Negotiating with the Dead: A Writer on Writing

This is my first book reading experience by Maraget Atwood. It is a personable memoir that opened my eyes to the value, importance and creativity of writing. If anyone writes--in any way---they'll learn from this book. I was especially astonished to read how most writers have a sort of "double identity". It makes perfect sense in that a writer has to take on many forms, personalities and feelings in order to emote a character. She also points out that 'an art of any kind is a discipline'. I loved this book...and I feel like I'm a WIZARD (as in the Wizard of Oz). You'll understand what I mean if you read this book. I have to leave some element of suprise. Trust me, you will be surprised. A great book--for writers of any type. ;)

I just finished reading this book and I must say, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I feel that anyone who truly ponders the intricacies involved in the process of writing, anyone who has grappled with the process itself, will find this book relevant, beneficial, and even entertaining. Margaret Atwood mingles wit with wisdom. Erudition with transparency. It is unpretentious from start to finish, which I think is an Atwood hallmark. As explained in the prologue, the six chapters are really six re-worked lectures, delivered in the year 2000 at Cambridge University. They are intended for "specialists in literature, general readers, and - especially - writers at an earlier stage or dewier stage than my own." They are not sequentially built upon each other, but rather, they circle like gulls over a set of common themes having to do with the writer, the writer's medium, and the writer's art. The three main questions covered are as follows: "Who are you writing for? Why do you do it? Where does it come from?" Who, why, and where... and nowhere how. This is not a book about how to write. It is a book about what it is like to write. What it MEANS, to be a writer. The most interesting section, in my opinion, was the third, entitled "The Great God Pen" because it focused on the second question "Why does the writer write?"... my favorite of the three. Here, Atwood talked about the topic of "art for art" and it was fascinating. Does the writer write to make money? For hope of fame? To project a moral statement? Create something beautiful? Exonerate oneself? Impress the masses? Her prodigious and eclectic wealth of reference points and allusions show that she did not begin her thoughts on this topic just last week. In this chapter (and the entire book) we are the recipients of a very-much-still-alive LIFETIME of experiential and theoretical research, of such a caliber it can be considered among the finest scholarship in the field. And again, witty as all get out. Here is an example of what I mean by that: "I can still hear the sneer in the tone of the Parisian intellectual who asked me, `Is it true you write the bestsellers?' `Not on purpose,' I replied somewhat coyly." (p.68). Much of the book reads as memoir yes! (as other reviewers have commented). But how can this be a negative thing? If it is the writer's life we are concerned with learning about, is it not wonderful that one of the best in the world will share with us relevant glimpses and pieces of her own?

I just finished reading this book--twice!--and may just read it again. An intelligent, provocative, and very funny discussion of life lived in the writing realm. Each of Atwood's chapters could support a book-length volume of its own. Her ability to cross the boundaries of time, genres, genders, the human and the divine is astonishing. She is genius. The back matter--notes, bibliography, acknowledgments, and index--are invaluable, and if you'd like you could launch a lifetime of study just using her references as the guidepost. This book has gotten me excited again about literature--a dive deep into the profound waters, far from the frothy, frivolous "acclaimed" writing that has increasingly made me feel so discouraged and alienated. No, this is not a how-to. This is a wondering-how-and-why.

I have collected M.E. Atwood books for years now, and it was by accident that I came across Negotiating with the Dead in the academic section of my university's bookstore. Sure, it's not a novel or book of poems, but if it has her name on it, I buy it. I wasn't dissapointed. I love MEA's characters and stories, and now I love her take on literary aspirations and operations. Her refreshing, cynical angle on this field was inspiring and very interesting. Buy this book if you love Atwood, but also if you love writing and don't know why you do.

I felt compelled to write this review because of a previous reviewer's slanderous and ignorant comment that Margaret Atwood is an alcoholic. I am familiar with the arts community in Toronto and so can say with absolute certainty that this is untrue. This is a scholarly and beautiful text culled from a series of lectures and should be read as such. I suppose that if you believe, as another reviewer did, that being a writer does not require familiarity with the body of English literature then this is not the book for you. But if, as I did, you found that comment ridiculous and sad- then consider this text.