Burning Questions - Essays and Occasional Pieces 2004-2023

Informationen zum Autor Margaret Atwood Klappentext "A new collection of essays from Margaret Atwood, the internationally acclaimed, award-winning author of The Handmaid's Tale and The Testaments. Short Description / Web 'About this Book' From literary icon Margaret Atwood comes a brilliant collection of nonfiction-funny, erudite, intimate, impassioned, and always startlingly prescient-which grapples with such wide-ranging topics as: Why do people everywhere, in all cultures, tell stories? How do we get rid of the immense amount of plastic that's littering our seas and lands? How much of yourself can you give away without evaporating? Is science fiction now writing us? So what if beauty is only skin deep? What do zombies have to do with authoritarianism? Is it true? And is it fair? In over fifty pieces, taken from lectures, autobiographical essays, book reviews, cultural criticism, obituaries, and new introductions to her own body of work (including The Handmaid's Tale thirty years after its initial publication) as well as that of other writers, we watch Atwood aim her prodigious intellect and impish humor at the world, and report back to us on what she finds. From asking what society's youth expects from its elders (2004), to pondering the philosophical underpinnings of debt (2008, not surprisingly), to encountering a mysterious new platform called Twitter (2009), to asking if it is, in fact, too late to save the planet (2015) or what forces have been unleashed in the age of Trump (2016), and culminating in a breathtaking meditation on grief and poetry in the wake of her own loss (2020), Atwood provokes, probes, delights, surprises, and rewards the reader at every turn"-- Leseprobe Chapter 1 Scientific Romancing (2004) I’m very honoured to have been asked to give the Kesterton Lecture here at Carleton’s School of Journalism and Communication. I note that I’m the fourth in this series, and that I’ve been preceded by three very eminent men. I have always distrusted the number 4, whereas I do have a preference for the number 3. So I’ve broken the dubious 4 down into two sets: one of three, a lucky moonstruck set, which includes persons of the male persuasion but excludes me; and a second set of one, which includes persons of the female sort and also, incidentally, me. I am therefore the first in a set that I trust will number many more individuals before long. That’s the feminism for this evening, which, as you can see, I have cunningly combined with the initial fooling around so you won’t feel too threatened by it. I’ve never known why people have sometimes felt threatened by me. After all, I’m quite short, and apart from Napoleon, what short person has ever been threatening? Second, I’m an icon, as you’ve doubtless been told, and once you’re an icon you’re practically dead, and all you have to do is stand very still in parks, turning to bronze while pigeons and others perch on your shoulders and defecate on your head. Third, I am—astrologically speaking—a Scorpio, one of the kindest and gentlest of astrological signs. We like to lead quiet lives in the dark and peaceful toes of shoes, where we never give any trouble unless someone attempts to cram an aggressively large yellow-toenailed foot in on top of us. And so it is with me: no bother at all unless stepped on, in which case I can’t answer for the consequences. The title of my small talk tonight is “Scientific Romancing.” Its cover story is that it’s about science fiction. Its subtext is probably What is fiction for? or something like that. The subtext under that will be a few paragraphs on the two scientific romances I myself have written. And the sub-sub-subtext might turn out to be What is a human being? So this lecture is like those round candies you could once ruin your teeth on for two cents: sugar coating on the outside, with descending layers of various colours, until you come to an odd, indeci...

Product details

• Authors: Margaret Atwood
• Publisher: Anchor Books USA
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback
• Released: 02.09.2023
• EAN: 9780593314074
• ISBN: 978-0-593-31407-4
• No. of pages: 488
• Dimensions: 132 mm x 202 mm x 21 mm
• Subjects: Fiction > Narrative literature > Essays, feuilletons, literary criticism, interviews; Fiction > Poetry, drama