In the Mirror

Peggy; O.W. Toad; the Canadian Lioness; our best writer...

There has been so much print and ink shared on the life of Margaret Atwood that I feel that this might just be the most pointless thing I have ever posted on Vocal. I could have just read the book, returned it to the library, and got on with my own writing. That would have been the sensible thing to do.

Well, I cannot do it.

Atwood's ''Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts'' is one of those I borrowed that I should soon buy and own to keep on my shelves and share with friends and family, just like I did this past winter with ''The Handmaid's Tale'' and will eventually do with ''Survival''.

Now, you must understand, I am a student of literature living in Canada. If you are in this country and have any interest in our writers, she is one that you are going to have to encounter (Alice Munro runs a close second, despite the change in reputation). We studied her poetry, novels, stories and articles; we saw her on the news and knew all about the awards and prizes she was winning as if it were the victory of a sports team. She was often described as being ''World-Famous in Canada'':

A phrase from the novelist Mordecai Richler: he used it as a description of those who were well known in his country of origin but not elsewhere... Either people didn't know where Canada was, or they didn't care... Yes, it was a provincial backwater, but the movement of a wheel is fastest at the edges: the centre remains static.

So, she kept writing, and writing, and writing, until we see the incredible list of works on the bio page - over sixty-five books - consider her cultural impact (''The Handmaid's Tale'' now joins George Orwell's ''1984'' as one of those prophetic texts that we can no longer laugh off), and realize that we are lucky enough to be living in her times.

There are life lessons, information about how to live out in the wild (her childhood was spent mostly in the bush of northern Canada with a scientist father and an outgoing mother), information on how to prepare for a speaking tour (hint: get some Fisherman's Friend packets), how other Canadians behave when no one's watching (some of you Michael Ondaatje fans are in for a real surprise), and...cartoons. A real surprise to see inside the covers, and a tradition she developed for those tours.

But how does she write?

Life lesson: I wasn't meant to be organized. I couldn't write anything that pleased me if there had been systematic advance planning... There are methodical writers and then there are improvisers. Some work with schedules, but others fool around, scribbling graffiti on the edges of their pages and playing dice with time. I now knew for certain which kind I was.

So, I at least have that in common with her. But this is not simply the book of a life lived on the page or for the work. It covers the relationship with her beloved and much missed Graeme Gibson, a writer in his own right, and also the founder of a couple of little groups called The Writer's Union of Canada and The Writers' Trust:

Although I was later involved in helping run these two organizations and served as the chair of the union in the late 1970s, neither was my idea at all. They were Graeme's projects - the sort of thing he was good at... Graeme, the alpha rooster, herded the scribes together.

Don't be fooled by the idea of writer that you hold in your head, especially a Canadian one. Mr. Gibson was a school dropout, traveller, lover of the outdoors, hellraiser, and the great love and support of his wife through good and bad moments. And he is still missed by those of us who understand what it took to make people care enough to support our literary community.

I end this with one final quote, under a section called ''On Fame: A Digression'':

While I was writing this memoir and my early readers were reading it, one of them kept asking, ''But how famous were you then?'' ''And what about then?''... fame is an indeterminate quality. Yesterday's hero is today's villain, yesterday's household name is today's nobody... Not everyone reads books, and not all readers of books read literary fiction...

There is, indeed, something ludicrous about fame. But it's better than the alternative, which is having an employer.

I really cannot improve on that, and I have work to do.

Thank you for looking in the mirror, Ms. Atwood.

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You can find more poems, stories, and articles by Kendall Defoe on my Vocal profile. I complain, argue, provoke and create...just like everybody else.

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