Have a few minutes and are curious about the book Margaret Atwood wishes she had written herself?
Alongside is a recent and short interview but, be warned, she does a better job of deflecting questions than answering them (all in good-humoured fashion).
Admittedly, I was drawn to watch for Graham Norton too; I didn’t know he had time for a book club with his important judging duties for Drag Race UK.
I also didn’t realize that Amitav Ghosh had written non-fiction as well as novels like his Ibis Trilogy. And this is how one book leads to another because the Ghosh passage quoted below is what urged me to look for Sebastião Salgado’s Gold (truly amazing, catch a glimpse in the image alongside, with Premee Mohamed’s Beneath the Rising, which I was hoping would make a good companion for Ashby’s novel).
But here is Amitav Ghosh commenting on how writers confront the subject of the climate crisis, on the stories they tell and the stories left untold, in The Great Derangement (2016):
“For the arts, oil is inscrutable in a way that coal never was: the energy that petrol generates is easy to aestheticize—as in images and narratives of roads and cars—but the substance itself is not. Its sources are mainly hidden from sight, veiled by technology, and its workers are hard to mythologize, being largely invisible. As for the places where oil is extracted, they possess nothing of the raw visual power that is manifest, for example, in the mining photographs of Sebastião Salgado. Oil refineries are usually so heavily fortified that little can be seen of them other than a distant gleam of metal, with tanks, pipelines, derricks, glowing under jets of flame.”
That same year, Madeline Ashby’s Company Town (2016) was published—another of the books that Margaret Atwood has recommended (in a Twitter thread)—and it’s an exception to Ghosh’s rule, because she does scrutinize the oil industry, situating her character on an east-coast oil rig, with a near-future, near-city feel.
Hwa is sharply defined and sharp-tongued, and “while she was fluent in multiple languages, her mother-tongue was cursing. She had no time for corporate lore, or fairy tales, which were apparently the same thing these days.” The world-building is dovetailed into the story, primarily through character-building though also through the setting of New Arcadia. Readers are gradually immersed in this new world via Hwa, in much the same way we sink into Ann Leckie’s or Maureen McHugh’s world-building.
Hwa is not augmented which, of course, begs an unasked question. “Augmented people were so upright about their augmentations. As though everyone around them actually gave a damn. As though learning about what they’d fixed could really tell you anything about the places they were broken.” And, in that quiet way, readers are actually still learning more about Hwa, through her perspective on other people.
The setting feels both familiar and disorienting. “It was still warm, so they are in the Autumn Garden on Level Twenty of Tower Two, where there were trees whose leaves actually turned. The maples were planted even before the crops on the farm floors. On a plaque pounded into one tree were the logos of the tree scientists and mental health agencies that had funded the forest.”
There’s enough of the present-day for readers to situate themselves. For instance, “sometimes the riggers took things to keep them awake, and some of them were on off-label mods, the kinds of things Wade was taking, and Christ, anything could happen there.”
Hwa’s tone and the authorial observations have a distinct flavour and, at times, she channels elements of her identity to influence situations: “Hwa let her accent thicken. Let him know she was for real. That she was town, through and through. “I’m not trying to hire you for a job, or anything. I’s not asking you to steal something, or hurt somebody. That’s not why I’s here.”
There’s a science-y feel to the story, bubbling up from beneath, gentle and persistent. But story swells above all that; readers are immediately drawn into the action. In the opening pages, Hwa intervenes in a dangerous situation, offering protection to a young woman who doesn’t have the same freedoms that Hwa enjoys in that moment.
We’re on-side straight away, and it’s the connection with her character that acclimates us to her world. The women in this story are vulnerable and fierce; they are victimized but refuse to be victims; they claim their independence and agency, even in impossible situations. (When they do not survive, Hwa’s dedication to unearthing the truth surrounding their deaths is key.)
Company Town is a quick, engaging read, just under three hundred pages, peppered with adrenalin-fuelled scenes and underscored with a tinge of darkness; the ambivalence of corporate control adds a consistent tension and the developing relationships intensify readers’ investment in wanting secrets to be exposed, in wanting loyalty to be rewarded, in wanting individuals to triumph against the odds.
Ashby and Atwood met several years before. In a 2020 interview, Ashby describes “answering questions put to me by a fact-checker from the Wall Street Journal, after Margaret Atwood said they should talk to me about robots, science fiction, and the future.” The recommendation stemmed from their 2013 acquaintance when Ashby was touring for vN (a novel in her Machine Dynasty trilogy)
“This was how Margaret and I met — we did an appearance together with Corey Redekop at the Kingston WritersFest back home in Canada. She had gently steered the interview in the way only she can, and said, ‘Now, Madeline, having read your book, I must ask: how old were you when you first saw The Wizard of Oz?’ Oh, I thought. She gets it. Of course she does. She’s Margaret Fucking Atwood.”
