Author: whatcathyreadnext

Book Review: The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood

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The Edible WomanAbout the Book

Marian is a determinedly ordinary girl, fresh out of university, working at her first job but really only waiting to get married. All goes well at first, she likes her work in market research, and her broody flat-mate Ainsley – even an uncharacteristic sexual fling with the divinely mad Duncan cannot lure her away from her sober fiancé, Peter.

But Marion reckons without an inner self that wants something more, which talks to her through the food she eats and calmly sabotages her careful plans.  Marriage a la mode, Marian discovers, is something she literally can’t stomach.

Format: Paperback (281 pp.)    Publisher: Virago
Published: 1986 [1969]  Genre: Literary Fiction

Purchase Links*
Amazon.co.uk  ǀ  Amazon.com  ǀ Hive.co.uk (supporting UK bookshops)
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

Find The Edible Woman on Goodreads

My Review

In the introduction to my Virago Modern Classics edition, Margaret Atwood (writing in 1979) reports that she had been reflecting for some time about what she refers to as ‘symbolic cannibalism’, exemplified by wedding cakes decorated with sugar brides and grooms.  She notes that The Edible Woman was ‘conceived by a twenty-three-year-old and written by a twenty-four-year old’ and reflects that ‘its more self-indulgent grotesqueries are perhaps attributable to the youth of the author’.  She sees the book as ‘protofeminist’ rather than ‘feminist’, i.e. preceding, anticipating or laying the groundwork for feminism.

The book is structured in three parts – the first and last parts are written in the first person, the second part in the third person.  I think the mention of ‘self-indulgent grotesqueries’ made me expect the concept of the  ‘edible woman’ to form a greater part of the book than it actually does.  (The scene that corresponds most closely to the title takes place only at the very end of the book.)   However, it’s true that Marian’s dilemma about her future prompts some very rebellious behaviour by her stomach, often at the most inopportune moments.  It gets to the point where Marian comes to view her body as having a personality or will of its own that she is powerless to resist. ‘She had tried to reason with it, had accused it having frivolous whims, had coaxed it and tempted it, but it was adamant; and if she used force it rebelled.’

I liked the use of food-related metaphors and similes throughout the book.  For example, Marian describes the structure of the organisation she works for, Seymour Surveys, as ‘layered like an ice-cream sandwich, with three floors: the upper crust, the lower crust, and out department, the gooey layer in the middle’.  At one point she describes her mind feeling as empty as if ‘someone had scooped out the inside of my skull, like a cantaloupe and left me only the rind to think with’.

I enjoyed how the novel pokes fun at the market research and advertising industries. For example, one interviewee when asked, as part of a survey about a new brand of beer, what words he would associate with the phrase ‘Tang of the wilderness’ replies: “It’s one of those Technicolor movies about dogs or horses.  ‘Tang of the Wilderness’ is obviously a dog, part wolf, part husky, who saves his master three times, once from fire, once from flood and once from wicked humans, more likely to be white hunters than Indians these days, and finally gets blasted by a cruel trapper with a .22 and wept over.”   The interviewee in question is the otherwise (to my mind) peculiar and rather unappetising Duncan with whom Marian subsequently becomes involved, although at least the exchange shows he has a sense of humour.    His one saving grace, I’m afraid, as far as I was concerned – oh, apart from his love of ironing.

The notion that marriage and children can imprison or consume an individual is a constant theme of the book.  A good example is Marian’s schoolfriend, Clara, pregrant with her third child, who blithely tolerates the havoc wreaked on her home by the previous two, such as that which results from Arthur’s little ‘accidents’.    Then there’s Marian’s boyfriend, Peter, who gets in a panic whenever any of his friends get married, making his subsequent actions all the more surprising.   Seemingly breaking the mould is Marian’s flatmate, Ainsley, who is intent on having a child but outside the confines of marriage or without any form of ongoing relationship with the biological father.  As she searches for a ‘good specimen’ to father her child, Marian describes Ainsley as bearing ‘a chilling resemblance to a general plotting a major campaign’.

As Marian is propelled, seemingly inexorably, towards marriage, events come to a head after what might be considered the party from Hell.  In her introduction to the book, the author notes (a little ruefully, I’d like to think) that her heroine’s choices ‘remain much the same at the end of the book as they are at the beginning: a career going nowhere, or marriage as an exit from it’.  Atwood’s conclusion seems to be that for women ‘nothing has changed’, to coin a phrase with current resonance here in the UK.  It’s a message that was probably more provocative when  the book was written.  I hope we’ve moved on from facing an either/or choice today.

The Classics ClubThe Edible Woman is the book from my The Classics Club List selected for The Classics Club Spin #19.  The theme of the spin was ‘chunksters’ so, at only 286 pages, it’s fair to say I got away lightly.

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margaret atwoodAbout the Author

Margaret Atwood was born in 1939 in Ottawa and grew up in northern Ontario, Quebec, and Toronto. She received her undergraduate degree from Victoria College at the University of Toronto and her master’s degree from Radcliffe College.

Margaret Atwood is the author of more than forty books of fiction, poetry, and critical essays. Her latest book of short stories is Stone Mattress: Nine Tales (2014).  Her MaddAddam trilogy – the Giller and Booker prize-nominated Oryx and Crake (2003), The Year of the Flood (2009) and MaddAddam (2011) – is currently being adapted for HBO.  The Door is her most recent volume of poetry (2007).  Her most recent non-fiction books are Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth (2008) and In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination (2011).  Her novels include The Edible Woman (1970), The Handmaid’s Tale (1983), The Robber Bride (1994), Alias Grace (1996), and The Blind Assassin, which won the prestigious Booker Prize in 2000.

