You can't tell artists what to do. Forget it," Margaret Atwood said on a Zoom call from her home in Toronto. "Artists respond to the period just like anyone else, and they will decide for themselves what to do. You can't tell them, 'Write protest songs,' or 'Express this or that opinion.' If what you're good at is writing songs about flowers - this is what you need to do. And if you're not good at writing protest songs, you'll just write a terrible song, and it probably won't help anyone."
At 83, Atwood's status as a global icon is at its peak. The hit series based on her book, The Handmaid's Tale, turned into history-making hysteria, and as a result of this success, Atwood became a mega-popular interviewee, not afraid to express her opinion on controversial issues, in her own unique way, full of cynical and gloomy humor.
In contrast to that dystopian novel that gave her worldwide fame, her latest book, "Burning Questions," recently published in Israel, is a rich book of essays, in which she skips between ancient history, the climate crisis, art, the relationship between man and nature, and basically any other topic she felt the need or was asked to write about.
One of the topics she deals with most deeply is particularly close to her heart: the role of writers and artists in the changing political climate. An issue that has become especially relevant at this time here in Israel, when at the same time as the war on the front, another war is taking place – the war of narratives and information. Thus, in the essay "Writers as political agents? Really?" she writes:
"In the eyes of revolutionaries, reactionaries, Orthodox religious or simply ardent proponents of any cause, writing prose and poetry is not only suspect, it is also secondary - an assistive tool, which must be used for the purpose, and if the work or author does not conform, or worse, if they turn against it, they should be denounced as parasites, confiscated, or disposed of [...] There is no shortage of people who are willing to tell the writer how and what to write. Many feel the need to sit on panels and discuss the 'role of the writer' or the 'duty of the poet,' as if writing itself is a frivolous and worthless occupation, unless it is coupled with external duties and roles: to glorify the homeland, to promote world peace, to improve the status of women."
"You don't have to give the establishment more than it already has. After all, what is this idea, that there are 'masters' who are responsible for everything? There are too many managers who don't want to be fired from their jobs, so they like to present things that won't cause a fuss around them. But since when is it even art not to make a fuss?"
Things are more current today than ever. Since the October 7 massacre, we have started making lists: who is with us, who is against us. Who's in Israel, who's abroad. World-renowned actors and singers were given a platform on major news channels when they expressed opposition to or support for Israel. Many Israeli artists, including actors, musicians and intellectuals, have joined the propaganda war – among them Gal Gadot, who explains on Instagram to her 109 million followers about the pogrom that took place in Israel, and Noa Kirel, who through stories raises awareness of the stories of the victims.
Even in the book groups on social media, readers are not indifferent, and demand that their favorite authors choose sides. Authors who take the side against us are canceled, and in some cases publishers in Israel have decided to cancel contracts and remove their books from the shelves. At the same time, the silence of leading Jewish writers around the world, those who achieved tremendous success also because of content that dealt directly with their Judaism, is louder today than ever.
Gal Gadot. She joined the information war in front of her 109 million followers, photo: Coco
Atwood, co-founder of PEN International, addresses this question – do writers and artists have a duty to step up and choose sides? In an interview with her, I asked about the fear of these world-renowned artists of expressing a clear public position. But contrary to her strong views on the climate crisis, or dealing with totalitarian regimes, here she understands that this is mainly a very personal matter.
"There was always a fear of talking, what was new," she says. "The fear doesn't end. The more democratic a society is, the less trouble you get – except from your fellow artists and critics. But there is a difference between receiving bad criticism and getting shot in the back of the neck, as is happening today in certain places around the world."
Or lose opportunities to appear and advertise.
"True, but to this I always answer that writers should just open their own publishing house. If they can't be published by a recognized publisher because of their opinions, let them open a publishing house. Look, you're talking to me, and I'm old. In the '60s in Canada, when I started, there were few places where you could advertise, so we started publishing houses and some of them still exist. There have always been those things. Salon of the Refuseniks in 19th-century France, for example, was an art show by people who had been refused by the academy. Many times this was where the most interesting things happened. And by the way, there are other ways. Science fiction, fantasy and speculative fiction have for years expressed protests during periods of political pressure, because these genres allow the truth to be told indirectly. Many American writers turned to science fiction during the McCarthy years, because it allowed them to criticize society without the government noticing.