Ashby is an author as well as a “freelance consulting futurist specializing in scenario development and science fiction prototypes.” She considers Company Tower a “cyber-noir novel” and has published non-fiction too. (More about her, and some videos too, here.) It’s not hard to see the appeal of her work for someone like Margaret Atwood, whose love of ‘50s science-fiction influenced works as disparate as The Blind Assassin and The Heart Goes Last.
This week, I’ve segued from a Twitter recommendation that, beneath the surface, was rooted in a respectful relationship between two writers, one of whom had the capacity to draw the attention of editors towards the other, an emerging thinker and storyteller. Next week, another book recommended in Margaret Atwood’s twitter stream, by a peer whose themes often overlap and align with themes that dominate Atwood’s fiction too. You’ll see…
And, how about you—have you been celebrating MARM? Was there cake?
There was most definitely cake:
“[Ainsley]: “It’s a woman–a woman made of cake!”…Marian chewed and swallowed. ” Have some,” she said, “it’s really good. I made it this afternoon.”…”Marian!” She exclaimed at last, with horror. “You’re rejecting your femininity!”…”Nonsense,” she said. “It’s only a cake.” She plunged her fork into the carcass, neatly severing the body from the head.”
And Duncan: “He scraped the last chocolate curl up with his fork and pushed away the plate. “Thank you,” he said, licking his lips. “It was delicious.” ”
When I read the cake scenes (with the reactions of Peter, Ainsley and Duncan) after all these years it took me right back to my first reading and the impression left on me of Marion’s taking charge of herself and how powerful the metaphor was in that scene. (I also still love Duncan’s ironing in the book). This is my third reading of The Edible Woman. I was younger than Marion the first time I read it and now I’m considerably older. I love having a different perspective of time on this book and finding it that still resonates.
This is such a scrumptious comment!
Thank you: it was delicious!
BIP, I was about to order a cake today, but I decided to read your blog first. Now, I have got a problem that I am not sure how to solve. I haven’t read Atwood. So, I feel like I shouldn’t get a cake. But, I am also aware that you know that you have added hundreds of books to my TBR already, and so, some more of Atwood and Ghosh are okay. I get to have a cake today, right? Because I will get to them soon, someday. I read Ghosh’s ‘Dancing in Cambodia’ when I was so young, as young as a tiny kitten, like in my 20’s. So, Ghosh’s work is as new as Atwood’s at the moment. Now, I need your help. If I have to start with Atwood, where do I start?
First, order the cake! *waits* And then you should probably start with The Edible Woman because then you can eat a cake and read about a cake too. (And if you’ve already finished the first cake, by the time the cake in the novel appears, you’ll need another of course.) Yes, my response is entirely cake-driven. There are many excellent starting places. You might particularly enjoy her book about writing (titled differently, mine is titled Negotiating with the Dead) and her essays more than any of her fiction to start with, and her newish collection of poetry Dearly is exceptionally inviting (even for non-poetry readers).
She is so good at deflecting questions, I love it. I recently learned of the existence of a non-answer and its quite brilliant. If someone asks you an uncomfortable question, or something gossipy, you can say the following: “What would make you ask that question?” or “Where did you come to that belief” or “That’s interesting, tell me more about that”. These are adulting skills I need to learn more about.
How did you come to learn about non-answers? I’d love to know more!
It was at a workshop for work. We had sort of like a leadership/change management coach come to talk to us, and she had worked in HR for a lot of corporate mergers in the past, and would frequently get asked by her coworkers if they were getting laid off, etc. She was never legally in a position to talk about it, so she had to get good at giving these non-answers to people. So this is a way of protecting yourself in some cases, but it’s also a way of deflecting gossipy people LOL
Anne!!! That was my NON-ANSWER.
Wow, I’m really good at this.
😀
OMG hilarious – I didn’t even clue in. Damn this strategy works!
Though I like Ghosh and wish his statement were true, I may also have my doubts. There’s also Oil! by Sinclair Lewis, which became the movie There Will Be Blood. Sure the wildcatters are villains, but they’re romanticized villains. I mean, heck, he gets played by Daniel Day-Lewis in the movie. And I’m sure someone has compared the burn-off vents at refineries to stars in a night sky at least once.
Of course mythology’s in the eye of the mythologist, but I think the west Texas plains, those Western flats, have been mythologized in more than one movie. Possibly even with an oil derrick or two in the picture. 😉
He does suggest that those flames are visible, but they only hint at the conglomeration behind/beneath. For years I travelled regularly through the part of Ontario that I was raised in, including through the small town of Petrolia (no kidding), and the infrastructure there is both omni-present and invisible. It’s true, the lights are beautiful at night, and there’s a tall ever-burning flame closer to Sarnia. And there’s even a little museum somewhere down there (I can’t remember that town just now) complete with running derricks.
