If you were anywhere near me when I was reading Payback, you already know that I really liked it. I wouldn’t shut up about it. If someone said, ‘book’ , ‘debt’ or ‘Margaret’ – in any context: my grandmother’s name is Margaret – they likely got a five minute rant about it, whether they wanted it or not. Mostly not. Hey, I was fired up about it. I was even fired up enough that I renewed the book from the library. It was due and I’d finished it, but I wanted to do a blog about it. Voila.
Back in March, I picked up Payback as a birthday present for OneFriendMere. (the story: I kept mentioned my friend Mere to my other friend Page. Enough that I’m pretty sure Page thinks that I only have one friend. It’s okay though….Mere, Page….I have two friends). Anyway, I hadn’t read it when I gave it as a present (gasp), I’m just a fan of Atwood and thought that (OneFriend)Mere might like it.
Many months later, it became the first book I took out with my shiny new free Toronto library card. (aside: I was at the library the other day and they gave me two free passes to the Art Gallery of Ontario. I felt like a celebrity or a lottery winner. Or course they gave them to the lady behind me too, but that didn’t stifle the feeling at all. I’m not sure if the library appreciated all of the shouting and jumping up and down that I did.)
Here is a hilarious tiny bit about interest : (tiny bit….tiny….this is cool, right Margaret? Eminem would say “Bitch, I’m promoting you right now”, but I should probably look up the actually rules on this sort of thing. Anyone?)
All of that changed when I got a job. The job paid twenty-five cents an hour – a fortune! – and consisted of wheeling a baby around in the snow. As long as I brought the baby back, alive and not too frozen, I got the twenty-five cents. …..
Every once in a while an extra sum would appear in my red bank book – one I hadn’t deposited. This, I was told, was called “interest”, and I had “earned” it by having kept my money in the bank. I didn’t understand this either. It was certainly interesting to me that I had some extra money – that must be whey it was called “interest” – but I knew I hadn’t actually earned it: no babies from the bank had been wheeled around in the snow by me.
Another random bit that made me laugh:
You may think that all of this forgiveness stuff is watery-eyed idealism of the clap-if-you-believe-in-fairies variety.
Payback also made me happy that I read another book - George Eliot’s – The Mill on the Floss. Well, okay, most of it. Some of it. All but about 130 pages. It was that boring (plus 30 pages were missing). Atwood’s book has a whole chapter called Debt as Plot, where she discusses everything from Shakespeare to Scrooge McDuck. I picked up The Mill on the Floss when I was traveling in Vietnam. I can’t remember where I got it, but I it was free and it claimed to be a classic. Saying I didn’t love The Mill on the Floss would be a bit of an understatement, but I read most of it anyway. I figured if it was a classic I should at least try to get through it, plus I had a very long bus ride. Then I flew home and had a plethora of other options and dropped it. Anyway, not only did Atwood reference the book, making me happy I’d read (most of) it, finally, she also summarizes the plot. Now I know the ending, and I never have to pick up that piece of s*it again.
If you have five stars I can borrow, I would gladly give Debt five stars.
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