Review by Booklist Review
Atwood tackles the most vexing topic of our time debt as a social construct that lies at the very heart of our fears, desires, and expectations, threatening not just a global economic crisis of immense proportions but a deep spiritual crisis as well. She examines the debtor-creditor relationship as one that exists in the netherworld between honest trade and thievery, subject to fairness on interest terms, defaults, and so on, which inherently creates an adversarial situation down the road. Delving deep into ancient mythology, religion, animal behavior, and the classic texts of Shakespeare and Dickens, Atwood observes the moral entanglements that ensue when the debt agreement is entered into, like a Faustian pact, where the borrower becomes an indentured servant and gives up part of his soul in the process. Casting the corporate big shot lording over his minions as the twenty-first-century Scrooge, Atwood serves up an update of the familiar tale that is both clever and frightening. Delivered with her trademark wit and imagination, this is a meditation that challenges conventional thinking on one of the most morally pressing issues we face.--Siegfried, David Copyright 2008 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Atwood's book is a weird but wonderful melange of personal reminiscences, literary walkabout, moral preachment, timely political argument, economic history and theological query, all bound together with wry wit and careful though casual-seeming research. "Every debt comes with a date on which payment is due," Atwood observes on this conversational stroll, from the homely and familiar "notion of fairness" and "notion of equivalent values" in Kingsley's Water Babies to the thornier connection between debt and sin, memory and redemption in Aeschylus's Eumenides. "Any debt involves a story line," Atwood points out as she leads the reader into "the nineteenth century [when] debt as plot really rages through the fictional pages," and ruin is financial for men, but sexual for women. Things get even darker on "the shadow side" where "the nastier forms of debt and credit"--debtors' prisons, loan sharks and rebellions--abide. Atwood is encyclopedic in her range, following threads wherever they lead--credit cards and computer programs, Sin Eaters, Saint Nicholas, Star Trek, the history of pawnshops and of taxation, Elmore Leonard's Get Shorty and Dante's Divine Comedy, Christ and Faust--and a consistently captivating storyteller. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Atwood (The Handmaid's Tale) is one of North America's most esteemed and celebrated writers, having published dozens of novels, poetry collections, and essays. A distinguished commentator on world events, having penned among other critical writings "A Letter to America" in early 2003 that stills resonates today in light of the emerging financial crisis, she has now published a profound and erudite study of debt in all its guises, in essays that originated as lectures on Canadian radio. Here, aptly illustrated by a balloon about to explode, the lessons she advances elegantly cover debt as sin, as plot, as religious incantation, and as feckless conduct, intermingled with her references to ancient wisdoms and contemporary follies. The results are most felicitous. The text makes plain Atwood's skill at combining painstaking research on the great truths of civilization with personal anecdotes that resonate with all in a fashion not seen since Stephen Leacock's essays from his zenith almost 100 years ago. A book to be found on the shelves of all libraries.-Gilles Renaud, Cornwall, Ont. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
