November 19, 2009

A Toast to Margaret Atwood

It is a pleasure for me to toast our guest of honour – Margaret Atwood on her 3 score and ten plus 1 day birthday.

In proposing this toast I recall the words of another great writer, William Shakespeare who suggests in his play Macbeth,

'Three score and ten I can remember well:
Within the volume of which time I have seen
Hours dreadful and things strange;
But this sore night
Hath trifled former knowings.”

Here in Sudbury we have had our own 'hours dreadful and things strange” which came about as a result of our self-inflicted waterless flood.  Margaret you have recounted that you had spent time, as a child, visiting Sudbury and you remember it fondly despite that barren landscape.

We did it to ourselves; by cutting the trees, building the roaster beds and smelting the ore close to ground level and further destroying plant life and acidifying the lakes – in essence, creating a waterless flood.

Just as your novels leave us with a sense of optimism rather than, 'hours dreadful” and 'things strange”, so we have rebuilt our own corner of the earth.  And we'd like to think that, here in Sudbury, we have responded positively to the vision of ourselves that you mirrored for us through fictional worlds.  May you continue to engage us and challenge us with your 'speculative fiction” for many years to come. 

To Margaret Atwood!