Burning Questions

August 1, 2021

Why do people tell stories? What's true, what's just, and what makes the perfect granola? Can we conquer climate change before it conquers us? How much can we give of ourselves before we've given too much? Should we give advice to young people or step back until asked? And what is it about authoritarianism that seems so intimately linked to zombies? These are exactly the sort of sharp, smart, punch-it-to-us questions we expect Atwood to ask in her fiction, and they are exactly the sharp, smart, punch-it-to-us questions she asks in this essay collection, selected from published works that bring us right up to the pandemic.

Copyright 2021 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from March 14, 2022
Atwood returns to nonfiction (after Moving Targets) with this impressive collection of answers to “some of the burning questions I’ve been asked.” As she writes, “The questions we’ve been faced with so far in the twenty-first century are more than urgent.” “The Futures Market” sees her amusingly parse the popularity of zombies in pop culture (they offer “an escape from a real future we quite rightly fear”), and “Literature and the Environment” addresses the responsibilities writers have regarding climate change: “Unless we can preserve such an environment, your writing and my writing... will become simply irrelevant, as there will be nobody left to read it.” Readers will also appreciate the insight into Atwood’s creative process: “Scientific Romancing” reveals the inspiration she found in Orwell’s 1984, and in “Reflections on The Handmaid’s Tale,” she shares her thoughts about the novel three decades on (“Is prophetic? No. No novel is prophetic except in retrospect”). Despite the oft-serious nature of the collection, there are welcome dashes of levity, as when Atwood describes her encounter with a hard-selling mall clerk who manipulated Atwood’s young daughter into demanding a Cabbage Patch doll. (It wound up “living in squalor at the back of the closet”). The result is a superior assembly of intellectual excursions.

March 15, 2022
Recent essays by the acclaimed novelist on art, feminism, censorship, inspirations, and her own work. Atwood's third collection of essays, reviews, speeches, and book introductions covers work from 2004 to 2021, during which time she cemented her place as a literary legend. Her 1985 novel, The Handmaid's Tale, became an established classic, a hit TV series, and, as the Trump years neared and then arrived, troublingly prescient. In multiple essays, Atwood discusses that novel's inspiration, creation, and influence--and how she came to write its 2019 sequel, The Testaments. In the context of that book and others (particularly her climate novels), this collection is marked both by her ongoing concern with the ethical and moral issues her fiction raises and an appealing flexibility in terms of subject matter. She treats keynote-speech invitations as opportunities to research subjects she otherwise might not. At a conference for nurses, she explored the distinctions between compassion and empathy, and at a gathering of neurologists, the role of the brain in fiction. Still, there are certain themes to which the author consistently returns. Literary inspirations are key, from fellow Canadians like Alice Munro to feminist polestars like Simone de Beauvoir and Ursula K. Le Guin to canonized authors like Shakespeare, whom she discusses with particular attention and verve in multiple pieces. (Most of them touch on her 2016 novel, Hag-Seed, a reimagining of The Tempest.) The cyclical nature of crises is another theme. In the context of The Handmaid's Tale and Covid-19, Atwood writes eloquently about how misogynist and epidemiological crises have habitually repeated themselves throughout history. Resistance to censorship informs many of these pieces, though the author also pushes back against the kind of groupthink that demands writers always be political spokespersons. Throughout, her tone is sprightly and informed; only an essay from the perspective of an extraterrestrial from planet Mashupzyx feels half-baked. Smart and concerned essays and arguments from an author whose global concerns haven't flagged.

COPYRIGHT(2022) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

March 15, 2022
"Word-hoard" was the term Anglo-Saxon poets used for "their well of inspiration," Atwood tells us, with "hoard" also signifying treasure. This third gathering of Atwood's essays and occasional pieces is both inspiring and a treasury of the many critiques, reflections, investigations, and lectures Atwood creates each year in addition to working on her novels, short stories, kids' books, and poems. Always in demand for her keen perception and bewitching storytelling, Atwood presents witty, parrying, and complexly illuminating tales about her long, ever-vital writing life; delves into the origins and resonance of science fiction, and discusses the impetus behind her Maddaddam trilogy and The Testaments, the sequel to The Handmaid's Tale. An astute and constant reader, Atwood celebrates Ursula Le Guin, Doris Lessing, Ray Bradbury, Rachel Carson, Barry Lopez, and Graeme Gibson, the love of her life. Her passion for the living world, especially forests, prompts her knowledgeable and clarion calls for us to cease our habitual and suicidal environmental destruction. Perpetually curious, incisive, and mordantly funny, Atwood mischievously mocks her prominence as a "Pillar of Society" even as she uses her standing and power with panache and wisdom.

COPYRIGHT(2022) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from June 10, 2022

Reading Atwood's newest collection of 62 essays and pieces from 2004-21 is like chatting with a smart friend about life, reading, and writing. Atwood introduces some literary characters and authors to the chat: the Wizard of Oz, Dr. Frankenstein, Scrooge McDuck, Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Rachel Carson, Alice Munro, Stephen King--to name a few. Discussion topics include the environment, politics, feminism, fashion, television, movies, authors, and Atwood's own poetry and historical and dystopian fiction. Atwood writes without anger or animosity, but with reason about important concerns and popular interests. Atwood guides readers through her works in numerous essays. Some entries are dedicated pieces such as "Reflections on The Handmaid's Tale" (2015) and "Oryx and Crake" (2018). Mentions of Atwood's other writings are throughout the collection, such as Cat's Eye in "Shakespeare and Me" (2016) and Alias Grace in "We Hang by a Thread" (2016). Atwood also pays tribute to her partner Graeme Gibson with inclusion of the foreward to a new release of The Bedside Book of Birds (2020) and numerous mentions of their walks and travels. VERDICT This book will start conversations. Highly recommended for Atwood followers and writing students; it's a gift of good works.--Joyce Sparrow

Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.