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Alison Stewart: This is All Of It. I'm Alison Stewart, live from the WNYC studios in SoHo. Thank you for sharing part of your day with us. Whether you're listening on the radio, live streaming, or on demand, I'm grateful you're here. On today's show, we'll talk with two Oscar nominees from the film Everything Everywhere All At Once, actor Stephanie Hsu, and costume designer Shirley Kurata. We'll discuss the film Living with Kazuo Ishiguro, who adapted it and is up for an Oscar for that screenplay and actor, Bill Nighy the star who is up for best actor. Plus author, Rebecca Makkai, will preview our March Get Lit with All of It Pick her novel, I Have Some Questions for You. That is our plan so let's get this started with Margaret Atwood.

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There is a line in one of the short stories in Margaret Atwood's new collection that goes like this. A story isn't great because it's true, it's great because it's good. One of her characters wants to hold onto a lie because, well, it's a pretty good tale even if it's a tall one. The collection titled Old Babes in the Wood is full of great stories, some entirely fiction, some based on real life. The collection features, new stories and stories from decades ago. Characters include a storytelling alien, a snail trapped in the body of a woman, a housewife who believes she's a witch, and George Orwell.

At the heart of the collection are seven stories about Tig and Nell, a couple Atwood has been writing about for many years now. At the beginning of the collection, Nell reflects on many of the near-death experiences she and her beloved husband have faced. By the end, she's grieving his loss. Tonight at 7:00 PM, Margaret Atwood will be hosting a special selected shorts event at Symphony Space with special guests A. M. Holmes, Wyatt Cenac, Ellen Burstyn, Maggie Siff, and Becky Ann Baker.

Tickets include a signed copy of Old Babes in the Wood. First, I'm delighted to be joined in studio by the Booker Award-winning author whose works include The Blind Assassin, and of course, The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood. Margaret, it is so nice to meet you.

Margaret Atwood: It's very nice to be here in person.

Alison Stewart: In person. You've written in almost every form, novels, poems, essays, short stories, children's books. What do you enjoy about the short story as a form, as a writer?

Margaret Atwood: It's short.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: [unintelligible 00:02:35]

Margaret Atwood: More instant gratification, let's put it that way. Yes, so I've been writing short stories since, hold your breath, the 1950s. They were some of the first things I got published, that and poems because they were short. I love reading them and all kinds, so ghost stories, strange tales, sci-fi stories, Kelly Link. I don't know how you'd classify that. All different kinds and I like writing them too.

Alison Stewart: Do you edit your short stories heavily or do they come out and they're short and here they are?

Margaret Atwood: I edit everything because I'm a downhill skier as a writer. Some people want to get the first page perfect. I'm not that person. I get through to the end fast as I can, and then I go back and see what I did wrong. I work with editors and I work with a very good copy editor who she said of Oryx and Crake, “Okay, you send Jimmy out with five jolt bars to eat, and he eats one here and one here, one here, one here, one here and one here. You're either going to have to give him one more or have him eat one fewer." She's very meticulous and I love her a lot.

Alison Stewart: How do you know when your short story is done?

Margaret Atwood: You never know. I think you know when you can't do anything more to it, but you're not done then because then comes the editing, and it's called revision for a reason. It's a new vision of what you've done. Then you have to pretend to be a reader and say, "Does this make sense to me if I'm a reader, just a reader coming upon it cold? Am I telling them enough? Am I telling them too much? Does it hold together?”

Alison Stewart: That's so interesting to have to put on the different hat and pretend like you don't know what the story's about.

Margaret Atwood: I think you have to do that, otherwise, you're going to excuse yourself for too many things because you know the answer. You just haven't told the reader.

Alison Stewart: My guest is Margaret Atwood. The new collection, the short story collection is Old Babes in the Wood. The collection is bookended by these groups of stories about this couple Tig and Nell, and you've been writing about them for some time. What's kept you returning to Tig and Nell?

Margaret Atwood: More stuff.

Alison Stewart: Things keep happening to them?

Margaret Atwood: Well, I keep remembering stuff that happened to them. Yes, a lot of stuff happened to them. I barely scratched the surface of stuff that happened to them or that they did, the naughty creatures.

Alison Stewart: The first story, First Aid is about Tig and Nell. They take this first aid course and then later on they're thinking about the many times they were near death. I understand you and your partner at one time took a first aid course.

Margaret Atwood: We absolutely took a first aid course that extremely closely resembles that one. [laughs] Yes, we laughed a lot because we were by far the oldest people in the room. I think a lot of people had been sent there by their companies. They would've been in their 30s, in their 20s and they were a bit more flexible than we were. Kneel on the floor for half an hour doing the chest pushes, a bit easier for them, I have to say. But we made it through and I even bought one of the little appliances you should carry around with you should you come upon somebody who needs the mouth-to-mouth. I also bought an anti-fib kit, which I suppose I should get checked out to see if it still works.

