:18

You couldn't be a wife and a mother and also an artist,

0:30:200:30:24

because each one of these things required total dedication.

0:30:240:30:28

SHE WHISTLES

0:30:290:30:31

"Spelling.

0:30:350:30:36

"My daughter plays on the floor with plastic letters.

0:30:360:30:39

"Red, blue and hard yellow.

0:30:390:30:42

"Learning how to spell, spelling, how to make spells.

0:30:420:30:47

"I wonder how many women denied themselves daughters,

0:30:470:30:50

"closed themselves in rooms,

0:30:500:30:52

"drew the curtains so they could mainline words.

0:30:520:30:55

"A child is not a poem, a poem is not a child.

0:30:560:31:00

"There is no either or."

0:31:000:31:01

Is parenting done equally?

0:31:050:31:07

Parenting isn't a job, it's a condition of the universe.

0:31:070:31:10

Margaret Atwood is often described as a feminist writer,

0:31:140:31:18

but she maintains that her popularity

0:31:180:31:20

amongst the feminist community was unsought.

0:31:200:31:23

I began as a profoundly apolitical writer,

0:31:260:31:30

but then I began to do what all novelists and some poets do -

0:31:300:31:34

I began to describe the world around me.

0:31:340:31:36

Women suffer in my novels because most women I talk to

0:31:380:31:41

seem to have suffered.

0:31:410:31:43

In 1984,

0:31:470:31:48

Margaret spent several months in Berlin

0:31:480:31:51

on a cultural fellowship programme.

0:31:510:31:53

At the time, it was a city divided.

0:31:550:31:58

It was in Berlin that she began the novel that would make her

0:32:000:32:04

an international name.

0:32:040:32:06

The Handmaid's Tale is a work of speculative fiction,

0:32:100:32:12

or dystopian fiction, in which women have been reduced

0:32:120:32:15

solely to their reproductive function.

0:32:150:32:18

The Republic of Gilead is a terrifying world in which women

0:32:180:32:22

are denied access to any kind of autonomy,

0:32:220:32:25

any kind of right to control the course of their own lives.

0:32:250:32:29

"The lawns are tidy, the facades are gracious, in good repair.

0:32:340:32:39

"They're like the beautiful pictures they used to print in the magazines

0:32:390:32:42

"about homes and gardens and interior decoration.

0:32:420:32:46

"There is the same absence of people,

0:32:470:32:50

"the same air of being asleep.

0:32:500:32:53

"The street is almost like a museum,

0:32:550:32:58

"or a street in a model town

0:32:580:33:00

"constructed to show the way people used to live.

0:33:000:33:05

"As in those pictures, those museums, those model towns,

0:33:050:33:10

"there are no children.

0:33:100:33:12

"This is the heart of Gilead, where the war cannot intrude,

0:33:130:33:17

"except on television.

0:33:170:33:20

"Where the edges are, we aren't sure.

0:33:200:33:23

"They vary according to the attacks and counterattacks,

0:33:230:33:27

"but this is the centre, where nothing moves.

0:33:270:33:31

" 'The Republic of Gilead,' said Aunt Lydia, 'knows no bounds.

0:33:310:33:37

" 'Gilead is within you.' "

0:33:370:33:40

The Handmaid's Tale is, of all your books,

0:33:460:33:48

it's one that everyone talks about.

0:33:480:33:50

I know - and increasingly, now.

0:33:500:33:52

The Handmaid's Tale I wrote partly in answer to the question,

0:33:520:33:57

if you were going to put in a totalitarian regime

0:33:570:34:00

in the United States, what kind of totalitarian regime would it be?

0:34:000:34:05

As we know from the history of the 20th century,

0:34:050:34:09

both the USSR and Nazi Germany

0:34:090:34:12

came in as utopian plans.

0:34:120:34:16

On the other hand, if you have no plans for making things better...

0:34:160:34:19

..they get worse.

0:34:200:34:22

So we're always caught between these two things.

0:34:220:34:27

What do we mean by better?

0:34:270:34:29

How do we get from here to that better?

0:34:290:34:33

And does that better involve a big hole

0:34:330:34:36

with a lot of dead people in it?

0:34:360:34:39

As has frequently been the case.

