As I was reading Britain’s The Guardian today online, as I do every day, there were two side-by-side interviews with authors Margaret Atwood and Martin Amis. These were wide-ranging interviews which also included some interesting commentary (and fears) about Trump and the election. I have read both of these authors previously and some of their comments in these interviews with them will be of interest here.
Let me start with the Emma Brockes interview of Martin Amis entitled “Martin Amis: ‘I was horrified that Trump got in. Now it’s looking scary’”. Martin Amis is spending his time between his Brooklyn penthouse and his other home in East Hampton. The whole interview is interesting and worth reading, like where Amis talks about other writers in particular his relationship with Christopher Hitchens (RIP), his experience during lockdown, and of course his take on Trump and the election. In fact there are three paragraphs in this interview that describe Martin Amis’ current political feeling and fears as well:
A few months earlier, when the pandemic first hit New York, Amis and his wife considered returning to Britain. He’s glad that they didn’t – “you can’t say they’ve done any better in England with the virus” – besides which, as he writes in the novel [Inside Story]: “Trump’s not a reason to leave, he’s a reason to stay.” But the presidential election in November promises greater upheaval and “God knows what’s going to happen”.
To his grim amusement, Amis has called every political race wrong for the last few years – “I got Brexit wrong, I got Trump wrong,” not merely the fact of Trump’s victory, but the kind of president he became. “I thought he was a stupid bastard who lucked his way into the job,” says Amis. “It was a frivolous vote for a frivolous man, in easy times. Now times are hard and you don’t want a frivolous man. You want a serious politician who can make deals and get things done and organise.”
Still, he says, “when the pandemic really presented itself, I thought: ‘Surely Trump can’t lie 10 times a day now? Because this is life and death.’” Of course, nothing has changed, and what fascinates Amis is how it exposes the shrewdness with which Trump understands his followers. “He realises that there’s no meaningful hypocrisy, any more. People are proud of being dishonest, sharks and vultures; they care as little about marital fidelity as they do about the deficit. This election is going to be a referendum on the American character, not on Trump’s performance.” [emphasis mine]
Now on to the Miranda Sawyer interview with Margaret Atwood entitled “Margaret Atwood: ‘If you’re going to speak truth to power, make sure it’s the truth’”. In this wide-ranging interview Margaret Atwood of course talks about The Handmaid’s Tale and The Testaments, especially in today’s climate, along with, of course, feminism, writing, science, history (in particular Russian history), her family and her recently deceased husband, and of course power and Trump. Again like the Martin Amis interview this one is worth reading in full. In this Atwood interview there is also a very striking photo of three women dressed in red as Handmaids carrying three signs that read “Sorry. Were my civil rights getting in the way of your misogyny?”, “We have the right to be heard”, and “I don’t know enough about guns to demand regulation? Label this diagram of the female reproductive system. I’ll wait.” And she talks about Trump from the view of a Canadian, like ‘“Canadians are all pressed up against the plate glass window like this,” she says, making a splurgy face.’ Here is a pertinent selection from Margaret Atwood talking about Trump (who Atwood always addresses as “He Who Shall Not Be Named”):
The Handmaid’s Tale and The Testaments came out of Atwood imagining what form a dictatorship would take in the US: does she consider Trump to be a manifestation of this? She doesn’t say yes, but tells me there is a “recipe” for putting in a dictator, which is: destroy or take over independent media; do the same with independent judiciary; kill artists or make them really compliant. “And once you start shooting protesters in the streets, that’s a really big signal that this is going to be a dictator.”
Writing The Handmaid’s Tale in 1985, she had it in her mind that a US dictatorship could never be a socialist one. “You would not be able to get the 33% necessary to support you. That’s the amount you need for a functioning dictatorship, as long as they’ve got guns.” Instead it would be a God-based affair. “It would fly under some weird, ‘Let’s stand in front of a church, holding a Bible upside down’ message,” she says. “Play God.” It’s clear who Atwood is referring to: a sort of dictator, who plays the God card and exploits the internet.
I hope this is enough to pique your interest in these two interviews in today’s The Guardian. They are definitely worth reading (as is The Guardian itself on a daily basis). Take care and stay safe out there.