Margaret Atwood Ultimately More Cost-Effective Option I Don’T Prize-Winning Novelist Believe That Books in Their More Familiar Form Are in Any Real Danger’
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BOEKWÊRELD information. Why? Firstly cost. Basically it willing to pay for the privilege. Socio- for printed books, are already limited so with puts publishing within reach of anyone who economic conditions also play a role. the current cost of eBooks it has no immedi- can write. There is very little cost involved ate future in libraries. in the creation of an eBook, it is deliverable Future of eBooks anywhere in the world, it can be copy pro- There is no doubt that the printed book Conclusion tected so that no one can steal the contents, will - slowly - give way to electronic book As new technology makes eBooks easier to and the cost to the end user is much less publishing, which has the potential to make read, more portable and more affordable than a printed book. (Mousaion, 2001). books more affordable and more avail- there may be a growing trend towards this Electronic publishing can be an attractive able. Currently this development is slowed medium. But, in my opinion, for now the alternative for new writers who are by high eBook prices, bad eBook-reader good old paperback and its hardcover coun- frustrated by the difficulty of breaking into systems and a lack of eBook quality control. terpart are safe and although the eBook has the print market, or for established writers In short: if you buy a book at the bookstore, its place, people around the world will still who want to write in a genre or on a you can be sure that the provincial viability, curl up in front of the fire place with a good subject that does not interest their print the quality, its possibilities in the market book made of real paper (for the time being publishers or for writers with a blacklist of place, et cetera, has been properly re- at least). out-of-print works they would like to keep searched, as it is expensive to publish a book in circulation. and bad sellers cost a fortune. (Schement & References According to Bianca Thomas (1999), two Curtis, 1995.) Dorner, J. The Internet - a writer’s guide.- types of electronic publishing is currently Black, 2000. available. One involves selling and marketing eBooks and libraries Esposito, J. The processed book. First traditional print publications online, for Libraries need to be at the forefront of Monday, 2003. 8(3) (Online) Available www. example, you can buy Ophra’s latest book breaking free of old traditions. They are firstmonday.dk/issues/issue8_3/esposito. club selection or browse for a ‘how to’ on supposed to place new technologies within Mousaion. Vol. 9, No 2. Unisa, 2001. cross-stitch. historical context. eBooks are only another Schement, J & Curtis, T. Tendencies and Rare and out of print books have also evolutionary stage in the history of books tensions of the new Information Age.- found a place in this medium. The second and libraries. The idea is to put libraries at Transaction Publishers, 1995. type is bypassing the print cycle entirely the cutting edge of technological advance- Thomas, B. Electronic publishing: blessing and distributing books solely in the online ment. The realities are that we have a global or curse? 1999 (Online) Available www.icon. medium. economic rich and poor divide, information co.za/~bmt/epub.htm. rich and poor divide. However, library funds Traditional print versus e-publications To the question of whether or not elec- tronic publications will replace traditional print, Thomas (1999) says, ‘While the online medium presents a new and exiting and Margaret Atwood ultimately more cost-effective option I don’t Prize-winning novelist believe that books in their more familiar form are in any real danger’. I agree with her because computer screens are notoriously taxing on the eyes and reading long novels like Pride and prejudice on computer is just Compiled by GRIZÉLL took her masters degree not practical. Electronic books are also not AZAR-LUXTON at Radcliffe College, as portable as their paper counterparts - Massachusetts, in 1962. readers are dependent on battery life, a con- ‘It is hard to believe it now, Atwood also writes nection to phone line, Internet access and but there was a time, and short stories, critical the availability of a power source. Traditional it was not that long ago, studies, screenplays, radio books can be read anywhere. Power cuts when Canadian literature scripts and books for children and her works cannot damage them, viruses cannot attack was something of a joke, par- Acland Laurence photo: uthor A them and it cannot accidentally be erased. ticularly in the United States, have been translated into over Another factor is whether or not readers where mocking the Northern neighbours is 30 languages. Her reviews and critical are willing to pay for a virtual copy of a a national pastime. Few books were pub- articles have appeared in various eminent book they can read in a library or buy at the lished, and fewer still were taken seriously magazines and she has also edited many bookstore. To some the old fashioned way by the English-speaking literary community. books, including The New Oxford book is still the only way. Then Margaret Atwood arrived.’ of Canadian verse in English (1983) and, The truth is that electronic publishing Atwood, Canada’s most eminent novelist with Robert Weaver, The Oxford book of must be making some money, otherwise and poet was born in Ottawa, Ontario, Canadian short stories in English (1986). it would not still be going. Those who in 1939. She is the daughter of a forest She has been a full-time writer since 1972, have embraced the cyber culture and have entomologist, and spent part of her early first teaching English, then holding a variety ventured into the eBook realm are quite years in the bush of North Quebec. She of academic posts and writer residencies. studied at the University of Toronto, then She was president of the Writers’ Union of Kaapse Bibl., Nov/Des 2005 23 BOOKWORLD Canada from 1981-1982 and president of She is, however, perhaps best known for novel describing a woman’s struggle to PEN, Canada from 1984-1986. her novels, in which she creates strong, often break free from her role. Her later novels It was with her poetry that Atwood first enigmatic women characters and excels in are: Cat’s eye (1989), dealing with the came to attention. Her poetry is marked by telling open-ended stories, while dissecting subject of bullying among young girls; The a fascination with the natural world and a contemporary urban life and sexual robber bride (1993); Alias Grace (1996), disdain for the contemporary compulsion to politics. Atwood leaves the ends of her the tale of a woman who is convicted for accrue possessions. stories untied, so that the reader is left with her involvement in two murders about Her first publication was a book of poetry, something to do. Her first novel was The which she claims to have no memory; The The circle game (1964) which received edible woman (1969), about a woman who blind assassin (2000), a multi-layered family the Governor General’s Literary Award cannot eat and feels that she is being eaten. memoir; and most recently, Oryx and Crake for Poetry (Canada). Several more poetry This was followed by: Surfacing (1973), (2003), a vision of a scientific dystopia, which collections followed such as Interlunar which deals with a woman’s investigation was shortlisted for the 2003 Man Booker (1988), Morning in the burned house into her father’s disappearance; Lady Oracle Prize for Fiction and for the 2004 Orange (1995) and Eating fire: selected poetry, (1977); Life before man (1980); Bodily harm Prize for Fiction. 1965-1995 (1998). Her books of short (1982), the story of Rennie Wilford, a young Although Alias Grace, The handmaid’s fiction include Dancing girls and other journalist recuperating on a Caribbean island; tale and Cat’s eye have all been short-listed stories (1982), Wilderness tips (1991) and and The handmaid’s tale (1986), a futuristic for the Booker Prize for Fiction, Atwood’s Good bones (1992). Atwood on poetry... ‘Plato said that poets should ‘The one good thing to be excluded from the ideal be said about announcing republic because they are such liars. I am a poet, and I yourself as a writer in the colonial Canadian fifties is that nobody affirm that this is true. About no subject are poets tempted told me I couldn’t do it because I was a girl. They simply found to lie so much as about their own lives; I know one of them the entire proposition ridiculous. Writers were dead and English, or else extremely elderly and American; they were not sixteen who has floated at least five versions of his autobiography, years old and Canadian.’ She did at least at this stage receive a none of them true. I, of course - being also a novelist - am word of encouragement from her wonderful Grade 12 English a much more truthful person than that. But since poets lie, teacher, Miss Bessie Billings: ‘I can’t understand a word of this, how can you believe me?’ dear, so it must be good.’ In her graduating year, with the aid of a friend, and another twood’s childhood was divided between the forest in friend’s flatbed press, they printed 250 copies of a collection of the warmer parts of the year, and various cities in the her poems, and sold them through bookstores, for 50 cents each. A colder parts. She was therefore able ‘to develop the They now go in the rare book trade for eighteen hundred dollars rudiments of the double personality so necessary for a poet’.