0:34:390:34:41

It was also partly in answer to the question,

0:34:410:34:44

if you were going to put women back into the home,

0:34:440:34:47

as the right was already saying they should be put in the 1980s,

0:34:470:34:53

how do you make them go back in?

0:34:530:34:56

Now that the...

0:34:560:34:57

box has been opened and the butterflies are out

0:34:570:35:01

and flitting about, how do you cram them all back in?

0:35:010:35:04

By what method?

0:35:040:35:05

Kneel.

0:35:100:35:11

'In The Handmaid's Tale, their method

0:35:140:35:17

'is to force women to reproduce

0:35:170:35:19

'for the good of the state.'

0:35:190:35:20

You girls will serve the leaders,

0:35:250:35:28

and their barren wives.

0:35:280:35:30

You will bear children for them.

0:35:300:35:32

Oh, you are so lucky!

0:35:340:35:37

'The red cover-ups that the handmaids are required to wear,

0:35:390:35:42

'where did that come from?'

0:35:420:35:44

It came from several different sources.

0:35:440:35:46

Number one, I was frightened as a child

0:35:460:35:49

by the Old Dutch Cleanser packet.

0:35:490:35:51

-Tell me about...

-Old Dutch Cleanser

0:35:510:35:54

was something you cleaned sinks with.

0:35:540:35:57

On it was a picture of a Dutch woman in a big blue outfit

0:35:570:36:01

with a bonnet that hid her face.

0:36:010:36:04

So, I was quite frightened by it as a child, this was...

0:36:040:36:07

You were looking into the abyss when you looked at that package.

0:36:070:36:12

Another one was, in Canada, during the War,

0:36:120:36:16

in prisoner of war camps, the outfits were red,

0:36:160:36:21

and the reason the outfits were red is that you could see anybody trying

0:36:210:36:25

to run away across the snow.

0:36:250:36:28

The other idea of course is from Christian colour iconography.

0:36:280:36:32

So, European painting,

0:36:330:36:35

you will always see in these pictures the Virgin Mary wears blue,

0:36:350:36:39

Mary Magdalene wears red.

0:36:390:36:42

So, red went on a woman in a picture of that kind,

0:36:420:36:45

it is a very sexualised colour.

0:36:450:36:48

The Handmaid's Tale resonates with troubling attempts

0:36:530:36:57

to control women's lives throughout history.

0:36:570:36:59

From the Salem witch trials, to Nazi Germany,

0:37:010:37:05

where they tried to breed an Aryan race.

0:37:050:37:08

To Romania under Ceausescu,

0:37:110:37:13

where birth control and abortions were banned.

0:37:130:37:16

One of my rules for the book was I would put nothing into it

0:37:190:37:22

that had not already been done somewhere.

0:37:220:37:25

So there was a precedent for every single thing in it.

0:37:250:37:28

The shocking thing was that I took all of these precedents

0:37:280:37:32

and put them into Cambridge, Massachusetts,

0:37:320:37:35

supposedly the home of liberal democracy.

0:37:350:37:39

Why is that? Because, having been born in 1939,

0:37:390:37:42

I never believe it can't happen here.

0:37:420:37:45

Illegal immigration is so rampant and so dangerous and so bad

0:37:490:37:53

for the United States, OK? Period, that's it.

0:37:530:37:56

When are we going to get smart, folks?

0:37:560:37:58

When are we going to get smart?

0:37:580:38:00

Three decades after it was first published,

0:38:020:38:05

The Handmaid's Tale has once again struck a nerve.

0:38:050:38:09

It was quite telling

0:38:110:38:12

that a lot of the women's marches around the world,

0:38:120:38:15

days after the inauguration of Donald Trump,

0:38:150:38:19

they sported signs and carrying quotations,

0:38:190:38:23

slogans and mantras from The Handmaid's Tale...

0:38:230:38:26

..and there's a good reason for that.

0:38:270:38:29

It's a novel that is a work of speculative fiction

0:38:290:38:31

or dystopian fiction, if you prefer,

0:38:310:38:34

but it's a novel that, as Atwood insisted as the time,

0:38:340:38:36

was really also recording things that had already happened

0:38:360:38:39

and were happening in the world in the present moment,

0:38:390:38:42

and I think that the fact that in 2017

0:38:420:38:44

we are going back to The Handmaid's Tale

0:38:440:38:46

really speaks to the power of the novel

0:38:460:38:48

as a kind of prophecy

0:38:480:38:50

and as a novel that could almost enter into any chapter of history

0:38:500:38:54

and find resonance.

