1. I promised lunacow a report on last night’s event with Margaret Atwood, and I do like to keep my promises.
It was utterly cool, and not at all what I expected. Usually these City Arts and Lectures events are an interview–some local journalist or personage interviewing the traveling author; then there’s a period of question-and-answer afterwards. Well, that’s always utterly cool as well, especially when the traveling author talks about process. As you all know, I loooooooove hearing about process. 🙂
Well, Margaret Atwood would apparently have nothing to do with what everyone else does. Instead, she had arranged for… well, as she said, “This is a Tibetan sand painting.” She’s been traveling around on tour for her new book, The Year of the Flood (or “The Year of the Floor,” as the formerly halfway decent SF Chronicle reportedly called it, eliciting clever and sardonic comments about linoleum from Ms. Atwood), and it’s been a different show in every city, with dramatic enactments, choirs, and–well, hymns.
She had brought along a musician–the companion of her literary agent, a composer–and he had written music to accompany the hymns she had written the text for, in the book. And there is a CD of these hymns, as she told us. In any event, it was just the two of them on stage, and a guitar.
She talked at us a while, until we were in stitches. Then the two of them sang a hymn or two; then she apologized for her singing, but pointed out that hymns are meant to be sung by ordinary people, not musicians. She read from the book, portions from each of the three point-of-view characters. More music–some from the composer alone (sorry, I never managed to get his name…), some the two of them together. More reading. More acerbic commentary by Atwood.
And then suddenly it was time for questions. Could the hour have been over already? Alas.
The questions were…well, odd. One woman was bound and determined to give away the end of the book; Atwood stifled her, more or less, but Notorious G and I put our fingers in our ears. Other people asked about politics, about Canada, about process (yay!), about Oryx and Crake, to which this book is an accompaniment. Atwood answered every question at great length, again bring us all to helpless laughter. And then it was time to go home.
God, she’s a smart woman. A thoroughly enjoyable evening.
After I got home, I was talking to Jay and he said, “You do realize that the science fiction community has a hard time with Atwood.”
Yes, I told him, I know that; she maintains that her work is “set in the future and speculates about what might happen, but is not science fiction.” Um…okay. Understood: she’s part of the “I’m literary, not creepy disgusting genre like you guys” crowd. Even so, she’s worth reading, and she was absolutely worth spending an hour and a quarter of my evening with. Even from high in the balcony, where I couldn’t even make out her face.
2. Joshua Palmatier (jpsorrow) is having a promo on his blog for his Throne of Amenkor series, and asks that we provide a link. I am more than happy to do so: I read the series a while back and just loved it. Here’s the link to his post, and the first two chapters of The Skewed Throne. And, I might add, since I won a signed copy of the first book, I have a gently used paperback to give away, if anyone is interested. All you have to do is promise to buy the second and third books in the series. Seems fair to me, don’t you think? Let me know if you want it…first come, first served!