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just think the opposite. She suggests that maybe finding an agent who will deal with the financial side
of writing and publishing will allow the author to be free of these financial dealings. She observes
that the phrase “To write for Money” doesn’t sound very nice but still the authors must resist the
implications. Atwood recounts an experience she had with a critic from Paris.
I can still hear the sneer in the tone of the Paris intellectual who asked me. “Is it true
you write the bestsellers?” “Not on purpose” I replied somewhat coyly. Also somewhat
defensively, for I knew these equations as well as he did and was thoroughly acquainted
with both kinds of snobbery that which ascribes value to a book because it makes lots of
Money, and that which ascribes value to a book because it doesn’t. 39
It is obvious that a commercially successful writer such as Margaret Atwood is faced with a
dilemma. In a world where many (critics) resort to reductive and simplistic categorizations she is
forced to justify herself as a “serious” writer whose books sell in large numbers. The line drawn
between so‐called “high literature” that appeals to the taste of the elite and “low literature” that
appeals to the philistine masses is an old one. Nevertheless, Margaret Atwood has secured herself a
place as a writer of quality literature whose books also attract a large readership.
The fourth chapter named “Temptation” deals with the moral responsibility (if there is one) of the
author. We usually think of the author’s relationship to her work but what about her relationship to
society? When a writer attains power through his or her writing, can (s)he misuse this power?
Atwood mentions that in a novel, a writer can kill someone, this is pure fiction, but maybe he can
influence others negatively, maybe other readers may be influenced by the successful outcome of
the murder and try to copy it. So the author cannot truly alienate herself from the influence that her
work will create. You may wish to improve people but you don’t know how they will turnout
eventually. Expressing her anxiety on this issue, Susan Sontag maintains:
I just wanted to support things that were good and that would be improving to people,
and that was natural to me, because I always had a moralistic frame of mind. The artist
gives examples from the Wizard of Oz and illustrates with a sentence that if one is a good
author, then he can convince readers of the veracity of his tales. One manner of doing this
as Atwood comments is saying “I was there”, “I saw it happen.” 40
In the last chapter, “Negotiating with the Dead” Atwood reflects on her anxiety of influence and
writes about how she might have been influenced by other authors and people. She observes that
“the dead persist in the minds of the living” 41 adding that “All writers learn from the dead. As long as
you continue to write, you continue to explore the work of writers who have preceded you; you also
feel judged and held account by them.” 42
According to James Olney:
autobiography is the literature that most immediately and deeply engages our interest
and holds it and in the end seems to mean most to us because it brings an increased
awareness, through an understanding of another life in another time and place, of the
nature of our own selves and our share in the human condition. 43
In this context, Negotiating with the Dead provides valuable insights about not only a very
successful and prolific writer best known for her works of speculative science fiction, but also a very
fascinating human being whose life is inspiring and whose mind is intriguing. Reading between the
lines, meditating on her experience of the world, we might also find something of ourselves, maybe
even come to a different understanding of ourselves, of our lives.
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