The enduring popularity of werewolf stories must be based on something, and that something may be close to a wish. Was Margaret Brundage, unknown to herself, drawing early versions of that trope of female freedom, women who run with the wolves? Bram Stoker, the author of Dracula, was neither the first nor the last to supply seductive women with canine teeth somewhat larger than is generally desirable in a girlfriend. (It’s to be noted that Wolf Gal has no Mr. Wolf Gal, and we strongly suspect that Wolf Gal—like some furry Turandot or a female spider—has been the death of all lovelorn aspirants to her hand, or paw.)
Then there are the women in the twin tinnies—those two shiny cups, attached to the torso with fine chain link—that abound in Brundage’s oeuvre. Richard Wolinsky produced a recorded documentary called The Girl in the Brass Brassiere: An Oral History of Science Fiction 1920–1950, a title that acknowledges the ubiquity of the trope in early twentieth-century sci-fi and fantasy, but like everything else pictorial, this item of clothing had its visual predecessors.
The message borne by the hard-but-soft frontage is mixed. One part of it derives from orientalism. Before moving to Weird Tales, Margaret Brundage drew covers for another pulp, Oriental Stories. In the exotic maidens she portrayed, Brundage was lifting from a rich vein of nineteenth-century Victorian orientalist painting, some of it purporting to depict such things as harems and girl-slave markets, but some of it purely imaginative, inspired by the hugely influential One Thousand and One Nights. This iteration of the metal bra—non-functional, skimpy, and bejewelled—invokes bondage and/or other depravities. Robert E. Howard of Conan the Barbarian fame—a frequent publisher in Weird Tales—was quite keen on both slave girls and depravities, and used the Brundage dress code. In The Blind Assassin, I based Alex Thomas’s writhing women with eyes like snake-filled pits on simple-hearted Conan’s encounters with the uncanny seductresses of the corrupt, decaying cities through which he marauds.
Brassiere advertisements from the 1940s and 1950s hint at the second part of the twin-tinnie lineage: impermeability. Maidenform was just one of the brands featuring blindingly white bras with concentric circles of stitching that suggested armour. Their ads that coupled a state of undress with public activities—“I dreamed I was a private eye in my Maidenform bra”; “I dreamed I was a lady editor in my Maidenform bra”—presented the bra less as an aid to seduction than as a guarantee of security and, combined with the name, of chastity. Athene, the maiden goddess, with her shield and spear and her helmet, is perhaps a distant relative.
A closer relative is the Valkyrie, a virgin demi-goddess from Norse mythology whose job was to gather up dead warrior-heroes and cart them off to Odin’s banquet hall. Richard Wagner brought the Valkyries to the opera stage in his Ring Cycle, but to a 1940s and 1950s audience they were more familiar as the parody conception of what a Wagnerian soprano should look like: large metal brassiere or corset, long braids, helmet complete with Viking-fantasy wings. Sure enough, there’s Bugs Bunny in the 1957 cartoon What’s Opera, Doc?, cross-dressing as the Valkyrie Brünnhilde, with pink-winged helmet and two tiny brass cups stuck on his chest.
Wonder Woman, the comic-book heroine who first appeared in 1941, doesn’t have the full metal jacket, but she does have enough shiny stuff on her front to indicate her lineage. She, too, is related to the virgin goddesses—the chaste moon-goddess Artemis, in her case. Supergirls of all kinds, good and bad, are generally unmarried: Wonder Soccer Mom, amazing though she may be in real life, somehow doesn’t quite fit the image.
The metal bra was capable of carrying two simultaneous undermeanings: vulnerability, especially when it was flimsily attached to a girl with big, scared eyes; or strength and staunch resistance, when the “breast plates,” as they were called in the pulps, were more substantial and their wearer looked determined. Brundage sometimes tried for both at once: a girl in a brass brassiere and little else, with big, scared eyes, tiptoeing forward with fear but determination, anklets quivering, to unlock some handsome fellow from a cage.
The “low art” of one age often cribs from the “high art” of the preceding one; and “high art” just as frequently borrows from the most vulgar elements of its own times. The Lady Chatterley porno-trial wars were fought over whether several words you could see scribbled on a washroom wall every day had the right to be written inside something that purported to be “literature.” The Weird Tales covers of the 1930s are just one example of the way cultural memes transmit themselves, taking their meaning in part from their context and from our own knowledge of it. Thus, from Wagner’s ultra-serious Valkyries to Brundage’s equivocal brass bras, to Maidenform’s faux-naïve undergarments, to Bugs Bunny’s skimpy travesties, and finally to Madonna’s witty pop-show quotation of the entire tradition. And from the wolf-women of myth and folklore to Brundage’s wolf-girls, to Al Capp’s gloss on them in his L’il Abner Wolf Gal, to me as child reader, and finally to my invention, Alex Thomas.
