“Beware of Words. Be careful what you write. Leave no trails. This is what the Gardeners taught us” (p.6)
This again returns one to the importance of storytelling. In GGRW, Thomas King emphasizes the importance of telling the story correctly.The Gardeners in the Year of the Flood similarly appear to be careful how they tell their stories and the details they opt to include.“As for writing, it was dangerous, said the Adams and the Eves, because your enemies could trace you through it, and hunt you down, and use your words to condemn you.”
Ren, one of the main characters in the book, whom once lived with the Gardeners, also realizes that this is true from her own experience. After escaping from the Gardeners, Ren and her mom move to where they once lived, HelthWyzer, a corporation that is totally opposite from the Gardeners. There, she falls in love with a boy named Jimmy. As she falls in love, she keeps a record of her excitement and expresses her love and emotions towards Jimmy. It is thrilling as long as she is in the relationship. However, after they break up, she realizes why the Gardeners told her to “be careful what you write” (229). “They were my own words from the time when I was so happy, except that now it was torture to read them” (229).
Perhaps, Atwood expresses this in order to uncover the importance of what we write as a “Canadian Literature” or “Literature in Canada.” Writing can be dangerous, open to treachery, perhaps irresponsible, even factitious. It can always be turned against you. It can deceive. How is Canadian Literature different from 50 years ago from that of today? In what ways did literature exclude and include? In what ways did literature deceive? And what I want to focus finding is, in what ways Atwood contributed to expand literature in Canada.
In this book, Atwood includes violence, obscenity, comedy, doubt, yearning, endurance and love. She is aware of the issues not only current in Canada, but also issues that are pertinent on a more global level. She is not afraid to communicate her worries through her book. The work is haunted by death and the effects of death, and even more by survival and the struggle to survive. Philip Marchand comments in the National Post aboutThe Year of the Flood:“In this novel, then, the jury's out on the struggle between irony and eloquence, human vanity and human heroism.”
This again returns one to the importance of storytelling. In GGRW, Thomas King emphasizes the importance of telling the story correctly.The Gardeners in the Year of the Flood similarly appear to be careful how they tell their stories and the details they opt to include.“As for writing, it was dangerous, said the Adams and the Eves, because your enemies could trace you through it, and hunt you down, and use your words to condemn you.”
Ren, one of the main characters in the book, whom once lived with the Gardeners, also realizes that this is true from her own experience. After escaping from the Gardeners, Ren and her mom move to where they once lived, HelthWyzer, a corporation that is totally opposite from the Gardeners. There, she falls in love with a boy named Jimmy. As she falls in love, she keeps a record of her excitement and expresses her love and emotions towards Jimmy. It is thrilling as long as she is in the relationship. However, after they break up, she realizes why the Gardeners told her to “be careful what you write” (229). “They were my own words from the time when I was so happy, except that now it was torture to read them” (229).
Perhaps, Atwood expresses this in order to uncover the importance of what we write as a “Canadian Literature” or “Literature in Canada.” Writing can be dangerous, open to treachery, perhaps irresponsible, even factitious. It can always be turned against you. It can deceive. How is Canadian Literature different from 50 years ago from that of today? In what ways did literature exclude and include? In what ways did literature deceive? And what I want to focus finding is, in what ways Atwood contributed to expand literature in Canada.
In this book, Atwood includes violence, obscenity, comedy, doubt, yearning, endurance and love. She is aware of the issues not only current in Canada, but also issues that are pertinent on a more global level. She is not afraid to communicate her worries through her book. The work is haunted by death and the effects of death, and even more by survival and the struggle to survive. Philip Marchand comments in the National Post aboutThe Year of the Flood:“In this novel, then, the jury's out on the struggle between irony and eloquence, human vanity and human heroism.”
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