chelseamariedesign

Okay, while discussing The Edible Woman, I swear I’ll resist the temptation for cutesy puns (delicious prose, succulent plot, I devoured this like a hamburger, etc.). This book, in many ways, has restored my faith in the female narrator. After reading a series of novels in which our first person POV ladies were horribly self-pitying, Margaret Atwood has presented me with a narrator (Marian) who manages to be charmingly neurotic. It could possibly be the most accessible character I‘ve read, EVER, which is why The Edible Woman gains a spot on my top 20. While the book starts out slow, by page 70 or so it really gets meaty…and that pun was unintentional, really. Marian, who works in marketing, is out doing a face-to-face survey when she meets an bizarre grad student who she coincidentally continues bumping into and forms a friendship. Meanwhile, her boyfriend (who she’s in a comfort relationship with but they aren’t that compatible) proposes, seemingly out of will rather than love. Marian then seems to detach from her identity, and in the process finds more and more food too intimidating to eat. The story is full of subtle humor and metaphor. The point of view in this novel is especially interesting. It starts off in first person, switches to third, and then returns to first at the end. It first I wasn’t sure if Atwood had done this for the hell of it or what, but by the end of the book it became obvious.

2022-11-14 13:48