Frye Fest Wrap-Up

Spent the afternoon on Friday showing Atwood where Northrop Frye grew up: his old house on Pine St., his old elementary school near Victoria Park and, of course, his old high school (now the beautiful Aberdeen Cultural Centre). As for Atwood's knock-out public lecture, my friend Thomas Hodd did a better job than I could in writing about it. Check out his article in the Telegraph-Journal:

Thomas Hodd
For the Telegraph-Journal

MONCTON - Nearly 600 people from around the Maritimes crowded into the Capitol Theatre on Saturday to hear Margaret Atwood deliver the 2011 Maillet-Frye Lecture.

The event was scheduled to begin at 8 p.m., but by 7:30 p.m. the lineup stretched out the front doors.

Inaugurated in 2006, the lecture has become one of the Frye Festival's marquee literary events. Past lecturers include David Adams Richards, Monique LaRue and Alberto Manguel.

Atwood's highly entertaining talk, Mythology and Me: the Late 1950s at Victoria College, included stories about her experience as a female undergraduate in Toronto in the 1950s, the importance of "myth" to a young female writer in a male-dominated society, and the difficult time Canada's writers had getting noticed on the world stage.

"The production of any sort of literature was itself a cottage industry in the Canada of those days," she said. "Back in the late '50s - which was when all of this was happening - it was disconcerting to be informed so frequently and in so many ways that Canada didn't have a mythology."

Reading from a humorous and irreverent piece she wrote under the nom de plume 'Shakesbeat Latweed' while at Victoria College, Atwood made fun of the ideas of both Northrop Frye and Marshall McLuhan. But perhaps most entertaining was when Atwood began reciting commercials from the late 1950s, and analyzing the "poetry" of advertising spots for cleaning products and air fresheners.

Atwood also revealed that Frye influenced her future. She recounted how even though she only took a half-term course in Milton from Frye, he offered her sage advice one day regarding her future aspirations as an author.

When deciding on whether to take graduate studies at Harvard or run off to Europe, Frye told her, "I would probably get more writing done at Harvard than by drudging away as a waitress in Paris or London, while drinking absinthe and smoking myself to death."

An on-stage interview with Atwood followed the lecture. The interview was scheduled to last only 20 minutes, but the audience was treated to almost 40 minutes of wonderfully rich anecdotes.

"I think everyone was surprised by how wry and witty she was. I also think they appreciated finding out Atwood's parents are from here. Maritimers are famous for wanting to know about people's connections to this region," interviewer Rhonda Whittaker said with a chuckle.

At the end of the event, the audience showed their appreciation by giving Atwood a lengthy standing ovation.

Soraya Gallant, a first-year student at the Unversité de Moncton, was thrilled to attend. She found both Atwood and her talk inspiring.

"I appreciate her as a forward-thinking writer and as a woman," Gallant said. "I also liked how she answered questions and sometimes walked away from the topic."

In a fitting tribute to Atwood's star power, Gallant, along with 200 other members of the audience, lined up afterward to have their books signed.