Margaret Atwood morphed into a world famous author when her The Handmaid’s Tale was published in 1985 and she became in intergalactic figure when HULU broadcast the TV version of The Handmaid’s Tale in 2019. The tale of a dystopian future where women are marginalized and a few become breeding machines for the political elite resonated in the time of Trump.
But over Margaret Atwood’s long career, she’s written several compelling novels and dozens of brilliant essays. In Burning Questions the focus tends to be on women and the ways society and culture deal with them. In a review of Marilyn French’s massive three-volume work on the history of Women, From Eve to Dawn, Atwood cites the “horse sacrifice” of ancient India. The priests at that time forced the raja’s wife to copulate with a dead horse (p. 23). Religion has not been kind to women over the centuries.
I also enjoyed Atwood’s essay on her early career. “I continued with my secret life, which was the life of a writer. Like vampires, I had to pursue this life at night.” And, “There’s not much about Kraft Dinner with hot dogs cut up into it that I don’t know.” (p. 42)
Atwood’s book reviews are fun, too. Alice Munro, Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, Richard Powers, and many more writers receive Atwood’s careful analysis. For Science Fiction fans, Atwood’s “Scientific Romancing” is one of the best essays on the SF genre I’ve ever read.
Burning Questions is a terrific book! Don’t miss it! GRADE: A
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Introduction — xiii
PART I: 2004-2009. What will happen next?
Scientific romancing — 3
Frozen in time — 14
From eve to dawn — 21
Polonia — 28
Somebody’s daughter — 32
Five visits to the word-hoard — 37
The echo maker — 49
Wetlands — 60
Trees of life, trees of death — 67
Ryszard Kapuściński — 78
Anne of Green Gables — 83
Alice Munro: an appreciation — 92
Ancient balances — 105
Scrooge — 119
A writing life — 123
PART II: 2010-2013. Art is our nature
The writer as political agent? Really? — 131
Literature and the environment — 137
Alice Munro — 148
The gift — 150
Bring up the bodies — 156
Rachel Carson anniversary — 160
The futures market — 169
Why I wrote Maddaddam — 184
Seven gothic tales — 189
Doctor sleep — 195
Doris Lessing — 199
How to change the world? — 202
PART III: 2014-2016. Which is to be master
In translationland — 217
On beauty — 230
The summer of the stromatolites — 234
Kafka — 238
Future library — 243
Reflections on The handmaid’s tale — 245
We are double-plus unfree — 259
Buttons or bows? — 266
Gabrielle Roy — 271
Shakespeare and me — 293
Marie-Claire blais — 306
Kiss of the fur queen — 311
We hang by a thread — 313
PART IV: 2017-2019. How slippery is the slope?
What art under Trump? — 323
The illustrated man — 328
Am I a bad feminist? — 335
We lost Ursula Le Guin when we needed her most — 340
Three tarot cards — 344
A slave state? — 361
Oryx and crake — 363
Greetings, earthlings! What are these human rights of which you speak? — 368
Payback — 380
Memory of fire — 384
Tell, the, truth — 387
PART V: 2020-2021. Thought and memory
Growing up in quarantineland — 393
The equivalents — 398
Inseparable — 402
We — 408
The writing of The testaments — 414
The bedside book of birds — 424
Perpetual motion and gentleman death — 427
Caught in time’s current — 433
Big science — 440
Barry Lopez — 444
The sea trilogy –446
Acknowledgements —541
Credits — 552
Index — 458
My two favorite Atwood books are from quite early in her writing career: THE EDIBLE WOMAN, which I think was published in the late-sixties or early-seventies; and LADY ORACLE, published in the mid-seventies, which mixes gothic/romance imagery with a modern story. Those books address deeper themes but both have a lot of humor. Although I could appreciate the writing in THE HANDMAID’S TALE, I never reread it because, even in the 1980s, I could tell she was describing a frighteningly plausible world. I haven’t read much of Atwood’s fiction in the past three decades, but this book of essays looks like it might be in my wheelhouse.