Alison Stewart: Or the battery’s working.

Margaret Atwood: Yes, exactly. I think I'd better just check that out.

Alison Stewart: When you take a course like that, do you come home at night and think, “Huh, that could be interesting for a story,” and you take down notes? Or as you’re writing the story, it's from your memory of that time?

Margaret Atwood: No, I didn't take notes. I just remembered it at one point. Then I thought back to my own childhood up in the woods with no phone, no anti-fib kit, no nothing. I thought, “What if we had had an actual serious accident up there? What would we have done?” I don't know. It would've involved a motorboat.

Alison Stewart: You would've done something. It just wouldn't look like today-

Margaret Atwood: Well, [unintelligible 00:07:30] put, a motorboat may not be--

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: Was First Aid always going to be the first story in the collection?

Margaret Atwood: No, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, you collect these things. They pile up and then you lay them all out on the floor just like a deck of cards and you start shuffling them and then these people called the editors get involved. There're a bunch of them because they're in different countries. I've said, "I want you to all have your conversations amongst yourselves and then channel it through one person, because I don't want to get into fights you're having. I don't want to be in the middle. I don't want to have to choose favorites amongst you because you're all wonderful."

“Just pick the most Mary Poppins like amongst you and that person will be the English one called Becky." Becky Hardy channels all the editors and then tells me what they have mutually agreed upon.

Alison Stewart: Becky Hardy sounds like a character in a short story, doesn't it?

Margaret Atwood: Yes, extremely crack the whip and behave yourselves.

Alison Stewart: “I'm Becky Hardy.” When I read this short story and they start musing about near-death experiences, I thought about, "Oh, I've had one or two of those."

Margaret Atwood: What was yours?

Alison Stewart: I had one when I was in Amsterdam and I didn't look the right way and I almost stepped in front of one of those trains.

Margaret Atwood: That'll do it.

Alison Stewart: That'll do it.

Margaret Atwood: We had a Canadian ambassador killed that way, not in Amsterdam, but in Germany because the trains go a different way.

Alison Stewart: Exactly.

Margaret Atwood: Yes, you have to be very careful. By near-death experiences, we don't mean the kind where you see the light at the end of the tunnel. We mean accidents that almost happened to you, but that you narrowly avoided.

Alison Stewart: Did you have one? Could you share one?

Margaret Atwood: Oh, so many.

Alison Stewart: Could you share one?

Margaret Atwood: We hang by a thread. Well, I think I put in the one where the house almost burned down. There was that one. Childhood ones, we were going down a hill in something like a 1940s Studebaker and a hay wagon pulled out in front of us at the bottom of the hill and the brakes on the car failed. Of course, we were kids, we didn't know- -this would happen until the car whizzed past the end of the hay wagon and sometime later, as the grownups were wiping the perspiration off their heads. [laughs] Well, that was a close one.

Alison Stewart: My guest is Margaret Atwood. The collection is called Old Babes in the Wood. We talked about some things that are very real, near-death experiences, first aid classes. On the completely fantastical side, you riff on this 14th-century folk tale about Griselda, a meek woman who has her children taken away. In your story, it's called Impatient Griselda. Our narrator is this alien who we find out looks a little bit like an octopus.

Margaret Atwood: Looks quite a lot like an octopus

Alison Stewart: Has arrived on earth to help out entertaining human beings who are quarantined during an illness, less plague-like pandemic. I'd love if you'd read a little bit of this and then we can talk about the language on the other side.

Margaret Atwood: Okay. The ask was pick a story from Boccaccio's Decameron and do a modern update of it. In the Decameron, these people are sequestering from the Black Death and telling each other stories. The last one in the collection is called Patient Griselda, which appears here and there in various forums and other folk tale compendiums.

Patient Griselda is extremely patient and the man who marries her is obviously an evil sadist. I have no time for him, and for that reason, I felt the story needed an update in which things turned out somewhat differently. It is an alien entertainer who has been sent on an intergalactic mission to help out these poor human beings who are quarantining and it begins like this.

Impatient Griselda. Do you all have your comfort blankets? We tried to provide the right sizes. I am sorry some of them are washcloths. We ran out. Your snacks, I regret that we could not arrange to have them cooked as you call it, but the nourishment is more complete without this cooking that you do. If you put all of the snack into your ingestion apparatus, your, as you call it, mouth, the blood will not drip on the floor. That is what we do at home.

I regret that we do not have any snacks that are what you call vegan. We could not interpret this word. You don't have to eat them if you don't want to. Please stop whispering at the back there, and stop whimpering, and take your thumb out of your mouth, Sir-Madam. You must set a good example for the children. No, you are not the children, Madam-sir. You are 42. Among us, you would be the children, but you are not from our planet or even our galaxy. Thank you, sir or madam. I use both because quite frankly, I can't tell the difference. We do not have such limited arrangements on our planet.

