MA: Well, it was an age of push back in the 80s. So people were pushing back
against the gains made by the second feminist movement of the 1970s. And we
had just had a Republican government elected but I was clipping things out of
newspapers and magazines that said more or less what they would like to do if
they got power. So that was when the political, religious right started
getting together and feeling that things had gone too far. And what they would
really like was a religiously dominated theocratic state.
I'm looking to the past but I'm also looking at the back pages of the newspapers,
so the small pieces. I read science magazines quite a bit. It's the things they're working on, in that
area, but haven't quite done yet. And with the newspapers it's sort of the things
you pick up that aren't headlines yet. And other pieces like a deep dive into
old order Mennonites who still have polygamous marriages etc, things like
that. But yes, it is the past and I said I wasn't going to put anything into
the book that hadn't been done by somebody to somebody else at some time
somewhere. So yes, but that just goes to show that people can and have done
those things and there's no rule that says that they won't do them again.
What if it happened there, instead of over there and back then. What if it
happened now, here. What if it happened here and now. So probably unlikely in
England. You might get some other form of totalitarian absolutism but not that.
Whereas in the States you have
people talking quite openly about the fact that that is what they would like to do
In the 90s we thought or were told 'end of history',
let's all go shopping, problem solved. But in the 21st century that all changed.
Again, very suddenly, the twin towers went down, then we had the financial crash of
2008. Things became quite unstable, they felt unstable, they felt very, very shifty
and you didn't know what was going to happen. And that was when it was hard for
young people to do better than their parents had and things
started feeling a bit crumbly. When that happens, politics
develops a conservative side. Because Mr. Fixit comes along and says we're gonna
fix this. It's usually a Mr. Fixit. Sometimes a Ms. Fixit, And if you only,
if everyone will just do what I say. And we'll have to get rid of some of those
people, is usually the plan. So it started going in that direction and up
came the right, the fairly far right in the United States but in other
countries too. So it seemed like a good time to go back and see how Gilead might
have fallen apart because it is my belief that these regimes do eventually
fall apart. So what was it like 16 years on from The Handmaid's Tale? What was
happening? It was a new generation. There were a bunch of people in there who had
never known anything else. And what was it like
just outside Gilead? There would have been a government-in-exile, of course, and
there would have been some sort of De Gaulle resistance operation run from
there. So that's what I wanted to take a look at.
Well it's a little appalling because they would not be having this
cultural impact if politics had not gone backwards. So if politics had not gone in
the direction of limiting women's rights, people would have said jolly good yarn,
look what we avoided, this is never going to happen.
Which has been said. But as it is, it feels just a little bit too close to
reality, in some places. Well, what do we mean by incendiary? Do I think it
will inspire people to blow up buildings? I don't think so no. Will it inspire
debate? It already has. Yeah, I think that that's one thing that novels can do.
But as soon as you say that somebody will say well well shouldn't all
novelists do that? And the answer is no, they should not.
They should do what they're good at and what they feel impelled to do and
then those novels will find their audience. So each novel is gonna be
different, it's gonna do a different thing and there is no one novel that can
do everything. That does not exist.
W: When you're writing these characters do you ever read them out loud to yourself?
MA: I always read them out loud to myself.
Partly that helps you notice when you've made a really awkward
conjunction of words and letters and it's hard to pronounce. But any book
is a text for voice. So it's like a musical score. And readers reading it -
and every reader's different, everyone is going to do a different reading -
but every reader reading it, is translating those black marks on the page back into
sound. So in that sense the reader is the violinist of the book, so each reader is
reading the same book but they're doing a different interpretation. So yes, it is
it is fun to do voices but I've been doing them for some time. I used to have
a puppet show and I did a lot of different voices.
About 50 different choices. So in my high school aptitude test it was Forest Ranger,
Garage Mechanic, or Librarian
W: So one was connected to books but the other two very much not.
MA: They're n ot, no.
W: I like the idea of taking my car around to Margaret Atwood's Garage.
MA: I don't think I'd be able to do that anymore because it's digital now. But in the
days when you could disassemble things mechanically and
put them back together, then I would have been up for it. I'll still come and
fix your plumbing for you.
W: Don't, I have a leaky tap I actually need a plumber so you're more than welcome.
MA: Depends on what kind of tap it is!