0:38:540:38:55

I think the urgency is in everything,

0:39:000:39:01

I think it's been in everything she's ever written.

0:39:010:39:04

She's always understood the ways in which the power can go wrong

0:39:040:39:07

in our lives, the ways in which we have to embrace authority,

0:39:070:39:11

and at the same time understand that authority

0:39:110:39:14

is at all points undermineable -

0:39:140:39:17

and should be, to check its structures -

0:39:170:39:19

and she checks the power structure with everything she writes.

0:39:190:39:22

Margaret's fascination with science fiction,

0:39:300:39:33

both as a writer and reader, goes right back to her childhood.

0:39:330:39:37

Like a great many children before and since,

0:39:420:39:45

I was an inventor of other worlds.

0:39:450:39:47

Mine were rudimentary,

0:39:490:39:50

as such worlds are when you are six or seven...

0:39:500:39:53

..but they were emphatically not at this here-and-now Earth.

0:39:540:39:57

I wasn't much interested in Dick and Jane.

0:39:580:40:01

The creepily ultra-normal characters did not convince me.

0:40:010:40:05

Saturn was more my speed,

0:40:050:40:07

and other realms even more outlandish.

0:40:070:40:10

Our earliest loves, like revenants,

0:40:120:40:16

have a way of coming back in other forms -

0:40:160:40:19

or, to paraphrase Wordsworth,

0:40:190:40:21

the child is mother to the woman.

0:40:210:40:23

So, when you started your first storytelling ventures,

0:40:250:40:29

they involved your brother Harold, didn't they?

0:40:290:40:31

Well, we drew comics.

0:40:310:40:33

He was much more prolific than I was,

0:40:330:40:35

cos he was practically three years older,

0:40:350:40:37

and he had great sagas going on,

0:40:370:40:39

and they, of course, were very warlike,

0:40:390:40:43

because it was the War and immediately post-war

0:40:430:40:46

and we were all very attuned to that as kids.

0:40:460:40:50

Oh, this is good. I love this.

0:40:510:40:53

What's On Neptune?

0:40:530:40:55

"Introduction. This story is not true.

0:40:550:40:57

"Of course, there is a planet called Neptune,

0:40:570:41:00

"but its inhabitation is unknown.

0:41:000:41:02

"I have made up a number of things

0:41:020:41:04

"that will be used in the next two volumes.

0:41:040:41:06

"Harold L Atwood, author of Alfred's Youth, etc, etc.

0:41:060:41:11

-"Read on."

-Go on, then, read on.

0:41:110:41:13

I think every author should put that at the beginning of their book.

0:41:130:41:17

Number one - a number of things are not true.

0:41:170:41:20

We know, it's called fiction.

0:41:200:41:22

Here's what else you've written, and then read on.

0:41:220:41:24

In contrast to her brother's epic sagas,

0:41:260:41:29

Margaret's stories took a softer approach.

0:41:290:41:32

Painting the Easter egg.

0:41:320:41:33

Yes.

0:41:330:41:35

Slight mystery about the gender of the Easter Bunny.

0:41:350:41:39

Always spoken of as "he", but where were those eggs coming from?

0:41:390:41:44

To date, Margaret Atwood has written five novels

0:41:480:41:51

that could be described as science fiction...

0:41:510:41:54

..but, rather than the far-flung galaxies of her childhood,

0:41:550:41:59

her adult novels are firmly rooted on planet Earth.

0:41:590:42:02

The MaddAddam trilogy takes place in, let's say, nearish future.

0:42:050:42:10

Human beings have done horrible things with technology -

0:42:100:42:13

as we are trying to do.

0:42:130:42:15

There are various rather disgusting biological things

0:42:150:42:18

that are being done, the internet has grown,

0:42:180:42:21

there are more different kinds of drugs available -

0:42:210:42:24

and there's an apocalyptic event.

0:42:240:42:28

There is an event that essentially destroys most of the human race,

0:42:280:42:35

and then we see what becomes of the remnant.

