collin_p 's review for:

The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood

4.25

challenging emotional reflective sad slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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As long as it took me to finish this book, I do think Atwood crafts a pretty focused drama that offers a charcuterie board of specific characters and symbols. It does take too long to get to the main literary event: the protagonist’s developing an increasing inability to eat food. Her metaphorical curse prevents her from inconveniencing the “lives” of her meals, imagining pulsating meat and carrots that scream when pulled from the ground. This is a clever way to illustrate the subtle fashion in which she begins to lose herself in anticipating a marriage to a conservative husband. She can’t even bear to clean up her roommate’s increasingly filthy dishes because she can’t bear to kill the mold, fungus, and germs they’ve become addled with. Peter, her fiancée, isn’t a terribly bad guy on the surface, but it’s in the stealthy, subconscious ways in which he controls her and sculpts her with each pet name that cause her to become accommodating to all but herself. Make no mistake, though, Marian is by no means perfect either, which is part of the fun. Atwood seems to excel in feminist narratives that emphasize the flaws of her oppressed characters as much as the sneaky ways the system works to oppress them. Really great overall, despite a slow pace.