Alex is using Weird Tales pulp schlock as foreplay. He knows it’s schlock, and the girl he’s seducing knows it as well, but that’s part of the attraction, for her as well as for him. “I don’t think I could fob those off on you,” he says of the depraved women and the maidens in sexual peril he’s conjuring up for her. “Lurid isn’t your style.”
“You never know,” the girl replies. “I might like them.”
And so she does.
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to the following, who made the Ellmann Lectures so enjoyable for me:
Joseph Skibell, director of the Richard Ellmann Lectures in Modern Literature; Barbara Freer Skibell; Sharon Hart-Green, associate professor of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations, University of Toronto; Michael P. Kramer, professor of English, Bar-Ilan University; and Esther Schor, professor of English, Princeton University. Members of the Emory administration: James W. Wagner, president of the university; Earl Lewis, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs; Rosemary M. Magee, vice president and secretary of the university; Robin Forman, dean of Emory College of Arts and Sciences. Alicia Franck and Tom Jenkins, Becky Herring, Nicholas Surbey, Levin Arnsperger, and the many members of the Emory University faculty and staff who also contributed.
I would also like to thank my agents, Phoebe Larmore and Vivienne Schuster; my editors, Ellen Seligman of McClelland & Stewart, Canada; Nan Talese of Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, U.S.A.; and Lennie Goodings of Virago Press, U.K. Also: my copy editor, Heather Sangster; John Shoesmith and Jennifer Toews of the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library; the Judith Merril Collection at the Toronto Public Library; and the Widener Library at Harvard University. Thanks to all publishers who have granted permission for some of the earlier pieces, and to the many newspaper and magazine editors with whom I have worked over the years. Finally, thanks to my office staff, Sarah Webster, Anne Joldersma, Laura Stenberg, and Penny Kavanaugh. And to the many writers included in this book, whose work I have enjoyed over the course of sixty-odd years.
Permissions Acknowledgements
Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material:
The three chapters in Part 1 are based on the Richard Ellmann Lectures in Modern Literature, delivered at Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, 24–26 October 2010.
Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy. Originally published as “An Unfashionable Sensibility” in The Nation, 4 December 1976, pp. 601–2. Second Words: Selected Critical Prose 1960–1982 by Margaret Atwood (Toronto: House of Anansi Press, 1982), pp. 272–78. Reprinted with permission of the publishers.
H. Rider Haggard’s She (New York: Random House, 2002), pp. xvii–xxiv. Moving Targets: Writing with Intent, 1982–2004 by Margaret Atwood (Toronto: House of Anansi Press, 2004), pp. 234–41. Curious Pursuits by Margaret Atwood (London: Virago Press, 2005), pp. 249–56. Writing with Intent: Essays, Reviews, Personal Prose 1983–2005 by Margaret Atwood (New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers/Perseus Books, 2005), pp. 198–204. Reprinted wit
h permission of the publishers.
The Queen of Quinkdom: The Birthday of the World and Other Stories by Ursula K. Le Guin. The New York Review of Books, Vol. 49, No. 14, 26 September 2002. Curious Pursuits by Margaret Atwood (London: Virago Press, 2005), pp. 297–308. Moving Targets: Writing with Intent, 1982–2004 by Margaret Atwood (Toronto: House of Anansi Press, 2004), pp. 281–92. Writing with Intent: Essays, Reviews, Personal Prose 1983–2005 by Margaret Atwood (New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers/Perseus Books, 2005), pp. 243–53. Reprinted with permission of the publishers.
Arguing Against Ice Cream: Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age by Bill McKibben. The New York Review of Books, 12 June 2003. Moving Targets: Writing with Intent, 1982–2004 by Margaret Atwood (Toronto: House of Anansi Press, 2004), pp. 339–50. Writing with Intent: Essays, Reviews, Personal Prose 1983–2005 by Margaret Atwood (New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers/Perseus Books, 2005), pp. 294–304. Reprinted with permission of the publishers.