0:42:350:42:37

"Men can imagine their own deaths.

0:42:410:42:43

"They can see them coming,

0:42:440:42:46

"and the mere thought of impending death acts like an aphrodisiac.

0:42:460:42:50

"A dog, a rabbit, doesn't behave like that.

0:42:510:42:54

"Take birds. In a lean season,

0:42:560:42:58

"they cut down on the eggs, or they won't mate at all.

0:42:580:43:01

"They put their energy into staying alive themselves

0:43:030:43:06

"until times get better...

0:43:060:43:09

"but human beings hope they can stick their souls into someone else,

0:43:090:43:14

"some new version of themselves, and live on forever.

0:43:140:43:17

"As a species, are we doomed by hope, then?

0:43:180:43:22

"You could call it hope - that...

0:43:230:43:26

"or desperation."

0:43:260:43:28

For Margaret, science fiction is a bit like

0:43:330:43:37

a fire and brimstone sermon,

0:43:370:43:39

where you might say, "This is where you're going,

0:43:390:43:43

"this is what could happen to you if you don't mend your ways today."

0:43:430:43:47

She does sort of warn us, I feel.

0:43:510:43:52

If you don't take care of the landscape,

0:43:550:43:56

you don't take care of the wildlife.

0:43:560:43:58

If you don't prize what's important between human beings,

0:43:580:44:02

this is what will happen.

0:44:020:44:03

We grew up in Canada knowing that it's dangerous.

0:44:060:44:10

The landscape can be dangerous. The weather's dangerous.

0:44:100:44:13

You can be in places that can overwhelm you.

0:44:130:44:15

What I like about the sort of length of time

0:44:180:44:20

that Margaret Atwood's been writing and talking about the natural world

0:44:200:44:24

is that, in a way, it started off

0:44:240:44:26

thinking the natural world could kill us,

0:44:260:44:29

and now she is very much saying, "Actually, wait a minute,

0:44:290:44:32

"we're killing the natural world ourselves."

0:44:320:44:34

"I am the horizon you ride towards, the thing you can never lasso.

0:44:420:44:47

"I am also what surrounds you, my brain scattered with your tin cans,

0:44:480:44:53

"bones, empty shells, the litter of your invasions.

0:44:530:44:57

"I am the space you desecrate as you pass through."

0:44:580:45:01

Both Margaret and her husband Graeme

0:45:090:45:11

are passionate environmental campaigners

0:45:110:45:14

and honorary presidents of Canada's Rare Bird Club.

0:45:140:45:18

See it?

0:45:200:45:21

-The one inside - oh, it just stuck its head out.

-Oh, OK.

0:45:210:45:25

Every year they return to Pelee Island,

0:45:250:45:28

a bird-watcher's paradise in Lake Erie.

0:45:280:45:31

Did your love of birds and the preservation of birds -

0:45:320:45:36

did it come from your childhood?

0:45:360:45:38

Oh, I grew up with it.

0:45:380:45:41

I'm like a person who grows up with a religion

0:45:410:45:44

and therefore takes it for granted, whereas Graeme is like a convert,

0:45:440:45:48

and you know they are always more enthusiastic!

0:45:480:45:52

So, he is really the main mover behind our bird activity.

0:45:520:45:57

There is a problem, there's no question.

0:45:580:46:01

I've been doing this now for 15 years, now,

0:46:010:46:04

with the birds here on this island,

0:46:040:46:06

and there's far fewer now than when we started.

0:46:060:46:09

So, in bird conservation,

0:46:160:46:18

cats are thought to be responsible in North America

0:46:180:46:21

for the largest numbers of migratory bird deaths,

0:46:210:46:27

and conservation organisations have traditionally tiptoed around that,

0:46:270:46:33

because cat owners are quite passionate about their cats.

0:46:330:46:37

Therefore, how do you tackle the problem

0:46:370:46:39

without losing your major donors and attracting a lot of hate mail?

0:46:390:46:42

Margaret's latest venture is a comic book take

0:46:510:46:54

on Canada's cat-bird problem,

0:46:540:46:57

starring a superhero who is part cat, part bird.

0:46:570:47:01

Angel Catbird.