You’d enjoy this slim volume, I’m sure. It’s just the kind of thing you love, with a million allusions and references to other narratives that you would be compelled/inspired to explore! I’ve probably not done it any favours, quoting this small segment out of context…it’s the kind of book that begs to be quoted in full.
Fascinating stuff! I don’t know Ashby or the book Company Town, but I’ll check it out. Finding ways to tackle climate change and environmental destruction effectively in fiction is feeling more vital all the time…
I find writers who are into science and literature so interesting, probably because science wasn’t something I was encouraged to contemplate as a student.
Me too, although my reasons are different – as a boy, and with parents who were science and maths graduates, I was encouraged to do science, but I just never had a head for it. I love reading about it though. I think people often seem to be good at one or the other, so it’s always good to find writers who are good at both.
I suppose it kinda gives me hope, to understand that a person CAN be good at both. Like…if I could just read e-n-o-u-g-h…then, maybe…
Oh, Company Town sounds great! Adding it to my library wishlist 🙂
The Great Derangement is a good book, I read not long after it came out. And yes, there are older books that take into account climate, etc. But Ghosh is talking about contemporary writers, those are writing now, and if you read their books, you’d never know there was a big existential crisis called climate change happening. He has a new book out that I am waiting for from the library called The Nutmeg’s Curse about how colonialism is one of the root causes of climate change.
Also, I will finally be starting to read The Stone Mattress this US Thanksgiving holiday weekend. 🙂
It might make a good holiday read, something of a pageturner but still smart and provocative.
Ohhh, I remembered to credit you and Andrew for encouraging me to read this volume in my original post about it, but I forgot to do so here.
I want to read Ghosh’s other books too (besides the trilogy, besides Gun Island). I don’t know if they include overt reference to the environment, but even in the Ibis trilogy, his awareness of the need to balance profit with sustainability, the pressure to deliver goods despite inflicting egregious harm on people’s lives (even, their very existence), a tendency to extract rather than preserve…there are some key ideas that overlap.
Enjoy your holiday…you’ve got awesome company (of all sorts)!
Message to: Amitav Ghosh one of the best Australian books (in my top 10 Great Australian Novels) is the Unknown Industrial Prisoner (1971) by David Ireland, which is set entirely in the SiIverwater oil refinery in central Sydney. A searing, post-modern look at the underside of capitalist culture.
Yet another one that’s only available in the reference only library downtown. But maybe I’ll be able to return there next year. To be fair to Ghosh, which perhaps my selection is not, he clearly values nuance and does mention a tendency and then introduce an exception, throughout the volume. I know you don’t enjoy historical fiction but his recent novel, Gun Island, might appeal to you, for its broader consideration of present-day climate change. I thiiiiink it would make for good listening, because there’s a fair bit of plot to buoy readers along, but there is some POV shifting, too, if I remember right? But who cares, because I think you’d enjoy Company Town more. *grins*
Ooh Graham did ask some tough questions there didn’t he. I do love to hear what books writers read and recommend so I understand why he asked. I haven’t celebrated MARM as much as I wanted to, only managing to read the very tiny, novella sized collection Murder in the Dark which I enjoyed but will be hard to write about, so will probably appear in a post about a few novellas I read for Novellas in November. There wasn’t cake here either, damn there should have been!
Did you know that he has a bookclub? Honestly, I’m starting to doubt my own fangrrrling. Just yesterday I learned he’s a writer too. Sheesh. If I had a RuPeter badge, they’d be asking for it back.
I completely understand. I felt the same about Murder in the Dark…they’re hard to summarize because you just want to type them all out to share. Anyone who posts late can just leave a comment on any of the MARM posts and I will aim to gather all the links onto a new dedicated page. Hopefully before 2022’s MARM. Hah
I love what Ashby says when asked how old she was when she saw The Wizard of Oz. I watched that movie so many times… And now I want to read Ashby’s book to see why MA asked the question. (Was it vN they were talking about in the interview?)
I don’t blame MA for not answering all the questions – some are too hard to answer on the spot! Or ever. 🙂
Yes, it was about that first volume of her Machine Trilogy, and I’m curious about that comment too!
I hadn’t thought about the fact that if she (MA) names a contemporary writer whose work she enjoys it could make an/other writer (who wasn’t named) resentful.
This is such an interesting way of approaching a favourite author, and thanks for reminding me of Salgado. I once went to an exhibition of his work and was stunned by the scale of the work being undertaken.
That must have been amazing! I was shocked to find that my library copy of the book was so large (and grateful that Mr BIP was there to assist with my curbside pick-up), but as soon as I started to browse, I understood why it’s oversized, and the book suddenly felt very tiny.
Fascinating! It’s always so interesting to hear what your favourite writers read thesmelves!!
Marlon James makes a study of it: I think it’s a lifelong reading project for me, too, and I’ll be interested to see if you start drawing those connections as well (even more often, I mean).