Margaret Atwood's Burning Questions

A decade ago, I used to read more in terms of quantity and variety. I read far less now because of life and social media. Having recognized this, and hoping to correct for variety (while giving up on quantity), I decided to read some magazines. Short pieces on varied topics might help expand the breadth of what I read. On the way to the magazine section in the local public library, I stopped for a brief look in the non-fiction section, and I spotted Margaret Atwood’s Burning Questions - Essays and Occasional Pieces - 2004 to 2021. I have been aware of Atwood for a long time. The Handmaid’s Tale is, of course, extremely popular. But I have also encountered her name in other places, mostly through her reviews of other books that I have enjoyed. I had started reading The Handmaid’s Tale at some point of time, but I hadn’t completed it. But Atwood has been on my to-read list, and this was, I thought, as good an introduction into Atwood’s body of work as any.

That was a questionable assumption. For when you are already out of form on reading, attempting to get through nearly 450 pages of nonfiction is hard. More so if the book is a collection of smaller essays, requiring you to switch context multiple times. I am glad to report that I managed to get through this, and as I am wont to feel after finishing most books, I am happy that I did. The fact that through the nearly 15 years that these essays span, Atwood seems to have held consistent views with thematic commonalities helped a lot. 

Margaret Atwood, as she often emphasizes, is old. In her lifetime, Atwood has seen the Western World undergo drastic changes and dramatic shifts. She was born in 1939, just as the second World War had begun. Atwood suggests that the post-world war era saw Western governments actively nudging women who had filled in career roles during the war back to their homes to make way for men returning from the war. This was followed by the second wave of feminism in the 60s, the hippie movement in the 70s, Cold War, the Reagan era, the Fukuyama’s false theory of the ‘end of history”, the rise of internet and social media, and the post-9/11 era. And after the historical American aberration that was the Obama presidency, we had the Trump era encompassing COVID, followed by what seemed like the end of the Trump era. Alas. 

Even within the field of literature, it is astonishing to hear Atwood describe living along with some literary greats, and meeting some of them.

Why was Simone de Beauvoir so frightening to me? Easy for you to ask: you have the benefit of distance–dead people are less innately scary than living ones, especially if they have been cut down to size by biographers, ever alert to flaws–whereas for me, Beauvoir was a giant contemporary

she says, in her introduction to the English translation of Simone de Beavoir’s Les Inseparables. 

Atwood is multifaceted. She is a poet, a novelist, a dramatist, a children’s writer, a graphic novelist, and most significantly, a literary critic. Throughout Burning Questions, her voracious conception of works from the Western literature stands out. A lot of essays in Burning Questions take the form of book introductions, book reviews, and author biographies. Of these, Richard Power’s Echo Maker is probably the only work that I have read, but I still found her analysis of books to be engaging. Some broader literary pieces include her thoughts on what makes a novel a novel, and her distinction between what she calls 'speculative fiction', 'science fiction' and 'fantasy'. Even broader is her contemplation on the significance of art and artists. Atwood’s father was an entomologist, and a significant part of her childhood was spent in the backwoods of Ottawa. This must have been a big influence on her lifelong interest in science and nature, and a lot of the pieces strongly reflect her sense of preservation of nature and scientific literacy. Atwood’s writing style is generally witty, and this helps us understand her as a person. 

Atwood refers to the impact of Rachel Carson whose Silent Spring (1962) drew attention to the harmful effects of pesticides much before it was in vogue. Apart from Simone de Beavoir, she also writes about the influence of authors like Alice Munro, Kafka, and Shakespeare. Her later essays focus on the rise of authoritarianism and in “Am I a Bad feminist”, she defends her position against mob justice and for transparency.

As I read Burning Questions, I was filled with a touch of regret at not (yet) having read Atwood’s novels, and not having explored authors such as Alice Munro and Ursula Le Guin. But inspiration works by highlighting what one is lacking in life and motivating one to attempt to strive for them. After all, there is still time. Burning Questions is an inspiring and enlightening read.