0:47:040:47:05

To bring the character to life, she enlisted the help

0:47:090:47:12

of Vancouver-based artist Johnnie Christmas.

0:47:120:47:15

Angel Catbird is a story about a scientist

0:47:180:47:22

who is working on a gene-splicing formula.

0:47:220:47:24

He has a mysterious accident one night where he gets hit by a car.

0:47:240:47:29

This cat and this owl comes along,

0:47:300:47:32

and then the gene fluid splashes on him

0:47:320:47:34

and he gets merged with these creatures.

0:47:340:47:37

The character of Angel Catbird is based on an idea

0:47:410:47:44

that Margaret's been sketching since childhood.

0:47:440:47:47

-Oh, here we are.

-What's this?

-OK.

0:47:500:47:51

This is the original flying cat.

0:47:510:47:54

-Oh!

-There it is.

0:47:540:47:56

Where did the flying cat come from?

0:47:560:47:58

Well, I wasn't allowed to have a cat because we were up in the woods,

0:47:580:48:02

so, I very much wanted to have one,

0:48:020:48:04

and, of course, here is somebody with their cat on a leash,

0:48:040:48:08

various wish-fulfilment pictures of having cats.

0:48:080:48:13

So you only came back to the flying cat, to the Angel Catbird...

0:48:130:48:18

-In later life.

-In later life.

-That's true.

0:48:180:48:20

-Really later life.

-Yes, but think of...

0:48:200:48:22

..all the repression that must have gone on to produce such an outburst.

0:48:230:48:27

Yes!

0:48:270:48:29

One thing I really enjoy about working with Margaret on this

0:48:330:48:36

is that, if the idea's good, that's what we go with.

0:48:360:48:39

There's not a lot of ego in the...

0:48:410:48:42

"Well, this is my idea and this idea has to stand because it's mine,

0:48:440:48:49

"it's the best idea."

0:48:490:48:51

Margaret gave me bullet points on the important things.

0:48:520:48:55

She wanted, like, feathery feet, owl features, cat features

0:48:550:49:00

sort of thing, but she left it very open.

0:49:000:49:02

I thought he was just going to be kind of fur,

0:49:050:49:07

he was just going to be this fur man, you know?

0:49:070:49:09

There's no need to put on pants because you wouldn't see

0:49:090:49:12

any genitalia, because he's just covered in fur -

0:49:120:49:15

but Margaret immediately was like, "Is he going to be wearing pants?"

0:49:150:49:19

Like, none of that is going to be going on -

0:49:190:49:21

and then there were like...

0:49:210:49:22

..I don't know how many versions of superhero pants we went through.

0:49:240:49:27

Then we conferred on pants, and you can find them.

0:49:270:49:30

Sketches of the pants. I sent him a book on feathers.

0:49:300:49:33

I said that they should be feathered pants.

0:49:330:49:35

So, this is the design that we chose.

0:49:350:49:38

Simple and elegant -

0:49:380:49:39

and that translated into this, but then he said,

0:49:390:49:43

"We need an origin story for the pants, cos they can't just appear."

0:49:430:49:48

So you will read in the comic that we added an origin story

0:49:480:49:53

for the pants.

0:49:530:49:54

We all remember Superman and how puzzled we were as children.

0:49:540:49:58

I mean that question about where Superman's clothes were

0:49:580:50:02

when he was Clark Kent -

0:50:020:50:03

that was never really satisfactorily answered.

0:50:030:50:06

He just would go into the phone booth,

0:50:060:50:08

take off his clothes and come out as Superman.

0:50:080:50:11

You know, where did his civilian clothes go when he did that?

0:50:110:50:14

So where does Angel Catbird put his?

0:50:140:50:17

I'm not going to tell you, it's in the text.

0:50:170:50:19

-Oh, it's in there, is it?

-Yeah, it's right in here.

0:50:190:50:21

-It's in the story.

-I'll find it.

-Yes, you will!

0:50:210:50:23

The double life led by all comic book superheroes

0:50:250:50:29

is something that's always been second nature to Margaret.

0:50:290:50:33

Or should that be Peggy?

0:50:330:50:35

You might say I was fated to be a writer,

0:50:380:50:40

because I was endowed at birth with a double identity.

