Anyone else have trouble focussing this week? I know I’m not the only one.
At the same time, it felt particularly important to read the words of a writer like this.
I have this quotation flagged in my notebook from an earlier reading of her essay collection Second Words:
“I’ve implied that the writer functions in his or her society as a kind of soothsayer, a truth teller; that writing is not mere self-expression but a view of society and the world at large, and that the novel is a moral instrument. Moral implies political, and traditionally the novel has been used not only as a vehicle for social commentary but as a vehicle for political commentary as well. The novelist, at any rate, still sees a connection between politics and the moral sense, even if politicians gave that up some time ago. By ‘political’ I mean having to do with power: who’s got it, who wants it, how it operates; in a word, who’s allowed to do what to whom, who gets what from whom, who gets away with it and how.”
But this week, I turned to a new essay, available in the U.K. via Profile Books, in Democracy: Eleven Writers and Leaders on What It Is—and Why It Matters.
“Democracy” is also available via the Financial Times website. She reads her piece in six minutes and the video makes those minutes fly past. (Even in print though, it’s a slim pocket-sized book, and the essays are short, language honed.) This post’s Flip-box at the bottom of the page features a quote, so even if you don’t have six minutes, you likely have six seconds to watch that flip.
MARM 2024 PLANS
Launch (November 1)
Dancing Girls, “Training” (November 5)
Old Babes in the Wood, “My Evil Mother” (November 7)
Week Two: Update and Check-In (November 10)
Dancing Girls, “Lives of the Poets” (November 12)
Old Babes in the Wood, “The Dead Interview” (November 14)
Week Three: Update and Check-In (November 18)
Margaret Atwood’s 84th Birthday (November 18)
Dancing Girls, “Dancing Girls” (November 19)
Old Babes in the Wood, “Impatient Griselda” (November 21)
Week Four: Update and Check-In (November 24)
Dancing Girls, “Giving Birth” (November 26)
Old Babes in the Wood, “Bad Teeth” (November 28)
Wrap-Up (November 30)
What else did I read this week? You’ll see that both stories this week filled a square in my Bingo card, which I’ve already managed to muck up, with a carelessly placed glass or mug, so now it’s not just a layer on the image making it look like a crumpled piece of paper. #therealdeal
And I read the first poem in Interlunar because Bookish Beck mentioned she borrowed it from one of her libraries; there are a couple of lovely snake poems at the beginning, which suited another square.
Because I was feeling some kind of way on Wednesday, I also read a 2013 essay included in Burning Questions: “How to Change the World”.
Right away in that essay she raises the point that we need to define all sorts of those terms, like ‘How’ and ‘Change’ and ‘World’. That might sound glib, but her positioning of the need for clarity makes it clear that these are the kind of essential conversations that we need to have more often. It reminded me that, even when we think we are communicating, we aren’t meaning the same thing when we utter even commonly used words let alone when we discuss complicated ideas.
Several of you are already thinking about your MARM reading and some have already begun.
Kaggsy is returning to an old favourite,
Bill has posted about one of the short stories in Old Babes (the one about Orwell) and one of his comments on another from that collection this week reveals he’s also well into Life before Man, which Bookish Beck is also reading (along with the poetry above).
Laila is reading The Tent and Good Bones.
Alice has three books in mind (two of the bigger novels and Burning Questions).
Whispering Gums is eyeing a short story,
Madame Bibi has two posts planned about short stories.
Helen is thinking about Alias Grace.
And a few of you (like Larissa and Naomi and Reese) are still contemplating. Ohhhh, I hope I didn’t miss anyone. Please leave a link below if I have overlooked a post-or a person!-somewhow.
Or maybe you’re only just discovering our cosy little MARMy corner of the bookish world. (This is the seventh MARM and here was the first chat of MARM2024. Links in the text box too, of course.)
It’s lovely to be “in company” here, for one more MARM. Thanks for reading!
Margaret Atwood
“When a government fails to deliver basic necessities, the result is either a toppling of power or a brutal crackdown. So says history.”
Still eyeing… but I just listened to Democracy and how good is that. As she points out and as Mr Gums and I keep saying, it all comes down – really – to education. And I don’t know what the answer to that is. We have some great education systems in most western countries and yet people still don’t seem ti get educated. It’s more complex than just good schools and good education systems isn’t it. If your family isn’t educated – and particularly if it doesn’t believe in educated – there’s a high chance you won’t be and won’t either. This is what bothers me. A few will slip through – a few children who get the spark (through a teacher, a friend, a family member, their own make-up) – but most probably don’t. And so the cycle continues.
As for “even when we think we are communicating, we aren’t meaning the same thing when we utter even commonly used words let alone when we discuss complicated ideas”. YES. Nothing more to add to that.
The prejudice against education is something that I’ve only become acquainted with in recent years. As someone who longed to spend much more time at school than I could, education was something that I assumed everybody sought after, but sometimes couldn’t access. And I was well aware of what I viewed as bias in the system, the slanted focus of the curricula, the limited opportunities to study the exact topics that most interested me, but I still wanted to attend, so I thought everyone else who saw it as a flawed system was also hopeful they would be able to carve out their own place there and find a few kindred spirits. I didn’t understand how many people not only never give it a thought but disparage those who value it. And it’s even more disheartening to see this prejudice against education (as a sytem) develop into a prejudice against learning.
Yes, definitely having trouble reading. I’m watching old episodes of Poirot today…
Thank you for the FT link. I shall pause my Poirot viewing for a look!
I’m glad to know there are other readers in other countries (outside the U.S., I mean) who are finding it challenging too. This is a global issue, and it heartens me to know that so many of us readers are still paying attention to and engaging with what’s beyond the page.
Thanks for remind us every year about a very important writer and not allowing her work to slip into background noise until she publishes something new. I like that you keep asking questions and making connections 🙂
Thanks, Stefanie. She makes all of that very easy.