Margaret Atwood’s book, Payback, has its subtitle “Debt and the Shadows of Wealth.”  With my aging eyes, I initially read this as “Debt and the Shadows of Death”.  After reading the book, I think either subtitle would be appropriate.  Because we are in a constant state of indebtitude from the moment we are born, a debt that is not released until we are dead.  And even then, if you believe in hell you may pay for an eternity; and if you own property, death taxes will be due.

This is not only a book about financial debt (borrowing and owing and investing money, all that mess that is causing wrack and ruin throughout the world right now); it is a book about everything. And it will make you look at everything in a new way.  I cannot possibly do justice to all the issues Atwood examines: she is really, really smart and draws upon her incredible depth of reading and research and examination to explore all the themes related to debt and death.  Just reading through her chapter notes at the end of the book  is enough to get your mind ticking, your thoughts churning, and your insides all turned around.  Because, as Atwood points out right away, from the moment we are born we owe someone something for our existence (God, parents, Nature, failed birth control, alcohol, celebration, New Year’s Eve, power outage, perfume or after shave, oysters) and it is game on from there.

In all cultures, and I mean all, there is the equation of debt and payment: we owe for what we get.  In the extreme, death is the only payment accepted, and in the interim many other options are available and have ranged over millennia from sacrificing someone else for your debt, self-flagellation and other acts of penitence, rituals around holidays and harvests, good works, taxes (oh, yes) and financial contracts of loaning and borrowing and paying back.

I think I finally understand my Catholic guilt (and I was not even raised in a particularly Catholic family).  The story is that Christ saves us all by taking on all our debts: Christ the Redeemer pays off the pawnshop.  But heavens, doesn’t he have to pay a very high price and do I deserve that?  We have from very early on a sense of fairness that we carry with us our whole lives, tempered or sharpened depending on our circumstances.  Something about Christ dying such an awful death to pay for my sins doesn’t sit quite right with my sense of fairness.  And hence, guilt.

There was a time when living within your means was the norm, and not living under credit card debt twice your annual salary.  There are many of us who pat ourselves on the back because we pay our credit card bills every month and yet most of us have a huge debt owed, the mortgage on our house.  How many people do you know who own their house free and clear?  Not as many as used to, to say nothing of refinancing again and again.  Of course now that golden goose has been slain and the entire world economy is paying for it.

Atwood argues that it is much more than our economy that is suffering , and it is more than our pocket books that will pay.  But she saves that final payback for the last chapter.  Before we get there, she  raises the potential for forgiveness, much as in Julia Blackburn’s book, The Three of Us, where the potential of forgiveness is explored for how it can absolve emotional debts and pains and prevent the expenses of emotional and spiritual, of revenge.  Atwood believes that a large-scale debt forgiveness by the large, rich nations of the debts owed by struggling nations, is necessary to “wipe the slate clean”, a notion she examines at length, its history both quaint and sordid.  She also asks what would have happened if Bush had isolated the terrors of September 11 to the actions of a few and not taken massive and well, vengeful, revenge on nations and people who had nothing to do with the horrors incurred on that day.

Atwood treats us to a brilliant analysis of the Faustus of Marlowe and the Scrooge of Dickens, and how they are reverse images of each other.  Faustus uses the Devil’s bounty to buy things for himself, sure, but also to pay for good times for everyone around him.  In the end, he goes to hell.  Marlowe was reflecting the sentiments of his times, when being pious meant living simply and discreetly and those closest to God were hermits and others who had renounced wealth.  Scrooge is a total miser who is only saved from an eternity of suffering by waking up on Christmas morn and sharing his wealth, paying for good things for all the people around him. Atwood says Dickens is reflecting the Protestant Capitalist mores of his time: wealth is fine but share it as needed.  Actually, Dickens was a strong voice for reform of how the poor were treated ( he portrayed them as victims, not as deserving of their fates through sloth or avarice or God’s judgment) and for charity, but, yes, he advocated for reform and charity those within the capitalist system.

Dickens, I argue, is also advocating that we not care so damn much about money.  Throughout his novels, his happiest families are those who live within their means, whether their means be modest or huge.  Even the Cratchits would be happy enough on the pittance miser Scrooge pays them if not for the illness of Tiny Tim; and then it is the new Scrooge who saves them from that worry by ensuring the best medical care to young Tim.

But back to Atwood’s final chapter, entitled Payback.  As I said above, she is not just talking about financial crisis.  She is talking about the debt we’ve incurred in how we’ve managed our earth and how we will have to pay, in the end.  Again, she uses Dickens’ Scrooge for her analysis, writing a new, contemporary version of the visits by the Ghosts.  This time Scrooge has his eyes opened to the debts incurred by all humanity for the way we have lived on this earth.  Her story is clever and original and very funny; it is also acute and  accurate.  The Ghost from the Past explains how the “Market” came to replace “God”, with many of the same abilities: “all-knowing, always-right, and able to make corrections (wipe out inefficient workers and companies much as plagues and other disasters from God took care of problems such as overpopulation and complacency).  The next two visits, of the spirits of the Present and Future, show Scrooge the mess man has made of earth by the “Faustian bargain [forged] as soon as he invented his first technologies, including the bow and arrow. …our technological system is the mill that grinds out anything you wish to order up but no one knows how to turn it off….all natural capital would be exhausted, having been devoured by the mills of production, and the resulting debt to Nature would be finite.  But long before then, payback time will come for Mankind.”

Indeed. But have we been visited too late by the wisdom of Atwood?  And who is listening?

Much as we thought we could get something for nothing (credit, mortgages, etc), we also seem to think we can eat without getting fat (fat-free food and drugs to melt away the pounds), that we can look young until we die (wrinkle products and plastic surgery) and that we need not die at all (the age of mortality is being pushed farther and farther).  Do you see a parallel?  There is no such thing as a free lunch.  We all know that.  But who among us do not love a bargain?  Atwood says it is time to make the long-term analysis and find that what we truly need is less.  Less is more.  A lot more.