And so it is with non-fiction books - writers tend to wear their literary influences on their sleeves, and so you can't, for example, read Pico Iyer without going back and (re)discovering Graham Greene or Jan Morris. Atwood's treatment, with its good humour and tendency to imagine the horrific, illuminates a wide range of literary players, from Kafka to Karen Blixen (as I shall call her). It's a rich body of work, and the author is generous with insight. At times I have found the gravity of subject matter (read: climate change) hard to wade through, but in retrospect I'm glad I made the effort to persevere.
Thanks to Margaret Atwood I have discovered that I am timorous - nervous or lacking confidence. Every once in a while I have to look a word up, which is a good sign. Speaking of signs, astrology makes its presence known here, and this has led me to think more upon this system as a pathway to inspiration. Wasn't it a New Zealand author (Diane Catton, I think) who structured her entire prize-winning book around the twelve star signs? I hung up my astrologist's hat a long time ago in favour of evidence-based spirituality, but my previous deep dives into its world makes me well placed to appreciate what drives Margaret to strongly identify as a Scorpio. I suppose this is the advantage of being around for a while: you have various types of experience.
