Second Words: Selected Critical Prose

Robert C. Brandeis was Chief Librarian, Victoria University, Toronto.

Margaret Atwood’s first non-fiction collection since Survival (Anansi, 1972) presents a useful survey of 50 or her previously published reviews, essays, and lectures.

The collection is divided into three chronological sections which, says Atwood “correspond to three periods of [her] life”: 1960-71, the time during which she was developing some of the ideas which later appeared in Survival and publishing such memorable and important work as The Journals of Susanna Moodie (Oxford, 1970), The Circle Game (Anansi, 1967) and Edible Woman (McClelland and Stewart, 1969); 1972-76, including the time when she was “being attacked a lot,” a time of “cultural nationalism and the popularization of feminism”; 1976 to the present, the period of Lady Oracle (McClelland and Stewart, 1976) and Bodily Harm (McClelland and Stewart, 1981), a time of political involvement and continuing development.

These reviews and essays, then, provide a chart of Atwood’s critical, cultural, and political development, and include her response to Robin Mathews’ review of Survival [“Mathews and Misrepresentation,” This Magazine, 7, No. 1 (May-June 1973)] and occasional pieces such as consideration of writers like Adrienne Rich, Audrey Thomas, E.L. Doctorow, and W.D. Valgardson.

This collection is a useful selected compendium of opinions, attitudes, interests, and critical views which can provide an interesting perspective from which to view Atwood’s major poetry and fiction.