Solicitude: the state of being solicitous. That is what Margaret Atwood and Victor-Lévy Beaulieu are in this riveting collection of conversations. They solicit one another’s points of view, they interrogate one another – but most of all, they connect in spite of the pun they are making on Hugh MacLennan’s title, Two Solitudes: divided they stand, but united they become – at least in their respect for one another’s opinions and abilities.

This book is the fruit of Doris Dumais’ idea to produce a radio series during which two literary giants, one anglophone, one francophone, attempt to cross the great divide of culture. In March 1995, the conversation began in Toronto, with Beaulieu interviewing Atwood, and continued sometime later in Beaulieu’s home of Trois Pistoles, where Atwood discovers Beaulieu’s roots, reaches into his depths.

These exchanges are not entirely literary in nature. Indeed, Beaulieu and Atwood do discuss each other’s works in great detail – to the extent that we understand more clearly what lay behind Beaulieu’s favourite, Cat’s Eye, and what Atwood was trying to do when she created the mysterious character of Zenia in The Robber Bride. For Beaulieu, the violence in his work, particularly in Un rêve québécois (A Québécois Dream), is examined, as is his fascination with Jack Kerouac, and his debt to Victor Hugo. But beyond all this, Atwood and Beaulieu dare to tread troubled waters. They discuss politics, specifically the issue of separatism. With Atwood a solid federalist and Beaulieu a staunch, self-proclaimed independantiste, heated debates ensue, but are kept in check.

The political act of writing, the writer as God, the writer as megalomaniac, the madness of creativity – these are some of the issues with which Atwood and Beaulieu wrestle. Free trade and its effects on the arts, utopia vs. dystopia, the land rights of natives in Quebec, and the FLQ crisis also preoccupy them, and their explorations of these subjects remind us of MacLennan’s two solitudes – and that two solicitudes are always possible.