0:50:400:50:43

Due to the Romanticism of my father, I was named after my mother -

0:50:450:50:51

but then there were two of us,

0:50:510:50:53

so I had to be called something else.

0:50:530:50:55

Thus I grew up with a nickname, Peggy.

0:50:560:50:59

Waste not, want not - I was bound to do something

0:51:000:51:03

with this extra name of mine sooner or later...

0:51:030:51:06

..so, the author's the name on the books.

0:51:070:51:10

I am the other one.

0:51:100:51:12

She's Margaret Atwood to everyone,

0:51:190:51:21

and then sometimes when you get in, slightly in on the inner circle

0:51:210:51:25

you get to call her Peggy...

0:51:250:51:26

..but I think she's quite clever with that,

0:51:290:51:32

because when you're as big a public figure as she is,

0:51:320:51:35

you need to protect yourself.

0:51:350:51:37

Margaret, your stories make me very sad.

0:51:390:51:41

Oh, that's too bad.

0:51:410:51:42

I thought the characters were all so very lonely.

0:51:440:51:46

Well, a lot of people are.

0:51:460:51:47

It's nice she has Peggy to kind of retreat to.

0:51:500:51:52

You know, kind of Margaret Atwood can be the person

0:51:520:51:55

who can take the flak or the praise, but Peggy can go home.

0:51:550:51:58

Do you care, as a matter of interest,

0:52:040:52:05

how the critics respond to your books?

0:52:050:52:08

You mean when I'm writing the book do I worry what critics will say?

0:52:080:52:11

Well, or even afterwards?

0:52:110:52:12

You can't predict it, but when you write a book,

0:52:120:52:16

you already know yourself what's wrong with it.

0:52:160:52:20

-You don't need to be told.

-You know where the weak points are.

0:52:200:52:23

You hope you've papered them over enough

0:52:230:52:25

so that people won't see them!

0:52:250:52:27

Sometimes it's just...

0:52:270:52:28

The book is what it is,

0:52:300:52:31

and some people are going to have ideological troubles with it,

0:52:310:52:35

no matter how good it is or bad it is as a book.

0:52:350:52:39

Margaret's received numerous literary accolades,

0:52:410:52:44

but for years the Booker Prize eluded her.

0:52:440:52:47

When The Blind Assassin was shortlisted,

0:52:480:52:50

it was the fourth time she'd been nominated for this coveted award.

0:52:500:52:54

She said to me,

0:52:570:52:58

"Shall I come over for the dinner?"

0:52:580:53:00

Because she'd been twice before and hadn't won,

0:53:000:53:05

and there was murmurs about, oh, you know,

0:53:050:53:11

"God, it's going to be three times the bridesmaid, never the bride."

0:53:110:53:15

She said, "Do I need this?

0:53:150:53:18

"Shall I come? What do you think?"

0:53:180:53:20

And I said, "I think you should.

0:53:200:53:23

"I think it would be a great shame if you didn't come,

0:53:230:53:27

"whatever happens."

0:53:270:53:28

And the winner, the first Booker Prize of the 21st century,

0:53:280:53:32

Margaret Atwood.

0:53:320:53:33

APPLAUSE

0:53:330:53:35

It was such a big relief!

0:53:370:53:39

I mean she's won so many prizes,

0:53:390:53:41

but somehow this was getting to be a bit of a burden,

0:53:410:53:44

I thought, you know.

0:53:440:53:46

It would just be wonderful to just tick that one off.

0:53:460:53:50

First of all, Margaret Atwood,

0:53:500:53:52

congratulations on winning the Booker.

0:53:520:53:54

Do awards still matter to you?

0:53:540:53:57

Oh, I think they always matter in some shape or form.

0:53:570:54:00

Particularly that one, because it was the fourth go.

0:54:010:54:04

"Why is it we want so badly to memorialise ourselves?

0:54:080:54:13

"Even while we are still alive.

0:54:130:54:16

"We wish to assert our existence like dogs peeing on fire hydrants.

0:54:160:54:21

"We put on display our framed photographs, our parchment diplomas,

0:54:210:54:26

"our silver-plated cups. We monogram our linen.

0:54:260:54:29

"We carve our name on trees.

0:54:290:54:31

"We scrawl them on washroom walls.

