Interview with author Margaret Atwood

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Read an excerpt from Moral Disorder.

CL: What to you is the significance of this basic household task?
MA: I don't know -- that's what people do. Usually they go through a sort of nesting period of their life. Whether they're doing it with somebody else or not, they go through a period when home furnishings become important, which follows a time when home furnishings have not been important.

CL: And did you have a similar period in your life? Was it at the same time?
MA: Absolutely. I knitted that bedspread. The cat got into it, just as described.

CL: That would drive me crazy.
MA: Well, it was annoying -- what, you mean the knitting or the cat?

CL: The cat.
MA: Yeah, that was quite annoying.

CL: Do you knit now?
MA: I have knitted. I don't knit all the time. I think the most recent thing I knitted was a rabbit that I knitted for a grandchild. Its nose, I have to admit, was a little too long. Looks a bit more like a rat. But once I got the ears onto it, it was better. I knitted the little jacket for it, it was very cute.

CL: Nell's sister in the book is described as anxious. She was an anxious baby, an anxious child, and her family doesn't seem to have any influence on that. How does this reflect your views on children and nature vs. nurture?
MA: Some kids are born like that.

CL: Do you think parents have that much influence on their children's character?
MA: I think they can respond to what hand they're dealt, in whatever way. But anybody who's ever had babies knows that they come out differently. They're not all the same.

CL: From day one?
MA: From day one, they're just not all the same. From day one, they have a personality.

CL: As a mother, did you find that difficult?
MA: No, not at all. But then, I got a lucky card. What they think now is that it's probably 50 per cent. There were theories that said all nature and then there were theories that said all nurture, but they've squared off now at about 50/50. I think you can make your child really miserable. It's not about ruining your kid's life. You can certainly do that. But you cannot take a child who is fearful to begin with, and make it into a completely extroverted, fearless child. You can work with that personality of the child and help it be less fearful. But you're not going to be able to take away one personality and replace it with another. Because people are just -- they come out with certain sets of genes, and they're predisposed one way or the other. A lot of that was not understood until very recently. But you know, it's the same thing with kittens. It's the same thing with birds -- there's some that are bigger and more pushy than others. With the kittens, there's often one that's picked on by the others and pushed away. So it's just how they are.

CL: I want to move on to you as a writer, and first of all your writing process. Where do you write?
MA: Well, I can write almost anywhere. The main thing I need is I don't want people talking to me when I'm doing it. But as long as they're not, then I can do it.

CL: Do you write on paper, or do you write with a computer now?
MA: I do both. If I'm on a plane, I usually write in a notebook, and then I transcribe. I just got a very cute book, which was written by a young woman trying to explain to her parents how to use a computer. I just use the most basic functions. But now that I've got this book I can learn to do other things.

CL: And when you're working on something, say a novel or a collection of short stories, do you find that you need to focus on that one thing, or do you multitask?
MA: I pretty much focus on the one thing.

CL: And do you find it absorbs you?
MA: Well, if it didn't, I would probably be a pretty horrible writer, wouldn't I?

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