|
|
Waltzing Again: New and Selected Conversations with Margaret Atwood
|
You are here:
Home > Books by Popular Authors > Margaret Atwood > Item
|
Waltzing Again: New and Selected Conversations with Margaret Atwood
|
by Margaret Atwood and Earl G. Ingersoll
Sales Rank : 165718
|
|
|
|
Paperback: 250 pages
Publisher: Ontario Review; 1 edition April 10, 2006
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0865381178
ISBN-13: 978-0865381179
Product Dimensions:
8.2 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
From Publishers Weekly
The title of this collection comes from a statement from its celebrated subject, author and poet Margaret Atwood, on interviewing: "I don't mind 'being interviewed' any more than I mind Viennese waltzing-that is, my response will depend on the agility and grace and attitude and intelligence of the other person." Atwood fills her dance card with these 21 interviews, dropping nimble observations on her interviewers (Joyce Carol Oates among them) regarding the nature of writing ("I think most writers share this distrust of language-just as painters are always wishing there were more colors, more dimensions"), Canadian literary culture ("like a group of figures dancing with considerable vigor and some grace on the edge of a precipice"), and the creative process. Atwood is lively, not afraid of chiding her interviewers ( "Are you asking me or are you asking the book?") and frequently brilliant in her discussion of feminism, her native land, her contemporaries and her work. Fans of Atwood will especially enjoy the more offbeat career moments she revisits-like the time she had to hold a book signing in the men's underwear department of a store in Alberta.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Product Description
"I don't mind being 'interviewed' any more than I mind Viennese waltzingthat is, my response will depend on the agility and grace and attitude and intelligence of the other person. Some do it well, some clumsily, some step on your toes by accident, and some aim for them."Margaret Atwood
This gathering of 21 interviews with Margaret Atwood covers a broad spectrum of topics. Beginning with Graeme Gibson's "Dissecting the Way a Writer Works" (1972), the conversations provide a forum for Atwood to talk about her own work, her career as a writer, feminism, and Canadian cultural nationalism, and to refute the autobiographical fallacy. These conversations offer what Earl Ingersoll calls "a kind of 'biography' of Margaret Atwoodthe only kind of biography she is likely to sanction." Enlivened by Atwood's unfailing sense of humor, the interviews present an invaluable view of a distinguished contemporary writer at work.
From the Interviews:
"Let's not pretend that the interview will necessarily result in any absolute and blinding revelations. Interviews too are an art form; that is to say, they indulge in the science of illusion."
"I don't think you ever know how to write a book. You never know ahead of time. You start every time at zero. A former success doesn't mean that you're not going to make the most colossal failure the next time."
|
|
|
|