Margaret Atwood lives in Toronto with writer Graeme Gibson.  (Photo credit: Goodreads author page)

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WWW Wednesdays – 23rd January ‘19

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WWWWednesdays

Hosted by Taking on a World of Words, this meme is all about the three Ws:

  • What are you currently reading?
  • What did you recently finish reading?
  • What do you think you’ll read next?

Why not join in too?  Leave a comment with your link at Taking on a World of Words and then go blog hopping!

Currently reading

Eagle & CraneEagle & Crane by Suzanne Rindell (hardcover, review copy courtesy of Allison & Busby)

Louis Thorn and Haruto “Harry” Yamada – Eagle and Crane – are the star attractions of Earl Shaw’s Flying Circus, a daredevil (and not exactly legal) flying act that traverses Depression-era California. The young men have a complicated relationship, thanks to the Thorn family’s belief that the Yamadas – Japanese immigrants – stole land that should have stayed in the Thorn family.

When Louis and Harry become aerial stuntmen, performing death-defying tricks high above audiences, they’re both drawn to Shaw’s smart and appealing stepdaughter, Ava Brooks. When the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbour and one of Shaw’s planes mysteriously crashes and two charred bodies are discovered in it, authorities conclude that the victims were Harry and his father, Kenichi, who had escaped from a Japanese internment camp they had been sent to by the federal government. To the local sheriff, the situation is open and shut. But to the lone FBI agent assigned to the case, the details don’t add up.

Thus begins an investigation into what really happened to cause the plane crash, who was in the plane when it fell from the sky, and why no one involved seems willing to tell the truth. By turns an absorbing mystery and a fascinating exploration of race, family and loyalty, Eagle and Crane is that rare novel that tells a gripping story as it explores a terrible era of American history.

My Sister, the Serial KillerMy Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite (hardcover, review copy courtesy of Atlantic Books and Readers First)

“Femi makes three, you know. Three and they label you a serial killer.”

Korede is bitter. How could she not be? Her sister, Ayoola, is many things: the favourite child, the beautiful one, possibly sociopathic. And now Ayoola’s third boyfriend in a row is dead. Korede’s practicality is the sisters’ saving grace. She knows the best solutions for cleaning blood, the trunk of her car is big enough for a body, and she keeps Ayoola from posting pictures of her dinner to Instagram when she should be mourning her “missing” boyfriend. Not that she gets any credit.

A kind, handsome doctor at the hospital where Korede works, is the bright spot in her life. She dreams of the day when he will realize they’re perfect for each other. But one day Ayoola shows up to the hospital uninvited and he takes notice. When he asks Korede for Ayoola’s phone number, she must reckon with what her sister has become and what she will do about it.

Sharp as nails and full of deadpan wit, Oyinkan Braithwaite has written a deliciously deadly debut that’s as fun as it is frightening.

Recently finished (click on title for review)

The Edible WomanThe Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood (paperback)

Marian is determined to be ordinary. She lays her head gently on the shoulder of her serious fiancé and quietly awaits marriage. But she didn’t count on an inner rebellion that would rock her stable routine, and her digestion. Marriage a la mode, Marian discovers, is something she literally can’t stomach…

The Edible Woman is a funny, engaging novel about emotional cannibalism, men and women, and the desire to be consumed. (Review to follow)

NemesisNemesis (Tom Wilde #3) by Rory Clements (eARC, courtesy of Bonnier Zaffre and NetGalley)

A race against time to unmask a Nazi spy.

In a great English house, a young woman offers herself to one of the most powerful and influential figures in the land – but this is no ordinary seduction. She plans to ensure his death…

On holiday in France, Professor Tom Wilde discovers his brilliant student Marcus Marfield, who disappeared two years earlier to join the International Brigades in Spain, in the Le Vernet concentration camp in the foothills of the Pyrenees. Wilde secures his release just as German tanks roll into Poland.

Meanwhile, a U-boat sinks the liner Athenia in the Atlantic with many casualties, including Americans, onboard. Goebbels claims Churchill put a bomb in the ship to blame Germany and to lure America into the war.

As the various strands of an international conspiracy begin to unwind, Tom Wilde will find himself in great personal danger. For just who is Marcus Marfield? And where does his loyalty lie?

Pre-order Nemesis (Tom Wilde #3) from Amazon UK

What Cathy (will) Read Next

The Ice HouseThe Ice House by Laura Lee Smith (paperback, review copy courtesy of Grove Press and Readers First)

Johnny MacKinnon might be on the verge of losing it all.

The ice factory he married into, which he’s run for decades, is facing devastating OSHA fines following a mysterious accident and may have to close. The only hope for Johnny’s livelihood is that someone in the community saw something, but no one seems to be coming forward. He hasn’t spoken to his son Corran back in Scotland since Corran’s heroin addiction finally drove Johnny to the breaking point. And now, after a collapse on the factory floor, it appears Johnny may have a brain tumour.

Johnny’s been ordered to take it easy, but in some ways, he thinks, what’s left to lose? This may be his last chance to bridge the gap with Corran – and to have any sort of relationship with the baby granddaughter he’s never met.

Prester John by John Buchan (hardcover)

Nineteen-year-old David Crawfurd travels from Scotland to South Africa to work as a storekeeper. On the voyage he encounters again John Laputa, the celebrated Zulu minister, of whom he has strange memories.

In his remote store David finds himself with the key to a massive uprising led by the minister, who has taken the title of the mythical priest-king, Prester John. David’s courage and his understanding of this man take him to the heart of the uprising, a secret cave in the Rooirand.

prester john 1