At the height and twilight of her career, Atwood returns to poetry with ‘Dearly’

By Adina Bresge, The Canadian Press

Around this time last year, Margaret Atwood was the octogenarian “it girl” of the literary scene.

Travelling the globe on a blockbuster book tour for “The Testaments,” her decades-awaited sequel to “The Handmaid’s Tale,” the Canadian writer could scarcely escape the spotlight between sold-out appearances, prize galas, talk show chats and magazine cover shoots styling her as a high-fashion sybil.

Then, just as the months-long publicity push was wrapping up, the COVID-19 crisis sent the world into lockdown. Now, Atwood finds herself unexpectedly housebound in her grand, green-covered home in downtown Toronto.

But not even a pandemic can clear Atwood’s calendar. If anything, she said she’s even more booked up as online engagements have freed her from the constraints of flight schedules.

“The demand has actually increased, because everybody’s running around in a frantic way,” Atwood said in a recent phone interview. “There’s no impediment to going to a festival in Spain in the morning and San Francisco in the afternoon.” 

Soon to turn 81, the awards-adorned author said one the privileges of being old is the knowledge “that worse things have happened, and the human race persists.”

But simultaneously at the height and twilight of her career, Atwood finds that age is catching up with her.

Some of the people who mattered most to her are gone. Her joints groan, and her Polaroids are fading. The Sturm und Drang of sentimentality has given way to longing. 

As she considers these endings, Atwood is returning to her writerly beginnings as poet, releasing her first collection in more than a decade on Tuesday.

Atwood penned the poems in “Dearly” between 2007 and 2019. She stored the pieces in the drawer, and after accumulating a publishable stack, laid them all out on the floor and sorted them into sections.

She said many of the pieces were written in “anticipation” of the death of her long-time partner, Graeme Gibson, to whom the book is dedicated “in absentia.”

The collection is filled with such inescapable absences, like a requiem for the memories you can’t let go of. Atwood admits she’s a bit of a “hoarder” in that regard.

“I think people who have different kinds of minds and brains remember only things they wish to remember,” Atwood said. “I’m cursed with quite a complete memory.”

As vascular dementia wore away at his memory, Gibson, an author and conservationist, accepted his fate with clear-eyed pragmatism, Atwood said.

“He had made it very clear both to me and kids in the family and to his doctor that he had no intention of sticking around past the point at which he knew he was him.”

In death, Gibson had “impeccable timing,” she said. 

After a trip to Italy, Gibson watched his spouse receive the literary feting of a lifetime upon the launch of “The Testaments” at London’s National Theatre in September 2019.

The next day, the 86-year-old had lunch with his oldest friend, Atwood said. The day after that, he had a hemorrhagic stroke. He died a few days later.

The loss of her partner of more than a half-century has been “pretty brutal,” said Atwood, “but why should it be any different?”

“One plus of having a bad relationship with somebody is that you’re not so sad when they die,” she said. “But if it’s a good relationship, then you are sad.”

As her generation shrinks, Atwood said shared history can make for strange bedfellows among people of a certain age, as time widens the chasm between them and the young.

“As we all know, life begins when you’re born; nothing happened before then that was of any note,” said Atwood. “Old people remember what it’s like to be young, but young people have never been old.”

Age can also augment the burden of reputation. And having spent so long in the public eye, Atwood must now contend with two competing images of herself, neither of which she puts much stock in.

Hailed by the New Yorker as “the prophet of dystopia,” Atwood’s fans say we’re living in the grim world her novels predicted: a society ravaged by contagion, environmental ruin and the state-sanctioned oppression of women.

Her critics, however, argue that Atwood has become part of the misogynistic system her stories warn against. In recent years, Atwood has found herself on the wrong side of many feminists for questioning the tactics of the #MeToo movement, writing in a 2018 op-ed that “vigilante justice” can slip into “a culturally solidified lynch-mob habit.”

An avid Twitter user, Atwood attributes much of the fuss over her supposed transgressions to the bandwagon effect of digital discourse, which she said propels misinformation at a faster pace than the human mind can process.

“The problem with the internet and social media is that it’s very rapid,” said Atwood, who has supported anti-sexual violence initiatives from the Canadian group AfterMeToo. “People almost don’t get a chance to find out whether what they’re having an opinion about is true or not.”

While some critics felt her #MeToo misgivings were at odds with the anti-patriarchal themes of “The Handmaid’s Tale,” Atwood insists she’s been consistent in her belief that women can be both victims and villains. This view is evident in “Dearly,” which alternately portrays women as murdered sisters and bloodthirsty sirens.

“Anybody who says that women are only ever good either never went to grade four or hasn’t read any history,” said Atwood. “To me, that’s simply not just denying women agency. It’s denying them humanity.”

Whatever the online chattering classes have to say about her, Atwood said she’s undeterred by her detractors.

“There’s always been criticism levelled against me. They’ve just varied in their nature,” said Atwood. “Any person, especially any woman, who becomes successful gets a large dollop of that.”

“Why should I care what people whom I don’t respect have to say about me? But not everybody is a tough-minded old biddy like me.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2020.

Adina Bresge, The Canadian Press

Top Stories

Top Stories

Most Watched Today