- 2 years ago
Authors Margaret Atwood and Lauren Groff agree: it can be more effective to write truthfully about the contemporary world by situating stories in the past or in the future.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 >> Hello.
00:01 >> Hi.
00:03 >> We're here to talk about some very cheery topics today.
00:07 So, I wanted to start out by talking about some similarities
00:11 in the writing that you two have done.
00:15 Margaret, you said that you conceived the Handmaid's Tale
00:19 when you were thinking about it.
00:21 You were thinking back to an America
00:23 where women had very few rights,
00:25 specifically the 17th century in New England.
00:29 Lauren, your latest book happens
00:31 to take place that very time.
00:34 And so, I wanted to start with you, Lauren,
00:36 and ask a little bit about what interested you
00:39 about that period in time.
00:41 >> I had done some research when I was in an undergrad situation
00:47 on early American captivity narratives by women,
00:50 which are these wild survivalist texts that were actually used
00:55 by preachers to justify colonization.
00:59 And they're really interesting.
01:01 They're interesting in and of themselves,
01:02 but they're also interesting in a 21st century way
01:05 because we see the sort of the vastness of time and the way
01:10 that opinions have changed and the way that sort
01:13 of the stories were told for a purpose.
01:16 So, I was interested in that, and then I was interested also
01:19 in rethinking the way that humans and nature
01:24 and God have been in conversation.
01:28 Maybe deemphasizing the human aspect and trying
01:32 to see what it would look like if my protagonist went
01:36 through nature and started to lose civilization and nature
01:41 sort of came up to be as parallel to her
01:44 so that she wasn't sort of at the top of the hierarchy.
01:47 She was sort of equal to nature at the end.
01:50 These are, you know, it was an act of maybe decolonization
01:54 over the course of the book.
01:56 >> Yeah. Well, and that's so interesting.
01:57 Literally backstage just now, we were talking about nature,
02:00 and Margaret, I did not know
02:02 that you were once a camp counselor
02:05 that specifically focused on nature.
02:08 And will you tell us a little bit about that?
02:11 I just want the audience to also hear this anecdote.
02:13 >> You know, before you were born.
02:15 Before you were born.
02:16 So, 1958, I was hired to start the nature program
02:26 at a small reform Jewish summer camp in Canada.
02:34 Why me? Because I was the only person
02:37 that they could get their hands on
02:38 who knew anything about nature.
02:40 And one of my ex-campers said to me recently, "I hated nature.
02:46 I didn't want to go anywhere near it."
02:49 But he is now the co-founder
02:52 of a conservation program in Africa.
02:55 So, maybe some of it rubbed off.
02:59 So, I was promised that I would have a little lab built for me.
03:02 That didn't happen.
03:03 I ran my nature program out of a tool shed.
03:07 And we went on from there.
03:10 So, yes. Why me?
03:12 Because I grew up with the biologists.
03:15 I know their ways.
03:17 I'm not afraid of snakes.
03:20 Snakes. Let's talk about snakes.
03:22 >> Wait. You have to tell them your nickname,
03:24 which is Peggy Nature.
03:25 >> Yes. We were all called after our specialty.
03:29 So, there was back arts and crafts, burl, horses.
03:34 And I was Peggy Nature.
03:36 Just the other day, I was waiting in a lobby.
03:39 And a retired-looking man came up to me and said,
03:45 "Are you Peggy Nature?"
03:47 I said, "Yes."
03:49 He said, "I was one of your campers."
03:53 And I said, "Let me guess.
03:54 You turned into a lawyer?"
03:57 He said, "How did you know?"
04:01 >> So, I'm curious.
04:02 You both have written about, as we were talking about,
04:04 both the Vaster Wilds and the Handmaid's Tale,
04:06 and other works of yours are stories about women
04:11 in moments of survival.
04:13 Those two particular novels don't take place
04:17 in our contemporary times.
04:18 What is it about drawing from historical knowledge
04:23 of stories of women in survival that resonates with us today?
04:27 I think Margaret might --
04:28 >> Well, I think it's partly a writer's problem,
04:31 which is that present times are moving so quickly.
04:35 It's hard to get a point of fixation.