"And in general, we shouldn't give the establishment more than it already has. After all, what is this idea, that there are a kind of 'masters' who are responsible for everything? There are too many managers who don't want to be fired from their jobs, so they like to present things that won't cause a fuss around them. But since when is it even art not to make a fuss? If these artists have something to say, and it's not politically correct, let them start alone."
Have you ever had such a thought? Are you afraid to speak your mind because it's not "the right opinion"?
"Look, I've been freelancing since 1971, which means I didn't have a job so they couldn't fire me. My employers are the readers – thank you, the readers, for hiring me. And those readers are diverse people from a lot of countries, who have a lot of opinions. So if a certain number of readers hate me violently, they alone don't have the power to fire me as a writer. It gave me a lot of freedom, and also responsibility, because I was asked to speak for people who were afraid to do it themselves for fear of losing their jobs—or even, in some societies, being murdered.
Noa Kirl. Uses its platform to tell victims' stories. From Instagram,
"But it's a very personal matter. I don't tell other people whether to speak their minds or not. In fact, a lot of them should not do this - because it would be too dangerous for them. I don't care, I'm old, and that's a factor. When you're young, on the other hand, you have to look at your position in life—what's available to you and what the penalties are—and in the age of cancel culture we live in, the penalties can be severe for someone in their 20s or 30s, and have an extreme impact on their life. That's why I don't recommend my behavior to everyone. I understand the kind of pressures people are under, so it's amazing when people do choose to speak up, because they're really putting something at risk. I did it when I was young, because that's who I am, but now it's not great wisdom, because let's be honest – I have less of a future to consider."
Say something!
"You probably expect me to lecture you about your duty as a writer. Odd. People are always queuing up to preach to writers about their duties – what they should write, or what they shouldn't write; And they're willing and willing to tell the writer how bad she is, because she hasn't published a book or article that the preachers think she should have published. In fact, there is a strong tendency to talk to writers and writers as if they were the government; As if they had such power in the real world, they should therefore use it for the welfare of society, as they would certainly do if they were not utterly lazy, cowardly, or immoral.
"If by chance the preacher realizes that the writer has no such power, she will probably dismiss him as a pretty, irrelevant and spoiled narcissist, entertainer, parasite and so on. Don't writers have responsibilities? The preachers ask. And shouldn't writers fulfill this responsibility by doing the good and proper thing, for the preacher to immediately explain to them what it is?" (From the essay "Literature and the Environment")
"I've been a freelancer since 1971, which means I didn't have a job so they couldn't fire me. My employers are the readers – thank you, the readers, for hiring me. They have many opinions, but they alone do not have the power to fire me as a writer. It gave me a lot of freedom, but also responsibility."
In recent years, there has been a worrying phenomenon of books being removed from library shelves in the United States – books that do not meet the moral fashion order of the moment. For example, in some cases, books that do not comply with politically correct laws and portray blacks as slaves have found themselves excluded from U.S. public libraries, as have books that promote an LGBT agenda. "We've never let go of the idea that it's permissible to judge books, poems, art in general, based on how useful or harmful they are by the standards of those who judge them," Atwood says. And this criticism is also relevant to the choice of some Israeli publishing houses to cancel contracts with international authors who have expressed an anti-Israel public stance.
Still, public and personal sentiment is understandable.
"As a general idea, if you invent a weapon, use it and find that it is effective, in the end they will use it against you. So you have to be prepared for that. If you throw away a book because it hurts your feelings, someone else will throw another book because it hurts their feelings, and it can come against your side, and then it's already a book war. Be prepared. In the U.S., books have departed from the consensus because of the representation of certain populations, such as Gone with the Wind, because of the way it treats blacks. And then you see the backlash, for example – banning books that deal with issues of race or sexuality. So here we haven't gotten so far that books are ostracized from stores, but only from libraries and schools, because only there do legislators have control so far, and I hope we don't get there."