George Orwell: Some Personal Connections. An address broadcast on the BBC Radio 3 on 13 June 2003. Reprinted as “Orwell and Me,” Guardian, 16 June 2003. Moving Targets: Writing with Intent, 1982–2004 by Margaret Atwood (Toronto: House of Anansi Press, 2004), pp. 331–38. Curious Pursuits by Margaret Atwood (London: Virago Press, 2005), pp. 333–40. Writing with Intent: Essays, Reviews, Personal Prose 1983–2005 by Margaret Atwood (New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers/Perseus Books, 2005), pp. 287–93. Reprinted with permission of the publishers.
Ten Ways of Looking at The Island of Doctor Moreau, by H. G. Wells (London: Penguin, 2005). Curious Pursuits by Margaret Atwood (London: Virago Press, 2005), pp. 383–96. Writing with Intent: Essays, Reviews, Personal Prose 1983–2005 by Margaret Atwood (New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers/Perseus Books, 2005), pp. 386–98. Reprinted with permission of the publishers.
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. Originally published as “Brave New World: Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel really is chilling” in Slate magazine (www.slate.com), 1 April 2005. Reprinted with permission of Slate magazine.
After the Last Battle: Visa for Avalon by Bryher. The New York Review of Books, Volume LII, No. 6, 7 April 2005.
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (Toronto: Vintage Canada, 2007). Reprinted as “Everyone Is Happy Now,” Guardian, 17 November 2009.
Of the Madness of Mad Scientists: Jonathan Swift’s Grand Academy. From Seeing Further: The Story of Science & The Royal Society, ed. Bill Bryson (London: HarperPress, 2010), pp. 37–48.
Cryogenics: A Symposium. Originally published in When the Wild Comes Leaping Up: Personal Encounters with Nature, ed. David Suzuki (Vancouver: Greystone Books, 2002), pp. 143–47.
Cold-Blooded. From Good Bones by Margaret Atwood (Toronto: Coach House Press, 1992), pp. 65–70. (London: Virago Press, 1993), pp. 65–70. (Toronto: New Canadian Library/McClelland & Stewart, 1997), pp. 53–56. Also published in Good Bones and Simple Murders by Margaret Atwood (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1994), pp. 79–83. (New York: Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, 1994), pp. 79–83. Also published in Bones and Murder by Margaret Atwood (London: Virago Press, 1995), pp. 85–90. Reprinted with permission of the publishers.
Homelanding. From Good Bones by Margaret Atwood (Toronto: Coach House Press, 1992), pp. 121–28. (London: Virago Press, 1993), pp. 121–28. (Toronto: New Canadian Library/McClelland & Stewart, 1997), pp. 91–96. Also published in Good Bones and Simple Murders by Margaret Atwood (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1994), pp. 132–38. (New York: Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, 1994), pp. 132–38. Also published in Bones and Murder by Margaret Atwood (London: Virago Press, 1995), pp. 141–47. Reprinted with the permission of the publishers.
Time Capsule Found on the Dead Planet. Printed in Guardian, 26 September 2009.
“The Peach Women of Aa’A.” From The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2000), pp. 349–56. (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2000), pp. 349–56. (New York: Doubleday, 2000), pp. 349–56. Reprinted with the permission of the publishers.
An Open Letter from Margaret Atwood to the Judson Independent School District. Originally printed in the San Antonio Express-News, 12 April 2006.
Weird Tales Covers of the 1930s. Originally published in Playboy, September 2011.
Illustrated images included in illustrated ebook edition are by Margaret Atwood or Harold L. Atwood as detailed.
Northrop Frye image from the Northrop Frye Newsletter.
Old Dutch Cleanser image © Getty.
She image © Flickr.
H. Rider Haggard image © Getty.
The Island of Dr Moreau frontispiece courtesy of The British Library.
Gulliver’s Travels frontispiece © British Library.
“Don’t let the bastards get you down” tattoo inspired by The Handmaid’s Tale. Photograph courtesy of Kat Thomas, co-creator of BiblioBabes.ca. Tattoo by Captain Matt of CaptainMatt.ca.
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Margaret Atwood’s books have been published in more than thirty-five countries. She is the author of more than forty books of fiction, poetry, and critical essays. In addition to The Handmaid’s Tale, her novels include Cat’s Eye, shortlisted for the Booker Prize; Alias Grace, which won the Giller Prize in Canada and the Premio Mondello in Italy; The Blind Assassin, winner of the 2000 Booker Prize; Oryx and Crake, shortlisted for the 2003 Booker Prize; and her most recent, The Year of the Flood. She lives in Toronto with writer Graeme Gibson.
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