PAYBACK

PAYBACK: Debt and the Shadow Side of Life
By Margaret Atwood
O.W.Toad, Ltd, Toronto, 2008
ISBN 978-0-88784-800-1
Review by George R. Pasley

This is a fascinating book, which studies the anthropological, literary, sociological, judicial and even theological history of debt, monetary and otherwise.

For instance, researchers taught captive capuchin monkeys to trade pebbles for cucumber slices. Once all the monkeys were trained, the trainers began giving one monkey grapes instead of cucumber slices. When the remaining monkeys continued to receive cucumber slices, they acted out in numerous ways, including going on a hunger strike. Fairness was the issue here, and it evidently is written into the genetic code of social primates- so quite possibly, it is written into our own.

Or, why do some people use “trespasses” in the Lord’s Prayer and others use “debts”? Atwood reports that Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke, has only one word for both English translations (though she does not delve into either Greek or Hebrew).

In a bit of literary and cultural research, Atwood reports on the custom of sin-eating. Quoting Mary Webb (Precious Bane, 1924): “Now it was still the custom at that time, in our part of the country, to give a fee to some poor man after a death, and then he would take bread and wine handed to him across a coffin, and eat and drink, saying, ‘I give easement and rest to thee now dear man, that ye not walk over the fields and down the by-ways. And for thy peace I pawn my own soul.’” (p. 61)

Atwood’s book follows a fascinating rabbit trail dodging a dozen directions, but I found myself deeply engrossed in every wondering thought. My trouble came at the end, when after exposing the shadow side of debt- the things that happen when we don’t pay our debt, or the things that happen when debt cannot be repaid with money (as in, when revenge doesn’t work), Atwood comes to conclusion: pay it forward. She actually does a stellar job of explaining the limitations of justice, the symbiotic nature of lenders and borrowers, and the value of forgiveness. But in the end she offers environmental activism as a solution (though perhaps only as an example) and I found it insufficient- though perhaps it was only too narrow. Still, thought provoking and worthwhile. Good discussion for religion, philosophy, literature, and economic learners.

July 15, 2009
Ketchikan, AK