Margaret Atwood: A Biography by Nathalie Cooke, and: The Red Shoes: Margaret Atwood Starting Out by Rosemary Sullivan (review)

536 LETTERS IN CANADA '999 man's TheGreat Naval Battie olOllawa, and then proceeds blithely onwards with his generally glowing account. There is a rather unsatisfactory ending to the book. While the postwar spy scandal which rocked Canada is worthy of note, it should not have been the main theme of his concluding chapter. Far more significant is the long-term influence that the wartime scientific mobilization had on the emerging Canadian scientific community. The formation of the Defence Research is examined, but it would have also been useful to spend much more time considering the exploSive growth of science in Canada fuelled by the recognition that science was vital to postwar prosperity. It also should have been discussed how Mackenzie's obsession with building up the NRC at the expense of other institutions left Canadian universities scrambling to expand their scientific facilities after the war. Also hampering the book are numerous minor factual errors. For instance, Lord Chatfield is referred to as the First Lord of the Admiralty when he was in fact the retired First Sea Lord; and the light cruiser uss Clevelalld is listed as a battleship. Despite its problems, this book is worthy of consideration, at least in terms of several of its case studies. While readers would still be better off consulting Zimmerman on radar, sonar and anti-submarine warfare research, and Robert Bothwell on the atomic program, Avery's studies of the other technologies do make an important contribution to our knowledge of Canada's scientific war. (DAVID ZIMMERMAN) Nathalie Cooke. Margaret Atwood: A Biography ECW. 19<)8· 378. $24·95 Rosemary Sullivan. The Red Shoes: Margaret Atwood Starting Gut Harper Flamingo 1998. 360. $32.00 In a memorable scene in Michael Rubbo's videotape of Margaret Atwood, Ollce ill August, Atwood puts a bag over her head, and her partner, novelist Graeme Gibson, asks the family members sitting around the table 'Who is this woman?' They are calling the biographical project into question, for, as Atwood's texts themselves continually remind us, it is impossible to really know another. Our moods and personalities may change, we may reveal or conceal parts of ourselves, and the observer is always implicated in the endeavour. Thus, the people sitting around the table that August day all have different answers to Gibson's question. Yet, despite the 'impossibility of the biographical enterprise' (Cooke), writers continue to write biographies, and readers remain fascinated with them. Two recent biographies of Margaret Atwood attempt to answer Gibson's question. But, recognizing the problems involved, each provides HUMANITIES 537 a disclaimer. Sullivan asserts that her book is a 'not-biography: because biography can only be written 'in retrospect.' Her interest is to set Atwood in the context of her generation, and to examine the conditions that made Atwood's work possible. Cooke asks 'Can one individual understand another? Can I grasp your motives? Can you share my experience? No. No. No. On this score, Atwood is definite.... and this simple, unalterable fact ... has daunting implications for the biographical project.' Therefore, we are lucky to have two biographies, two books that reflect and refract their subject through different lenses, showing us different facets of that complex and faScinating woman, Margaret Atwood. Read them both if you are interested in Margaret Atwood, in contemporary writers, or in Canadian literature and culture. Both books are well written, carefully researched, and informative. Both include generous helpings of well-chosen quotations from Atwood and from those who know her. The two books naturally contain a great deal of the same material, yet their viewpoints are different, one often showing from a distance what the other highlights in close-up. Sullivan sets forth her aim to write 'about the writing life: and to situate Atwood within a context of Canadian social, political, and literary culture. She is especially interested in how the women writers and artists of Atwood's generation 'shattered' two stereotypes: that women must be muses rather than creators, and that women cannot be both mothers and successful writers or artists. She starts her book with an important moment for Atwood :watching the film The Red Shoes as a young girl in 1948 or 1949. The film's message is that 'women were meant to be muses, not maestros.' ForSullivan, the question is: how did Atwood and other women of her generation resist this powerful myth so that they could succeed as writers and artists? Cooke's intent is a similar inquiry into the workings of a creative life. She begins her book with an exchange between Atwood and her artist friend Charles Pachter in which the two - artist and writer, man and woman - examine the question whether it is necessary for artists to suffer. Cooke's intent is to show that Atwood's answer was 'a strong, defiant, and resolute "No." I Both books follow the chronology of Atwood's life from its beginnings (with some attention to her ancestors), but they end at different points in her career. Sullivan describes a shorter time span. Her sustained narrative ends with the completion of Lady Oracle and the birth of Atwood's daughter Jessica in 1976. (She does, however, mention all of Atwood's important books, either as they grow out of events in Atwood's life before 1976, or in an afterword that sums up Atwood's achievements.) Cooke's narrative follows Atwood's life for twenty years longer, ending with the publication of Alias Grace in 1996. J Despite their different time spans, bothbooks contain approximately the same number of pages. Thus, Cooke focuses more narrowly on Atwood, 5311 LETTERS [N CANADA '999 whereas Sullivan