This past Tuesday, a Canadian author was in town to accept the 2017 St. Louis Literary Award. The author in question was Margaret Atwood, who needs no introduction here, if only on the basis of one novel published in the mid-1980’s, and recently adapted into an Emmy Award-winning series on Hulu. She’s written much more, of course, although self the loser admits to having read only one other of her novel’s (Cat’s Eye), besides the obvious one. (In fact, this year’s “Swedish Prizes” are to be announced soon, and although last year’s prize went to a North American, one wonders about this year.)
Given the timing of the ceremony (which, happily, went on, even though it could easily not have, if fools who ruined scheduling of other events around the previous weekend decided to ruin this one), it seemed pretty obvious that Atwood would address, if obliquely, the Jason Stockley verdict and the resulting mess, even though she, probably more than anyone, knows that her words will have no effect on the region at large. Nonetheless, she acknowledged that she did re-tool her opening remarks, which Sarah Fenske of the Riverfront Times captured here. Since they’re MA’s words, I think that it’s not a case of violation of fair use to reproduce all of her remarks as quoted from Fenske’s article:
"Every country has police. They're supposed to serve, protect, arrest potential but not proven criminals, and turn them over to the justice system for trial. That's a hard job with a lot of pressure.
"But, a country in which police act as judge, as jury and executioner is a police state.
"I don't think you would want to live in a police state because there is no independent justice system as such. The police make the decisions, and if you make a fuss about that, you are likely to be on the wrong end of one of those decisions.
"Countries do not become police states overnight. They get there by steps. One step after another is tolerated and accepted, and soon the bridge between police state and democracy will be crossed, and then that bridge will be burned, and then you can't go back without an uprising or a war and even that may not work.
"So, America, please don't go there. Please honor your own pledge to the flag — liberty and justice for all. All means all. Justice doesn't mean merely the administration of laws. The Nuremberg laws were laws. The Fugitive Slave Act was a set of laws. But just and fair laws administered without discrimination. Please don't settle for less. Live up to your own propaganda.
"You owe it to yourselves and to the world. There, that's what I think, for what it's worth."
One other remark that sticks in the mind, which Fenske didn’t mention, was something to the effect that "the world is not helped by a morally weakened America".
(Also, as a sidebar, the other implication of “All means all” also includes people that we don’t agree with, and despise for good reasons, like the alt-right. But in all honesty, how many people on DK truly believe that the awful, despicable, racist, and generally evil alt-right deserves full human rights — just like progressives?)
Atwood then got on to the more literary portion of her remarks, which were, of course, the real reason for her being in STL. Jane Henderson of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch has a more literary, less “political” take on the event in her Book Blog post here. She noted that the Saint Louis University Library Associates, the group in charge of the Award, made a unanimous decision for Atwood, over a year ago, well before too many idiots put Drumpf and Dense in power. Furthermore, regarding “market demand” for tickets for this event:
"The committee did not know the Sheldon ceremony would be two days after the Emmys or just a few days after the Jason Stockley acquittal would be announced and protested. So it was part luck that the event was so timely, and on Wednesday many people told me they had wished they could have gotten one of the free tickets.
Yet the sellout didn't depend on the Emmys. Most of the 700-plus seats were reserved months ago. Atwood is that popular. It was both gratifying to see the public respond enthusiastically to a literary author and a bit disappointing that even more people couldn't attend…
…I don't think there was an empty one at the Sheldon for Atwood.”
Contrary to Henderson, there were actually several empty seats in the Sheldon Concert Hall, maybe something like 20. But the lobby was pretty crowded, as more of an eyeball evaluation. So even if it wasn’t an absolute 100% full hall, for a 700+ seat hall, and for a literary event, a 97% full hall is impressive. Given this kind of event, the crowd was what you’d expect; very white (with a smattering of minorities), very liberal, very NPR, and more female than male. With her remarks about STL, in terms of audience response, as Henderson commented:
“I'm not sure most of those in attendance needed reminding, but they gave her a standing ovation and greatly appreciated the topical attention.”
Henderson went on to say that:
“Much of the night was more amusing than a talk referencing police states sounds.”
For example, Atwood mentioned that she was the recipient of a Swedish humor award, quipping “bet you didn't know there was one”. (For the record, self can’t recall her ever using “Eh?” in her talk at any point.) She said that she was not able to travel to Sweden to collect the award in person, so representatives from her publisher collected the award, which was some sort of crystal bowl, if I remember correctly. Unfortunately, some jerk stole the bowl, so Atwood has never actually received the actual physical award.
On the happier side, Atwood mentioned that her newest novel, Hag-Seed, a riff on Willie the Shake’s The Tempest, is to be adapted into a stage play, which is to be performed by inmates in the Northeast Correctional Center in Bowling Green, MO, and eventually to be performed in public. Henderson quotes Atwood:
"Art is one of the forms of human freedom. I am very pleased about this development."
While I haven’t read Hag-Seed, my understanding is that Atwood transposes the scenario of The Tempest to a prison. Thus, you have a novel, set in a prison, adapted from a play which is set on an island, itself a geographical / natural type of prison, to be performed by people in a prison.
For those who couldn’t get into the event, Henderson notes that the local PBS affiliate will air this presentation next month:
“And the good news is that Channel 9 filmed her and will broadcast the event at 9 p.m. Oct. 9.”
Atwood addressed a philosophical question about her fame and the visionary quality of some of her writings in an earlier P-D article by Jeremy Kohler:
‘The 77-year-old Canadian novelist, hailed by her fans as a visionary, insists she does not predict the future. “There isn’t a future. There are multiple possible futures, and it’s up to us, to a certain extent, which one we’re going to get.”’
In one sense, Atwood is incorrect, on the “There isn’t a future” part. There is a future, in fact, one future. The thing is that we make up the future as we go along, as the future continually turns into the present. There are definitely multiple possible futures, where Atwood is most certainly correct. But history will turn out only one way, from those multiple possibilities.
Atwood made this separate remark, in another twist on the possible futures (or alternate histories) idea:
“If I had a choice between these books not being current, plus literary oblivion, or their being current, plus increased attention to these books, I would choose the first. I would prefer that they not be current. Because the fact that they are current means there is a lot of unhappiness being caused.”
Well, thanks to just enough short-sighted stupidity from just enough people last November, we have the second scenario.
BTW, small statistical trivia to close out: 2017 marks the 50th anniversary of the Saint Louis Literary Award. However, Atwood is the 49th recipient, because of two years (1984, 2013) without an award recipient.
With that, time for the standard SNLC protocol, namely your loser stories for the week….