Daily Cascade

On "Writing with Intent"

Prompt:
Okay, bloggers what books are you reading? Are any of the books you're reading on the list that msn posted?

https://www.msn.com/en-us/entertainment/entertainment-celebrity/people-are-shari...

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Unfortunately, I couldn't open that link. I don't know why. It could be because my computer has all the Norton stuff and Norton sometimes is a pain. Anyhow, I don't read books from others' lists. Not that my picks are so great but they are my picks.

I just started on Margaret Atwood's Writing with Intent. It says in the beginning of it, "Essays, Reviews, Personal Prose: 1983-2005. I bought this book in hardcover, black and thick, all because I like Margaret Atwood a lot.

Since I just started reading this book last night, I only read the introduction and after the introduction, the two pages in which Atwood talks about herself and her background. The next chapter is her review of John Updike's The Witches of Eastwick. I haven't read that review, yet, but a long time ago, I read Updike's books, including The Witches of Eastwick. So, I'm looking forward to see what she has to say about that book.

Atwood’s fiction and nonfiction have always seemed as great accomplishments to me. This is because, especially with non-fiction, she sticks to her subjects and doesn't butt in with her views. To other reviewers and writers of non-fiction, her style should be an example.

Concerning this very topic, she points out in her introduction about reviews and such, this: "There's a legal echo here--assault with intent to injure comes to mind--and a tricky assumption, too, about the difference between the kind of writing and say, fiction or poetry, which might thus be defined as writing without intent, thus free of instigated designs upon the reader." She certainly hasn't injured anyone to the best of my understanding despite the amount of her writing and reading. She tells, however, the truth.

At the end of the next two pages, in which she talks about her background, family, and her work, her last paragraph talks about her feelings about the world in 1989, which impressed me greatly, if only because it mirrored the way I had felt then. Here is the last paragraph:
"How euphoric we felt for a short time, in 1989. How dazed by the spectacle of the impossible made real. No more cold war! Now, surely, peace and prosperity could become possible for all. How wrong we were about the brave new world we were about to enter."

Not only Atwood's talent in fiction, but also her work as a thinker, teacher, and reviewer is impressive as she published close to 40 books that show how wide-ranging her knowledge is.

I can hardly wait to read the rest of this book, but I don't know how to contain myself from reading all of it at one sitting, yet I won't. This is because: first, my eyesight isn't so great with print books, but more importantly, I decided to read it one chapter at a time to get all the benefits from Atwood's wisdom.