04:39 So, as soon as you write about something
04:42 in the present day, it's all changed.
04:45 Or some of it has.
04:47 But I was interested in the 17th century Puritan New England,
04:51 partly because they're my folks.
04:55 So, I don't want to say bad things about them,
04:57 whereas there's other people that said bad things about them.
05:00 Yes, but I know them.
05:02 And I studied them as well before you were born.
05:07 Back in the early '60s with a man called Perry Miller,
05:13 to whom the book is partly dedicated,
05:16 who brought American studies into the academy.
05:20 Him and another person called F.O. Matheson did that.
05:24 Before that, nobody studied American literature
05:28 and civilization, and especially not the 17th century.
05:31 They might have studied maybe Whitman, Moby Dick,
05:36 but not the 17th century.
05:40 >> And Lauren, what appealed about it to you?
05:43 I mean, you've also spoken about being put off by writing a book
05:46 where Twitter and smartphones are --
05:49 >> Oh, yeah, no.
05:50 I mean, I'm not supposed to talk about the modern age,
05:52 but do it slants, right?
05:53 And historical fiction is this amazing way to do that.
05:57 You can speak metaphorically about the time
06:01 that you're actually in.
06:02 Every book is of the time that you're actually in, right?
06:04 Even if you put it into the future,
06:07 even if you put it into the past.
06:09 But I was really interested in looking at the survivalist tale
06:14 because they tend to be masculine, right?
06:16 If you look at the Western, the Western is really,
06:19 like, hypermasculine as a form.
06:21 If you look at other survivalist tales, even, you know,
06:25 Gary Paulson Hatchet or My Side of the Mountain,
06:27 which are these things that I read obsessively as a girl,
06:31 the person at the center is male.
06:34 And I just wanted to flip that.
06:35 I wanted to see what it would be like to have a female body
06:38 in nature, responding to nature, and sort of --
06:41 and turning the idea of man versus nature
06:44 into something maybe a little different,
06:46 a little more surreptitious, perhaps.
06:51 Yeah.
06:53 >> Yeah. So, speaking of books that speak to our time, Margaret,
06:58 I'm sure you're sick of telling us all I told you so.
07:00 >> Oh, my God.
07:02 >> When it comes to the repeal of Roe and just sort
07:07 of the assault on women's rights that has happened
07:10 over the past several decades, really.
07:14 Was it frustrating to have Handmaid's Tale dismissed
07:17 as an impossible future for so long?
07:20 >> No. It wasn't dismissed everywhere.
07:24 It was -- it had several reactions.
07:27 One was in England, where they did their 17th century Puritan
07:34 absolutism in the 17th -- no, I said that already.
07:38 And they said, "Jolly good and yarn."
07:41 Matt and Margaret, you have such an imagination.
07:44 Ho, ho. In the eastern part of the --
07:49 in Canada, they asked nervously, "Could it happen here?"
07:52 Because they're always quite nervous,
07:54 Canadians, a nervous people.
07:57 Well, you can see why.
07:58 To the north of them is Russia.
08:00 To the south of them is the United States.
08:02 You never know what they're going to do.
08:05 In the States, one reaction was, "Don't be silly.
08:10 We're the world's greatest liberal democracy.
08:13 We would never do such a thing.
08:14 Never, never, never."
08:16 And the other reaction coming
08:17 from the west coast was, "How long have we got?"
08:22 So it was a split reaction.
08:26 Yeah. So one of the theories is
08:29 that civilizations can never start from zero.
08:34 They always, even if they change the name, change the statues,
08:39 change the flags, czarist Russia ended up with Stalin.
08:43 And look what's happened now.
08:46 Because they didn't have a tradition
08:48 of liberal democracy at all.
08:51 They had an absolutist state.
08:55 China had an astonishing bureaucracy.
08:59 And now it has an astonishing bureaucracy.
09:03 The United States, but only part of it,
09:06 because it's very diverse in its points of origin
09:11 and its foundational beliefs.
09:14 The part I was writing about began as a Puritan theocracy.
09:20 Gets thrown out, gets the, quote,
09:22 "enlightenment," gets the revolution.