Deb, the range of essays and articles in BURNING QUESTIONS provides something for every reader. You’re right about Atwood’s humor. It comes out in many of these essays and book reviews. Atwood writes about the scene she was a part of in an episode of THE HANDMAID’S TALE when it was being filmed for HULU.
LADY ORACLE is my favorite of her novels so far, as well.
I haven’t read her fiction other than some short stories, but I appreciate her essays too.
Jeff, Margaret Atwood is a clever writer who possesses a track record of being prophetic.
I read most of her early books and enjoyed them. She has gotten more didactic as time passed although probably that is a good thing. I will look for this. Looking forward to next season of Handmaid’s Tale although also dreading it.
Patti, I confess I was surprised when HULU extended THE HANDMAID’S TALE after the First Season. What a horrific future!
Sounds really good, but one question:
George, how dare you recommend a book by an author whose most famous book has been banned by US schools?
End of sarcasm, though I could write more on banned books.
A bit OT:
As teenagers still at school my friends and I looked up titles and authors on the most famous list of banned books – the Index of the catholic church. We were a bit disappointed however because most of the titles were by heretics and Marxists etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_authors_and_works_on_the_Index_Librorum_Prohibitorum
Real juicy books like the famous Chinese Jing Ping Meh or 1001 Nights we could get from the father of one of my friends who was a school principal but very liberal …
Wolf, the idiots who run the schools in Florida have banned 40% of the math textbooks because they somehow offend their conservative sensibilities. A Trump appointed Federal Judge cancelled the mask mandate. Things are going to Hell quickly around here!
Comment in the Washington Post: what will they do in Florida when they discover there are non-binary numbers? lol
Deb, the math textbook fiasco in Florida is both repulsive and incomprehensible! Just because a minority member appears in a math word problem doesn’t mean the textbook should be banned!
Not knowing the reasons why the Florida math books were rejected, because all we got was DeSantis’s McCarthy-esque “41% of our math textbooks teach critical race theory” with no supporting proof or examples, my best guess is that the word problems featured characters named “Tamika and Rashad” or “Carlos and Marta,” rather than ones named “Kaitlyn and Liam.”
/I wish I were joking.
Deb, you are exactly right! We can’t have children exposed to Tamika and Rashad! DeSantis constantly plays the Race Card!
Deb, I chuckle at both your comments. Would that they were not too close to reality.
I’ve read some of her earlier essay collections (and one for FFB), and will take this one up. I wish her relation, as with Vonnegut’s, with SF wasn’t so utterly Love/Hate.
Todd, Vonnegut–and perhaps Atwood too–regarded SF as a ghetto. Barry N. Malzberg has written extensively about the financial handicaps of being a Science Fiction writer.
And not him alone. Also, Vonnegut and Atwood have both had some distress in their interactions with SF people–not them alone, either–and it has led both to make sure they are not associated with the fields to foil snobs and fools all over…which, sadly, just empowers the varying kinds of fools. See your nest-day review.
Or even next day. Fingers will do as they will.
I was working in a book store when “Handmaid’s Tale” came out. I recall its reception being rather muted, largely because critics and the reading public still stigmatized anything that could be remotely described as science fiction. The reviews at the time were patronizingly puzzled that Atwood would stoop to the genre.
Reaganism and the religious right were in full swing at the time but the book’s premise didn’t really resonate with people, even all the women I knew. We were all so naïve.
I did take my girlfriend at the time to see the film adaptation. She was more “Does this outfit make me look fat?” than feminist but boy that was one tense car ride home…
Byron, I remember the initial reception for THE HANDMAID’S TALE being muted, too. But, year after year the momentum built until the HULU TV version arrived in 2019 to shock and stun audiences who never thought Trump would win.
Sounds very good. I will be on the lookout for a copy. But since it just came out I will wait until it comes down in price.
Tracy, I got my copy of BURNING QUESTIONS at my local Public Library.