From "The Handmaid's Tale". The series that gave Atwood world fame,
Still, Atwood shows genuine empathy for the sense of Israeli persecution, and for Israeli society's need to defend itself. "The end of the 50s was Israel's utopian period – brotherhood among people, idealism, kibbutzim. And I know this because I taught at a Jewish summer camp for three years, even though I'm not Jewish. They needed someone to start a nature program. It was very idealistic, very UN, everyone is friends. Still, there is no doubt that one of the deepest cornerstones of Israeli society, repeated again and again throughout the generations, is the sense of persecution, and the trauma of the Holocaust resonates here. And if there was no Holocaust, there would be no Israel. That's why in Israel there's a fear built into the DNA, and a feeling that 'never again.'"
Women's Affairs
"I moved again, to a place where no one had heard of the women's movement – Edmonton, Alberta. It was there that I first signed my book in the men's underwear department of Hudson's Bay Company. I sat at a table near the escalator with a small stack of books, and a sign announcing the book's title: The Eating Woman. The name startled a lot of men—farmers and oil magnates, apparently—who went in to buy themselves jockey underwear on a lunch break. They fled en masse. I sold two copies. That's not how I imagined my writing life. Frost had never had to spread his wares in a lingerie department, I thought. And I really wondered if I had made a mistake when I chose this career path. Maybe it's not too late to switch to insurance, or real estate, or pretty much anything other than writing. But when Samuel Beckett was asked why he became a writer, he said: 'I am useless in any other field.'"
It is almost impossible to conduct an interview with Atwood, even in the shadow of the war, without addressing the subject for which she gained worldwide fame - the issue of women's rights. The visibility so identified with her books, that red robe of the slaves in "The Handmaid's Tale," became only last summer a symbol of protest – which today seems to have happened at a different time.
"I'm not one of those early romantics who says, 'I'm suffering, writing hurts.' I'm not the kind of writer who finds writing difficult, and I think it comes from being a procrastinator in school. You put it off, you put it off, you read murder mysteries instead, and then all of a sudden the deadline comes, and you have to do it really fast."
"Dressing up as slaves started as a women's rights issue in Texas. Would you believe it? Texas," Atwood says. "There were some women in Texas who decided to dress up as slaves around the time the show aired, in 2017. It's very smart, because in the age of television you don't have to say anything. You can dress up and enter a legislature, where a bunch of men in dark suits, like in a scene from the show, make laws about things they don't understand—women's bodies, among other things. You won't be kicked out for being immodest, because you're covered, and you won't be kicked out for interrupting because you don't say anything. That's the point. The impression the outfit creates is immediate, people immediately understand what it means."
Some say that the use of the slave image is excessive, increasing anxiety for no reason.
"Yes, that's what they always say. Well, we've lived that history in countless places around the world. They said it when The Handmaid's Tale came out, 'It's never going to happen here.' And lo and behold, we're already halfway there. In the end, the protest against women's rights does not end with women, but includes everyone's rights. Because if you start dealing with women's right to autonomy, the distance to everyone's rights is not far away. Why stop at women? Today, while things are burning in many places around the world, there is a lot of pressure on the countries of the free world, on democracies, to remain democracies."
Reject and Reject
When Atwood writes about herself, the cynical humor that so characterizes her reaches a climax. In fact, there's something comforting about the personal writing confessions that emerge from the pages of Burning Questions: Atwood is a procrastinator, it turns out, as she herself admits in a particularly amusing essay about her attempts to meet writing assignments commissioned from her – written mostly as speeches she gave at various events, to different audiences. In another article, she talks about how she starts and then shelvs version after version of the same book - until she reaches one that pleases her. Throughout the book, she also echoes the load of requests directed at her, until at certain moments the question arises - does she still enjoy it at all?
"If I didn't enjoy it on a certain level, I wouldn't do it," she says. "I'm not one of those early romantics who says, 'I'm suffering, writing hurts.' I'm not the kind of writer who finds writing difficult, and I think it comes from being a procrastinator in school. You postpone it, you postpone it, you read murder mysteries instead - and then suddenly the deadline comes and you have to do it really fast. So doing it at the last minute has become something I'm very good at."
In the book's introduction, you complain that you're taking on too many articles, and say it has to stop.
"And notice that I didn't stop," she laughs. "There always seems to be some urgent matter I need to write about."
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