09:25 But that theocracy is always underneath,
09:31 waiting to reassert itself.
09:33 So the question I ask myself is
09:35 if the United States were to become a totalitarianism,
09:38 what kind of totalitarianism would it become?
09:42 And we're beginning to see the answer to that.
09:45 And some people can hardly wait to get rid of democracy
09:49 and set up a Puritan theocracy.
09:53 >> So speaking of differing states and differing views
09:59 and receptions to books, Lauren, you are imminently about
10:04 to open a bookstore in Florida.
10:07 And, yay.
10:09 [ Applause ]
10:12 And I pulled this stat, and I'm sure you're much more versed
10:16 in this than I am, but as of last September,
10:19 40% of the book restrictions in the US occurred in Florida.
10:24 So you are focusing very much
10:27 on the topic of banned books right now.
10:30 So why did you feel it was important to open this store?
10:33 And how is that a means of fighting back
10:35 against book banning?
10:37 >> Yeah, so my husband and I are co-partners in this.
10:40 And, you know, we've been watching this happen slowly.
10:43 I mean, over the course of a few years.
10:46 Talk about a Puritan theocracy.
10:48 I mean, that's what Florida is right now.
10:50 But, you know, we firmly believe in freedom of expression.
10:55 And we were feeling frustrated about what to do about it.
10:59 I do -- there's this amazing quote
11:01 by the German poet Heinrich Heine, who wrote in 1820s,
11:06 some -- 1829, I think, in places where people burn books,
11:13 they will one day burn people.
11:16 And I believe that is to be true, right?
11:19 I think that banning books is the first step to burning them.
11:22 And it's a -- now a very,
11:25 very swift slide into banning books.
11:27 We have a thousand more books challenged and banned
11:31 in Florida than the next state, which is Texas.
11:34 And it's increasing every single day.
11:38 So, you know, we wanted to be a lighthouse.
11:41 We wanted to sort of spread freedom of expression.
11:44 We wanted to stand in the middle --
11:46 we are literally in the middle of the state in Gainesville,
11:48 Florida, in the swamp.
11:49 And we wanted to show that we're watching, right?
11:54 We're here.
11:55 The people whose voices are being erased, they matter.
12:00 They need to see themselves in media.
12:03 They are -- the state of Florida doesn't seem
12:07 to value them, but we value them.
12:09 We think that they're important, and they need to be heard,
12:12 and they need to see themselves reflected in the books.
12:15 So we're very passionate about this.
12:18 We're a general interest bookstore, but we are going
12:19 to be pushing these books.
12:21 We're going to be trying to get them into the hands
12:23 of as many people as possible.
12:25 We're going to be inviting as many people
12:26 who are comfortable coming to Florida to do talks.
12:28 I don't know if Margaret Atwood would come, but you're invited.
12:32 So we have this whole banned book section,
12:34 and the Handmaid's Tale is like some smack dab.
12:37 I love it so much.
12:39 So, yeah, so we're going to be trying very, very hard
12:42 to at least start as a beacon and then let the light sort
12:47 of shine into the other parts of Florida.
12:50 But, of course -- oh, thank you.
12:52 [ Applause ]
12:54 We're not alone, right?
12:56 Mitchell Kaplan at Books and Books,
12:58 and Judy Blume also at Books and Books.
13:00 I mean, we're working really hard together to make this sort
13:04 of stand against book banning.
13:06 >> So when you say book banning, you mean schools and libraries?
13:10 >> Schools and libraries, but it's not just schools
13:12 and libraries.
13:13 There's an immense chill that's happening, too.
13:16 So we track the books that are actually actively being banned,
13:20 but what we don't track is the teachers and the librarians
13:25 who are terrified --
13:26 >> Of course, yeah.
13:27 >> Right? Of putting books out.
13:29 I have a friend who is a fifth grade teacher,
13:32 and she used to teach the Holocaust
13:33 by teaching Art Spiegelman's Mouse, a great book.
13:37 And she does not feel comfortable putting that out,
13:39 because she is afraid that parents are going
13:41 to come in and get her job.
13:43 >> And there's a naked mouse in it.
13:45 >> I think it's more the Holocaust, but yeah, yeah, yeah.