0:54:310:54:34

"It's all the same impulse.

0:54:340:54:35

"What do we hope from it?

0:54:370:54:39

"Applause? Envy? Respect?

0:54:390:54:41

"Or simply attention of any kind we can get?

0:54:410:54:45

"At the very least, we want a witness.

0:54:460:54:49

"We can't stand the idea of our own voices

0:54:490:54:52

"falling silent, finally, like a radio running down."

0:54:520:54:57

Throughout their friendship,

0:55:170:55:19

Margaret has been a muse to Charles Pachter,

0:55:190:55:22

who has painted her many times over the years.

0:55:220:55:25

Well, honey, that's 60 years ago.

0:55:280:55:31

Isn't that frightful?

0:55:310:55:33

When you think about it.

0:55:330:55:35

Can you believe it?

0:55:350:55:36

Keith, bring my scarf in, the yellow one.

0:55:370:55:40

-Please.

-Please.

0:55:400:55:41

You want me to wear it...?!

0:55:430:55:45

But the eyes are the mirror of the soul,

0:55:460:55:48

and when you get the eyes right,

0:55:480:55:49

everything else follows suit.

0:55:490:55:51

She's got these gorgeous blue eyes,

0:55:510:55:53

and sometimes you can see the blue and sometimes you can't.

0:55:530:55:57

Anyway, I'm having a good time.

0:55:570:55:59

What are you going to do here?

0:55:590:56:00

You're going to make the background blue?

0:56:000:56:02

-Yeah.

-You're going to ruin that nice drawing?

0:56:020:56:05

This is looking really good. I'm pleased.

0:56:050:56:08

You were mesmerising at age 27.

0:56:110:56:14

Look at you.

0:56:140:56:16

Oy.

0:56:160:56:17

You're still doing pretty good, honey.

0:56:170:56:19

MARGARET LAUGHS

0:56:190:56:21

You know how to mesmer, don't you?

0:56:210:56:22

OK, here we go.

0:56:280:56:30

HE CLEARS THROAT

0:56:300:56:32

Owl And Pussycat, Some Years Later.

0:56:320:56:35

"So, here we are again, my dear,

0:56:350:56:37

"on the same shore we set out from years ago, when we were promising -

0:56:370:56:42

"but minus, now, a lot of hair.

0:56:420:56:45

"Or fur, or feathers, whatever.

0:56:450:56:47

"I like the bifocals.

0:56:490:56:51

"They make you look even more like an owl than you are.

0:56:510:56:55

"I suppose we've both come far,

0:56:550:56:57

"but how far are we truly from where we started?"

0:56:570:57:00

All right. I'm going to do the teeny-weeny...

0:57:000:57:02

-You can do that little bit in there, yeah.

-..little bit.

0:57:020:57:05

"Under the fresh-laid moon, when we plotted to astound,

0:57:050:57:09

"when we thought something of meaning could still be done

0:57:090:57:11

"by singing, or won, like trophies.

0:57:110:57:14

"I took the fences, you the treetops,

0:57:160:57:19

"where we hooted and yowled our carnivorous, fervid hearts out.

0:57:190:57:23

"And see? We did get prizes.

0:57:230:57:26

"There they are.

0:57:260:57:27

"A scroll, a gold watch

0:57:270:57:29

"and a kiss-off handshake from the stand-in for the muse,

0:57:290:57:34

"who couldn't come herself but sent regrets.

0:57:340:57:37

"Now we can say flattering things about each other on dust jackets.

0:57:370:57:42

"Whatever made us think we could change the world?"

0:57:420:57:44

"Well, my dear,

0:57:480:57:50

"our leaky cardboard gondola has brought us this far.

0:57:500:57:54

"Us and our paper guitar.

0:57:540:57:56

"No longer semi-immortal, but now moulting owl and arthritic pussycat,

0:57:570:58:03

"we row out past the last protecting sand bar towards the salty open sea,

0:58:030:58:10

"the dog's-head gate, and after that, oblivion.

0:58:100:58:13

"But sing on, sing on.

0:58:150:58:18

"Someone may still be listening besides me.

0:58:180:58:21

"The fish, for instance.

0:58:210:58:23

"Anyway, my dearest one, we still have the moon."

0:58:230:58:28

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