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cultural life, the radio 4 programme, she reveals her formative influences and experiences, and how, even in high school, her creativity was clear. i put on a home economics opera. it was about fabrics. can you remember how it goes? # fabrics need a swim in the suds. # it makes them feel just like new. # plink plink, plink plink. laughter. i want to make sure the mics are recording us. margaret atwood, welcome to this cultural life. thank you very much. happy to be here. on this programme, i ask my guests to choose the most significant influences and experiences that have shaped their own creativity, and your first choice is your parents. yes. tell me about your parents. well, first of all, they, um, were very innovative and able to improvise, because, of course, if you live in the woods and there aren t any shops, you have to be, and they were both very outdoorsy. but they also allowed us to make messes in our rooms and didn t make us clean them up. by messes, i mean p ....
happy to be here. on this programme, i ask my guests to choose the most significant influences and experiences that have shaped their own creativity, and your first choice is your parents. yes. tell me about your parents. well, first of all, they, um, were very innovative and able to improvise, because, of course, if you live in the woods and there aren t any shops, you have to be, and they were both very outdoorsy. but they also allowed us to make messes in our rooms and didn t make us clean them up. by messes, i mean projects, which always begin as messes. just to set the scene, this is rural quebec, because your father was an entomologist. he was studying. oh, yes. he was a forest entomologist, and his research station spring, summer and fall, was up in the woods north, north, north, north, north of ottawa, up the ottawa river, and this would be in a house that he built himself, because he was of a rural background and knew how to do all of that, and, um, therefore, ....
I matured as an author. you were seven then. about, yes. and did you at some point at school, when you re looking forward in life and thinking, you know, i m going to have to, at some point, be a grown up and have a job, at what point.? oh, that comes much later. i don t think you re thinking in that way at all when you re seven. no. when i entered what we would call high school, they gave you a book called guidance. we had it in class, called guidance, which was supposed to be guiding us to ourfuture careers. so, there were lots of future careers for boys. so, doctors, lawyers, you know, rocket scientists and what have you. and there were five for girls. let s see if you can guess what they were. secretary? yes. nurse? yes. teacher? yes. got it. ok, that s three. that s three. er.| don t know, was it housewife? did that count? ....
Cos it was in the house, my dad had it. and i thought it was going to be, oh, good, animals! just like wind in the willows. talking animals? talking animals. what fun! er.but this is not what it was, and, of course, of the soviet union at that time, based on the show trials and so forth. because you were, what nine, ten.? yeah, i had no knowledge of those things. so itjust ruined me, because here were these nice animals and they came to tragic ends, and it was very, very upsetting. when it came to 1984, then, what was it about that book that gripped you so much? having been born in 1939, two months after the onset of world war ii, i ve always been pretty interested in dictatorships, and also world war ii. mm. so, by the time i got round to being plunged into history, ....
Doing your homework. and especially reading george orwell. when did you first come across orwell, then? well, my dad liked science fiction because he was a scientist and he used to get a big kick out of it. hmm. so he had quite a collection. but i first read animal farm cos it was in the house, my dad had it. and i thought it was going to be, oh, good, animals! just like wind in the willows. talking animals? talking animals. what fun! er.but this is not what it was. and of course, i didn t understand that it was an allegory of the soviet union at that time, based on the show trials and so forth. um. because you were, what nine, ten.? yeah. i had no knowledge of those things. so itjust ruined me, because here were these nice animals and they.and they came to tragic ends. and it was very, very upsetting. when it came to 1984, then, what was it about that book that gripped you so much? ....