WHO'S THAT LOOKING OVER YOUR SHOULDER?
Margaret Atwood pries open eight books on snooping in its many forms.
With The Guardian’s recent revelations about the use of Pegasus spyware by governments to repress their citizens, snooping is much on our minds. Boundaries both personal and national, private detectives, hackware and politically motivated imprisonments can be found in that swag bag, and so can some of its outcomes: namely, false accusations and seemingly hopeless fights for the truth. Can the freedom to speak survive in an age when all speech is suspect? If you commit a crime in the name of the common good and somebody rats you out, should you be excused? What does it feel like to be anonymously denounced and wrongly accused of the transgression du jour during a moral panic? Why are secret prisons so destructive, not only to those imprisoned but also to the imprisoners?
We humans have been pondering such questions for a very long time, and here come some new variations. Read on, Dear Reader, while reading is still allowed. (But who’s that looking over your shoulder?)
Reset: Reclaiming the Internet for Civil Society (House of Anansi) by Ronald J. Deibert
Reset: Reclaiming the Internet for Civil Society, by Ronald J. Deibert, is a good place to start. Deibert directs the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, which has been following misuses of the internet for years. It was instrumental in uncovering the sinister uses being made of the Pegasus hackware. Reading this book might make you wish to set fire to your smartphone, but it might also make you wish to call for reform. If you do the latter you might consider the former, because as long as that thing is on, they know where you live.
Work for a Million (McClelland and Stewart) by Amanda Deibert, illustrated by Selena Goulding
The graphic novel Work for a Million, by Amanda Deibert with illustrations by Selena Goulding, is set in the ’70s and based on Eve Zaremba’s 1987 novel series about tough snoop Helen Keremos, possibly Canadian fiction’s first lesbian private eye. Zaremba, who escaped from Poland during WWII, was active in the women’s movement and LGB rights for many years. Selena Goulding has taken great pains with the Toronto period details. The subway, the clothes, the flophouses all drawn from life.
Downfall (Simon & Schuster Canada) by Robert Rotenberg
Still in the crime-solving biz: Downfall, by Robert Rotenberg , tackles the pertinent question of homelessness in Toronto. Ritzy private club meets rowdy public disorder, while corpses of the homeless start turning up and detectives both official and unofficial try to figure stuff out. Criminal lawyer Rotenberg specializes in Toronto politics and corruption, with knowledgeable backroom details and pleasing wardrobe descriptions. Is this the city you live in, Toronto-the-Goody-Goody? Yup, it is, kinda.
What Strange Paradise (Random House) by Omar El Akkad
From economic disparity within a city to a whole other level: What Strange Paradise. Egyptian-Canadian Omar El Akkad, author of the bestselling American War, takes us to an island where many drowned migrants have washed up on the beach. But islands can be enchanted and also enchanting, like Prospero’s island, like Treasure Island, and one of the dead children appears to be alive. A local girl takes him into her charge and the two flee those who would tag and cage them. The kindness of strangers, the indifference of holidaymakers, the magnitude of the climate-wars refugee wave that’s rolling our way… will we lend a hand, or? Or what? A timeless fable, and a very timely one.
I Will Never See The World Again (Granta) by Ahmet Altan
More bad times: I Will Never See The World Again, by the eminent Turkish writer Ahmet Altan. Altan was imprisoned for life by Erdogan on a trumped-up charge of attempting to overthrow the government. This beguiling account – which is also a lyrical hymn to the act of writing – was smuggled out of prison and published in 2019. I’m happy to say that Altan was released in April, due to international pressure. Meanwhile, his book has joined the ranks of five-star prison memoirs.
Don’t Forget Us Here: Lost and Found at Guantanamo (Hachette Books) by Mansoor Adayfi with Antonio Aiello
Lest we get smug in the It-Can’t-Happen-Here-in-Western-Democracies department, this just published: Don’t Forget Us Here: Lost and Found at Guantanamo, by Mansoor Adayfi with Antonio Aiello. A (literally) blow-by-blow account by an innocent Yemeni kid, kidnapped at 18 by warlords and sold to the U.S. as a different person entirely: an Egyptian Al Qaeda general in his 30s who’d made himself look miraculously younger. During 14 years of horrifying tortures and abuses, no charges were ever laid, and Adayfi never learned what crimes were in his file. He’s out now, and has produced a very important book. Absolute power, especially over other human beings, is absolutely corrupting.
Everyone Knows Your Mother Is A Witch (Harper Perennial) by Rivka Galchen
Next, a deep dive into another experience of being falsely accused, this time for witchcraft in small-town Germany during the 17th century: Everyone Knows Your Mother Is A Witch, by Rivka Galchen. Bossy, potion-brewing widow Katharina Kepler is the illiterate mother of Johannes Kepler, the famous astronomer and astrologer. Greedy for Katharina’s property, some of her malicious neighbours bring the witchcraft charge. Six years of imprisonment and a Kafkaesque trial follow. Funny in parts, absurd in others, drawing on actual history, this riveting novel takes us into the labyrinthine hearts of accused and accusers alike.
Orwell’s Roses (Viking) by Rebecca Solnit
And finally, forthcoming: Orwell’s Roses by Rebecca Solnit. I loved this book, and so will many. Orwell, usually pictured as Mr. Gloom of the dystopian surveillance-state future of Nineteen Eighty-Four, is re-envisioned as a joyous, hopeful, life-loving, toad-appreciating, baby-cherishing dad, but especially as an avid and energetic gardener. The book begins in 1936, when Orwell planted some rose bushes. Solnit – who seems to have read all 20 volumes of Orwell’s work – then takes us on an exhilarating romp through Orwell’s life and times and also through the life and times of roses, including their link with bread. I was immediately inspired to go out and woo my compost pile. Fellow gardeners, you know what you’re getting for your birthdays. (The rose bushes, by the way, are still there! Doesn’t that make you mist up?)