Yes, I know I look like what you call an octopus little young entity. I have seen pictures of these amicable beings. If the way I appear truly disturbs you, you may close your eyes. It would allow you to pay better attention to the story in any case. No, you may not leave the quarantine room. The plague is out there. It would be too dangerous for you though not for me. We do not have that type of microbe on our planet.

I'm sorry there is no, what you call a toilet. We ourselves utilize all ingested nourishment for fuel so we have no need for such receptacles. We did order one, what you call a toilet for you, but we are told there is a shortage. You could try out the window. It is a long way down, so please do not try to jump. It's not fun for me either, Madam-Sir. I was sent here as part of an intergalactic crisis aid package. I did not have a choice being a mere entertainer and thus low in status. This simultaneous translation device I have been issued is not the best quality. As we have already experienced together, you do not understand my jokes but as you say, half an oblong wheat flower product is better than none. Now the story.

Alison Stewart: That was Margaret Atwood reading from Old Babes in the Wood. When you get to play with language like that, it sounds like one, you're having a lot of fun but how did you decide what would cause the translation machine difficulty? You said it's not the best quality.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: What kind of words would--? [crosstalk]

Margaret Atwood: For a carnivorous being such as this alien, vegan would be very difficult. They wouldn't have any equivalent.

Alison Stewart: Did you think about objects that just seem like, how would you describe a toilet? How would you describe a-- you said it to your point, a vegan?

Margaret Atwood: Yes. Well, this is the problem. The person or the alien is not able to describe these things because there is no equivalent. That is true of a lot of languages on our planet. There are things that you just have a lot of difficulty describing because your language doesn't have that concept or those words. You would have to use quite a few words to give an idea of what that one word means. For instance, there's a Japanese word, which means in one word the color of white silk that has been bleached on the snow. Try doing that in one word.

Alison Stewart: Wow. It sounded like when I read that, you were having an immense amount of fun with that introduction.

Margaret Atwood: I had fun with the whole story and it was a great satisfaction to do away with the bad duke.

Alison Stewart: It's always good to do away with the bad dukes. My guest is Margaret Atwood. We're talking about Old Babes in the Wood. We’ll have more with Margaret after a very quick break. This is All Of It.

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Alison Stewart: You're listening to All Of It. I'm Alison Stewart. My guest this hour is Margaret Atwood. The new collection of short stories is called Old Babes in the Wood. I do want to make sure you know that Margaret will be speaking at Symphony Space tonight as part of select shorts at 7:00 PM. Tickets include a signed copy of this book right here. I asked you how to say this before we turned on the microphone. I don't want to pretend like I knew beforehand. Metempsychosis or The Journey Of The Soul.

In this story, a woman becomes convinced that she has been inhabited by the soul of a snail, or maybe the snail has inhabited the woman, just taken her on as a shell. Of all the creatures to undergo this change why a snail?

Margaret Atwood: Well, they haven't had enough attention paid to them. There are a lot of shape-changing stories. You know about werewolves, you know about seals in Scotland. You can be a seal who is a woman. You've seen Swan Lake. There's a North American version in which it's geese. Bear walkers are well known in North America and people who can change into bears. They even turn up in Lord of the Rings. That's the character called Beorn.

Lots of possibilities here, but there is a Chinese folk tale in which a man realizes that his quite rather quiet and slow wife is spending half of her life as a snail and had the water bucket outside the door. That too can be a shape-changing story. I forgot snakes. They're ones in which the woman is a snake. It's frequently women, but if it's a threatening carnivorous creature, it's often a man. For a long time, werewolves were male, but now we've been given female werewolves too. With gender equality, there’s female werewolves.

Alison Stewart: You did a quite a bit of research into snails.

Margaret Atwood: I already knew quite a lot about snails.

Alison Stewart: You did?

Margaret Atwood: Yes.

Alison Stewart: Why? [laughs]

Margaret Atwood: Well, think how old I am. You don't get to 83 without knowing a lot about snails. I'm a gardener.

Alison Stewart: Oh, there you go.

Margaret Atwood: Snails feature also slugs, they're close relatives. I've always been very interested in snails because of their ability to withdraw into their shell and just close the door. They seal themselves up. Yes. Why not a snail is the question one may ask.

Alison Stewart: The story ends with a paragraph. “I must stay positive until my present skin and tissue host wears out, then my small bright spiral soul will rise and fly through the iridescent clouds and minor key music of the intermediate spirit realm to embody itself once more. But as what? Any husk other than this one. Any shell other than this. What does the snail understand about humans? That was fine for a short time. I don't want to go back and be in a human again.”

