Payback - Debt and The Shadow Side of Wealth by Margaret Atwood

Based on Margaret Atwood 's 2008 Massey Lectures, Payback arrived very timely. A financial crisis was propagating around the world and the media filled with discussions of responsibility, loans, and buyouts. Much of which we seem to have forgotten now. In any case, I saw the book on my (almost) daily visits to the bookshops of Vancouver, and so having enjoyed Atwood's fiction earlier I decided to pick it up.

It is a very thoughtful and well researched book, and it must have been wonderful to listen to for those who was able to attend the lectures.

Atwood address at the concept of guilt, debt, sin, payback, revenge, and such - not only as words, but as parts of culture and in history - from religion and other myths to literature and tales. I found it very interesting because it allowed me for a while to borrow some of her wisdom and to connect current events with historic and fictional narratives. Payback in the end, is about responsibility not only for oneself but for everything and everyone.