Molson's Revisited

As Canadian as a red canoe: by HTO park, Toronto Waterfront, March 27, 2020

The perennial Canadian pastime of distinguishing ourselves from Americans has become more apparent to me these days.

For example, I took notice when Torontonians corralled an errant racoon with a bunch of leaf-filled yard waste bags, and BlogTO described it as a "Canadian" solution.

It may be no surprise that Canadians might want to differentiate themselves right now from the almost 74 million Americans who said they were ready for four more years of Donald Trump. I know I do.

So, along with agreeing that Canadians are resourceful and humane and have defined themselves in the past in beer commercials, I'd like to share some impressions that arose as I sat through an hour long web call with Margaret Atwood this past week.

The call itself was a joint project of the Canadian Writer's Union - of which I am not a member because I have not yet been paid even a red cent for anything I have written - and its British counterpart, the Society of Authors. The chat with Atwood was one of SoA's ten-part series of tea time conversations (not making this up) with various writers of English.

Atwood's massive fame notwithstanding, the host of the show asked her the same questions as all the other authors. So Atwood gave responses to, "can you show us your writing space and talk about your writing routine" and "what do you do with all your rough drafts," among other questions.

In response to the first, Atwood, seated in a room in her Toronto home, showed the 200 people on the call the desktop Mac she writes on, the feathers she's trying to make into pens, and her bookshelf with volumes of Canadian and international poetry, as well as books on palmistry and astrology, two abiding interests of hers.

In response to the second, she said, "I'm lucky because here in Toronto they have a handy thing, the Fisher Rare Book Library. I donate my old drafts and they are happy to have the stuff. I know I can find things there because they won't lose it and are taking care of it."

Atwood also talked about her preoccupation with totalitarian regimes, having been born in 1939 on the cusp of the second world war, the influence of George Orwell on her own writing and her certainty that if we don't fix climate change, we are as done as the mastodon, whose gigantism, she learned, preceded its extinction. 

When asked about Canadian literature, Atwood answered that you can find certain hallmark themes in the great literature of nations. For example, America's hallmark theme is money (think The Great Gatsby) and, when she wrote about Canadian literature in the 70's, Canada's was survival. She said she'd have to think a lot before she could say what Canada's hallmark theme is now.

When asked if she'd given thought to stopping writing, she said, "I trust my editors will tell me when I've lost it." She gave as an example of losing it Tennyson's late period poem Happy, (about a woman who scolds her husband, so he leaves on the Crusades, contracts leprosy in the Holy Land and brings the disease home with him; the woman sees this is all her fault and the poem closes with her commitment to be happy with her leper husband).

Atwood managed to insert a couple of product plugs - for Topsy Farms wool blankets (best for keeping warm in the back yard for wintertime COVID visits) and for Gil Adamson one of Anansi Press's award-winning authors. 

All of this came with insouciance and warmth from one of the world's most famous authors.

Other facts about Atwood shared on the call: she was instrumental in the 70's in creating the Canadian Writer's Union and Anansi Press so that Canadian authors could make a better living and have someone who would publish their work.

So there's a Canadian for you - a leader championing the greater good in her community, a hard-working senior citizen sceptical of authoritarianism, a writer with millions of fans around the globe who gamely sits herself down for an hour to have a cosy chat with a small handful of people, and whose one nod to how different she is from the rest of us is she has a rare book library taking care of her discarded drafts.

I imagine she'd know what to do with a stray raccoon, too. 

Thanks for reading!

Have a great locked down week!

Karen

Photo credit: Junk Boat Travels