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What is the role of the writer? Prophet? High Priest of Art? Court Jester? Or witness to the real world? Looking back on her own childhood and writing career, Margaret Atwood examines the metaphors which writers of fiction and poetry have used to explain - or excuse! - their activities, looking at what costumes they have assumed, what roles they have chosen to play. In her final chapter she takes up the challenge of the title: if a writer is to be seen as 'gifted', who is doing the giving and what are the terms of the gift? Margaret Atwood's wide reference to other writers is balanced by anecdotes from her own experiences, both in Canada and on the international scene. The lightness of her touch is underlined by a seriousness about the purpose and the pleasures of writing, and by a deep familiarity with the myths and traditions of Western literature.… (más)
Atwood was asked to give the Empson lectures at Cambridge University in 2000. The series of six presentations were intended for scholars, students and the general public. This book is the result of that experience.
Somehow, I’ve found myself reading books about writing this past year. I read Ray Bradbury’s Zen in the Art of Writing last month and am just about to finish listening to Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. I cannot help but compare them, and I find this one better than Bradbury’s, but not so helpful (or entertaining) as King’s
Atwood clearly gave a lot of thought into the lecture series and she references many writers and books in a range of genres, though she does tend to rely most on classics / literary fiction and poetry. She does have some very interesting points to make, and questions to ask. For example, this excerpt: In what ways, if any, does talent set you apart? Does it exempt you from the duties and responsibilities expected of others? Or does it load you up with even more duties and responsibilities, but of a different kind? Are you to be a detached observer…? Or ought you to be a dedicated spokesperson for the downtrodden of this earth…?
However, the style seemed stilted and detached. Dryly academic. I found myself anxious for her to get her point made and move on. ( )
Plus a half star. It would have been fabulous to be at her lectures on which the book was based. The philosophy was less convincing on the page but the moments of personal experience were touching. ( )
Very interesting, learned, but easy to read and funny at times. I’d recommend this to anyone who habitually reads.
Atwood opens quite innocuously with a memoir and description of the literary scene in mid-20th C Canada. There’s an interesting discussion of the relationship between the author and the reader (pretty much like in Stephen King’s Misery) and also of the writer’s relationship with themselves (as in The Dark Half). She also discusses the religious aspects of writing. The final chapter is actually rather profound.
So a book about the art of writing is also itself a work of art. Bloody typical of Atwood to do something like that. ( )
A wide-ranging, perceptive and sometimes hilarious look at becoming a writer, being a writer, wrestling with the art and commerce of writing and more. If you have thought it as a writer, Atwood has -- and likely she captures it better on paper. If you've done it (even the scary or shameful stuff) -- ditto. And if you've navigated, or wanted to, the scary gap between creation and commerce, Atwood can pen BTDT in a way that will still break your heart. ( )
Plus a half star. It would have been fabulous to be at her lectures on which the book was based. The philosophy was less convincing on the page but the moments of personal experience were touching. ( )
Información procedente del conocimiento común inglés.Edita para encontrar en tu idioma.
As they were all sitting at table, one guest suggested that each of them should relate a tale. Then the bridegroom said to the bride: "Come, my dear, do you know nothing? Relate something to us, like the others." She said: "Then I will relate a dream." -- "The Robber Bridegroom," collected by the Brothers Grimm
...I moot reherce Hir tales alle, be they bettre or werse, Or elles falsen som of my mateere. And therefore, whoso list it nat yheere, Turne over the leef and chese another tale... --Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales
And now in imagination he has climbed another planet, the better to look with single camera view upon this earth-- its total scope, and each afflated tick, its talk, its trick, its tracklessness--and this, this he would like to write down in a book! --A.M. Klein, "Portrait of the Poet as Landscape"
Dedicatoria
Información procedente del conocimiento común inglés.Edita para encontrar en tu idioma.
For the others
Primeras palabras
Información procedente del conocimiento común inglés.Edita para encontrar en tu idioma.
When I was a student of English literature, in the early 1960s, we all had to read an important critical text called Seven Types of Ambiguity (1930).
Citas
Información procedente del conocimiento común inglés.Edita para encontrar en tu idioma.
Every life lived is also an inner life, a life created.
Últimas palabras
Información procedente del conocimiento común inglés.Edita para encontrar en tu idioma.
I will give the last word to the poet Ovid, who has the Sibyl of Cumae speak, not only for himself, but also--we suspect--for him, and for the hopes and fates of all writers: But still, the fates will leave me my voice, and by my voice I shall be known.
What is the role of the writer? Prophet? High Priest of Art? Court Jester? Or witness to the real world? Looking back on her own childhood and writing career, Margaret Atwood examines the metaphors which writers of fiction and poetry have used to explain - or excuse! - their activities, looking at what costumes they have assumed, what roles they have chosen to play. In her final chapter she takes up the challenge of the title: if a writer is to be seen as 'gifted', who is doing the giving and what are the terms of the gift? Margaret Atwood's wide reference to other writers is balanced by anecdotes from her own experiences, both in Canada and on the international scene. The lightness of her touch is underlined by a seriousness about the purpose and the pleasures of writing, and by a deep familiarity with the myths and traditions of Western literature.
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Alternate or Subtitle: A Writer on Writing
Atwood was asked to give the Empson lectures at Cambridge University in 2000. The series of six presentations were intended for scholars, students and the general public. This book is the result of that experience.
Somehow, I’ve found myself reading books about writing this past year. I read Ray Bradbury’s Zen in the Art of Writing last month and am just about to finish listening to Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. I cannot help but compare them, and I find this one better than Bradbury’s, but not so helpful (or entertaining) as King’s
Atwood clearly gave a lot of thought into the lecture series and she references many writers and books in a range of genres, though she does tend to rely most on classics / literary fiction and poetry. She does have some very interesting points to make, and questions to ask. For example, this excerpt:
In what ways, if any, does talent set you apart? Does it exempt you from the duties and responsibilities expected of others? Or does it load you up with even more duties and responsibilities, but of a different kind? Are you to be a detached observer…? Or ought you to be a dedicated spokesperson for the downtrodden of this earth…?
However, the style seemed stilted and detached. Dryly academic. I found myself anxious for her to get her point made and move on. (