13:50 >> That was one of the objections.
13:51 >> Was it really?
13:52 Oh, yeah, no, I thought it was history.
13:56 >> Well, it is, but if you add the word naked,
13:58 then you've got an excuse.
14:00 >> It's true.
14:01 >> There are naked SS men in here.
14:04 >> Yeah. Well, you know, in a certain county in Florida,
14:08 the dictionary was banned because it has the word sex
14:10 in it, which is amazing.
14:13 Right? Yeah, naked and sex.
14:14 >> Well, I've got some news for them.
14:16 >> The Bible.
14:17 >> If they go on that way, they're going to be extinct,
14:19 because they won't be able to reproduce.
14:21 >> We all know that they have sex, right, these people.
14:24 >> They do.
14:26 >> They do.
14:27 >> Heretic.
14:28 >> In ways that come out in very public and embarrassing ways.
14:34 >> So you need to do a list called too hot to read.
14:37 >> Ooh, that's good.
14:38 Let's do it.
14:40 >> Yeah.
14:41 >> Oh, my gosh, I love it.
14:42 >> They have a billboard, too hot to read.
14:44 >> And you know, the number one will be the Bible,
14:45 because of Song of Solomon.
14:46 >> So hot.
14:48 >> I love that.
14:49 There's so much murder and sex on rooftops.
14:50 >> Right? It's incredible.
14:52 >> Yeah.
14:54 >> Yeah.
14:55 >> Being Canadian of my generation, I know it well.
14:57 >> Yeah.
14:58 >> Same.
14:59 >> We never got those parts in school.
15:01 >> Ooh.
15:02 >> But we found them.
15:03 [ Laughter ]
15:07 >> Sex on the rooftop.
15:08 >> Ooh.
15:09 >> Yeah.
15:11 >> Sex in the tents in the desert.
15:12 >> You want me to tell you which part?
15:13 >> Yeah.
15:15 [ Laughter ]
15:17 >> I was going to wrap up about asking about the impact of books,
15:22 but I think we've learned a little just now about the impact
15:25 that books can have on our lives and our imaginations.
15:29 But Margaret, The Handmaid's Tale especially has been central
15:33 to protests around women's rights
15:36 in the last several years, the imagery from it.
15:38 And I'm curious, do you feel like the book has helped enact
15:42 some change or at least some conversation?
15:44 >> Without a doubt.
15:46 And I hear from people from various countries in the world.
15:50 I will mention Argentina just to kick off.
15:54 But every time you get one of these changes,
15:57 you get a pushback against them.
15:59 It's inevitable.
16:01 The reason the imagery has been so widely deployed is
16:05 that we live in an age of television, the internet,
16:09 very visual, YouTube, all of these things.
16:13 They're visual.
16:14 If we were still in the age of radio,
16:16 you wouldn't be seeing that phenomenon at all.
16:19 It's because you can look at the image
16:23 and make an instant connection.
16:25 And this was kicked off in the United States in Texas.
16:30 So some women were going to go into the legislative chamber
16:34 where there were a lot of non-female people
16:37 in dark suits enacting legislation
16:41 about women's bodies, about which they appeared
16:44 to know very little.
16:46 And they wanted to do a protest,
16:49 but they knew they would be kicked out
16:51 if they were vocal or naked.
16:54 So they decided to put on these outfits,
16:59 and they ordered some long robes, red,
17:02 which when they arrived were pink.
17:04 This was not the message they wished to convey.
17:08 So they made the red ones very quickly themselves.
17:11 You can't be kicked out because you're silent,
17:15 and you can't be expelled for a modest dress
17:18 because you're very covered up.
17:20 And the television camera sees you instantly.
17:24 So I think that's why it became so useful
17:27 in a lot of situations.
17:30 - Definitely.
17:32 Well, I wanted to thank you both so much
17:34 for the work that you're doing
17:35 to not only put incredibly moving
17:38 and impactful stories out in the world,
17:40 but help create real world change as well.
17:43 So thank you so much for doing that
17:45 and for joining us for this conversation today.
17:47 - Thank you.
17:48 (audience applauding)
Comments