paints a broader canvas that includes more about the Atwood family and the Canadian social and political contexts during the time period she discusses. For example, Sullivan devotes five pages to Atwood's ancestor Mary Webster (the subject of Atwood's poem 'HalfHanged Mary'), who was hanged as a witch in Massachusetts in 1685 but survived. In contrast, Cooke devotes one paragraph to her. Sullivan details the Canadian War Measures Act of '970 in two pages, describing its impact on Canadians, while Cooke discusses it in one paragraph. (Cooke's index does not mention the War Measures Act; Sullivan's does.) Both writers describe Atwood's years at Victoria College, University of Toronto, in the early 1960s, and both talk about her poetry readings at the coffee house known as the Bohemian Embassy. Sullivan sets the scene in a larger context, referring to other poets who also appeared in that venue. She examines the ethos of the time, especially the prevailing sexism of the Beat poets, and explores the implications of this milieu for Atwood's development . Both biographers describe in detail the evolution of the House ofAnansi, a small press of great importance in the renaissance of Canadian literature. Founded in '967, Anansi became a scene of literary and personal ferment. A group of young writers, including Atwood and her husband James Polk, were actively involved. It was a time of great innovation and excitement, and personal relationships were both strengthened and shattered in the cauldron of activity. Polk and Atwoo<\ grew apart, and, in part through their Anansi connection, Atwood and Graeme Gibson came together. In her discussion of Anansi, and throughout her book, Cooke's focus is a more personal one. She tells us more about many of the people in Atwood's life. For example, in her discussion of The Edible Woman she tells us that Atwood transformed her co-workers at Canadian Facts (a market research company) into characters in the novel and wrote to tell them not to take this transformation personally. From Cooke we learn more about Atwood's friends, including Jay Ford, to whom she was briefly engaged. And, of course, Cooke provides much greater detail about Atwood's life after 1976. She describes how Atwood was able to combine her writing and travelling with motherhood. She details the relationship of Atwood and Gibson, and she informs us of the development of Atwood's later novels and the reactions of readers and critics. The books differ stylistically as well. Sullivan tends to analyse more, and she has a more metaphorical style. For example, describing the period of the 1960s in Canada, Sullivan calls Toronto 'still frozen in the permafrost of colonialism.' Cooke has a more epigrammatic style. Concluding her book, she refers to two recurring threads in books about biography that Atwood called to her attention: 'Fear and fascination.' Who is Margaret Atwood, after all? Cooke answers: 'there are more and different Atwoods than the ones I have outlined. Other variations and reflections.' HUMANfTlES 539 Will we know 'who is this woman' after reading these two fine biographies ? Perhaps. We will certainly know more about her, about contemporary Canadian literature, about the writing life. And we will enjoy the read. (KAREN F. STEIN) Karen F. Stein. Margaret Atwood Revisited Twayne. xx, 180 US $32.00 Margaret Atwood Revisited, a volume in Twayne's World Authors Series of literary criticism, provides an overview of Atwood's long and varied writing career to date by surveying the range of her published work, including her poetry, novels, short fiction, non-fiction, and children's stories. As such it is a useful introduction to Atwood's writing and would make a valuable resource in an undergraduate classroom. Because it is, as the title implies, a 'revisiting' of Atwood's works and their critical reception, the strength of Stein's book lies not in the originality of its analysis, but rather in the clarity and scope of its summary. Stein's introduction provides biographical and background information. She organizes the remaining chapters around Atwood's works, grouping them in terms ofboth genre and chronology while making interesting links between the characters in the novels and the speakers of many of Atwood's poems. Stein opens each chapter by explaining how the grouping of texts fits together, categorizing Atwood's characters as 'archetypes,' 'victims,' 'witnesses,' and 'tricksters.' The structure suggests a narrative of development and encourages a reading of Atwood's lruvre as unified yet shifting. Touching on the critical reception and the major theoretical approaches to the worksiStein suggests that the victims and archetypes that characterize the earlier works tend to mature and become more fully realized in Atwood's later writing. Although Stein's summaries of the works are useful, the rationale behind her groupings breaks down as she repeats similar themes in each chapter. For example, Stein suggests that Atwood's later novels 'revisit familiar themes: qothic quests, female friendship, victims, doubles and doubling, memory, myth, and storytelling.' She also argues that Atwood's later poems 'continue to probe themes such as the power and dupliCity oflanguage, identity, and storytelling.' Because the list of themes Stein engages is, for the most pat, general and wide ranging, depth tends to get sacrificed for breadth throughout her study. One surprising gap in Stein's book is a sustained attention to Atwood's positioning within her social and historical context. Although in her first chapter Stein insists that 'to speak about Atwood we must place her in twentieth-century Canadian social and historical contexts,' in the same sentenceshe goes on to describe Atwood's familial relationships rather than her larger situation. Similarly, in her chapter 'Northern Gothic: The Early ...