Margaret Atwood: It wasn't even fine for a short time. She has a lot of difficulty with it. [laughs] Yes. Her boyfriend doesn't understand why she wants to eat slightly decaying lettuce all the time.

Alison Stewart: He's brought Pinot. He doesn't even--

Margaret Atwood: He doesn't get it. I think he's already started cheating on her because she likes to spend a lot of time curled up in dark corners.

Alison Stewart: Yes. The snail is sounding like a good friend. I kind of like the snail. I'm with you. The snail might have figured out life a little bit.

Margaret Atwood: No, I don't think so.

Alison Stewart: No?

Margaret Atwood: It has the wrong body to be doing this life in a condo. Yes. It's not understood.

Alison Stewart: Yes. I like the snail's point of view though. Like, curl up in a corner. It's okay. Close the door when you want to.

Margaret Atwood: There are people you can talk to about that.

Alison Stewart: [laughs]

Margaret Atwood: She does go to a psychiatrist at the suggestion of her boyfriend and she explains to the psychiatrist that she's in the wrong body, but he is not prepared to hear that she's actually a snail.

Alison Stewart: My guest is Margaret Atwood, the name of the book is Old Babes in the Wood, a short story collection that might send you to therapy. It's possible. Because there’s stories mentioning COVID, and there's a story that we talked about the alien. What were the last few years for you creatively? Was it-- some writers took the time to write?

Margaret Atwood: The COVID.

Alison Stewart: The COVID, took time to write?

Margret Atwood: The COVID.

Alison Stewart: Some people just said, “No, I'm just going to think about surviving?”

Margaret Atwood: What do writers do most of the time anyway? They sit in rooms by themselves and talk to people who aren't there. How is that different? The people who weren’t there were on Zooms. I quite enjoyed the first period of Zoom when people didn't know how to work it. My favorite was the guy with the cat filter stuck on his head. I think that has to be top of everybody's list. My second favorite was the priest who was saying mass and had obviously been toying with some filter thing on his phone and he had firework shooting out of his head. He had all of a sudden dark glasses and a fedora, different looks unbeknownst to himself. I think my third favorite, because these things should be awarded prizes. Don't you agree?

Alison Stewart: Because you’re convincing me.

Margaret Atwood: There should be a contest of a guy running across the background of the very serious female news presenter in his underpants. I thought that was quite touching. Not only did he run one way but then he ran back the other way. [laughs]

Alison Stewart: Honorable mention, the kids who come into the very station-- [crosstalk]

Margaret Atwood: They were really good. Yes, the kids were really good. They're tied with the guy in the underpants.

Alison Stewart: Very serious news presenter. Oh, this kid's just busting in. That's actually something that’s so interesting. It's the idea of during COVID, we had to let go of a lot of pretension. Right?

Margaret Atwood: We didn't have to but we let it happen.

Alison Stewart: A lot of people did.

Margaret Atwood: It happened.

Alison Stewart: Yes. I think that's for the better in many ways.

Margaret Atwood: In some instances for the worst but it was very early television. Television of the early ‘50s, which was all live and there were some amazing bloopers in that area too.

Alison Stewart: Margaret, there's a bird on the cover of the book, and you've been tweeting about our owl Flaco I believe.

Margaret Atwood: Yes.

Alison Stewart: Are you a birder? I know you're late partner was a birder.

Margaret Atwood: Yes, we were both heavily and I still am in the bird world. This eagle-owl, they're quite big and I wonder if there's going to be a subscription movement to import a female eagle-owl for Flaco.

Alison Stewart: Wow. That would be interesting.

Margaret Atwood: Don't you think he needs a friend?

Alison Stewart: I do. I think it's interesting that so many people have become invested in Flaco.

Margaret Atwood: You may not remember, some years ago, three pigs escaped in England from a truck and they went roaming through the countryside and they developed a big fan base. I think we like stories of creatures escaping, and improvising, and figuring it out because we often feel that we are in similar positions.

Alison Stewart: In doing my research for interviewing you, I saw your interview with Jenna Bush Hager on The Today Show, and you mentioned you were working on a memoir. Is that true?

Margaret Atwood: I know, my publishers F-R-E-A-K-E-D out.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: I'm so glad it was that word that you said, that F word. I got worried.

Margaret Atwood: Yes. They went slightly ballistic. You shouldn't be talking about this yet so here I am not talking about it.

Alison Stewart: Well, we really appreciate you not talking about it on our show. Want to remind everybody that Margaret Atwood will be speaking tonight at Symphony Space as part of selected shorts at 7:00 PM. Tickets include a signed copy of this wonderful book of short stories. Margaret, thank you so much for making time today.

Margaret Atwood: It's been a pleasure.

 

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