A NEW INAMORATA    PART 1 

AT MY AGE? NO MATTER, BECAUSE SHE’S 85. And my infatuation is an intellectual one, based upon my reading about Margaret Atwood in several articles in “100 Notable Books of 2025,” The New York Times, December 2, 2025.

Illustration (actually a brief video online) by Jack Smyth in The New York Times.

A Capsule Description of a Notable. “BOOK OF LIVES, by Margaret Atwood. From the Quebec wilderness to the peaks of literary fame, Atwood has put her imagination and keen observation to work in ways that have changed the culture. The author of ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ and ‘The Blind Assassin’ here turns the lens on herself, in a ‘memoir of sorts’ that tracks both the profound experiences and the lighter moments that have informed her writing. For fans of ‘Lit,’ by Mary Karr; ‘Giving Up the Ghost,’ by Hilary Mantel; and ‘Joyride,’ by Susan Orlean.”

Come to think of it, I also admired Hilary Mantel and her Cromwell series.

Book of Lives, by Margaret Atwood, Doubleday, 2025.

There are two articles devoted to Margaret Atwood in the “Times 100”: a review of this new book, “Margaret Atwood Leans Into Her Dark Side in a New Memoir,” by Dwight Garner; and “For a Literary Saint, Margaret Atwood Can Sure Hold a Grudge,” by Alexandra Alter.

Indeed, it’s the grudge part I find most endearing. Here, in Parts 1 and 2 today and tomorrow, are tidbits gleaned from these two excellent bits of literary criticism.

On Prediction vs Prescience. Alexandra Alter observes, “Margaret Atwood doesn’t like being called a prophet. ‘Calm down, folks,’ was the withering response when I asked why her fiction often seems eerily predictive. ‘If I could really do this, I would have cornered the stock market a long time ago.’ ”

“ ‘Prescient is not the same as prediction,’ she told me recently when we met for lunch in Toronto. ‘People remember the times when you were right, and forget the times when you were wrong.’ ”

Tomorrow in Part 2, we’ll focus on her most famous work, The Handmaid’s Tale, and also my favorite Atwood line. ds

© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2025