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thebobsphere 's review for:
Lady Oracle
by Margaret Atwood
One of the joys of reading an author with a prolific output in publishing order is that moment when said author makes the jump from being good to being excellent. When I read Jonathan Coe’s entire back catalogue the jump happened with his 4th novel, What A Carve Up! . Margaret Atwood’s (I will be reading all of her 17 novels) 3rd book, Lady Oracle is that great leap forward.
The main protagonist is Joan Foster, a woman who likes to live in the shadow of illusions and disguises. The book opens with her arriving in Italy, talking about previous men in her life and trying to remain anonymous. The reason being that she has faked her own death. The book then is about her life leading up to her current situation.
The book is full of illusion vs reality. Throughout her life Joan undergoes changes: At first she is fat, then she loses a lot of weight ( I can’t tell the reason why, it’s too good to spoil) , she travels to London settles with a Polish count and learns the art of writing trashy romantic novels under a pseudonym. She then meets her future husband Arthur, and takes on a lover as well. Due to embarrassment, Joan fabricates some her past. Saying that all her lovers put on various guises and names throughout the book and it worth noting that the only thing she does with is authentic, which is write a poem called Lady Oracle, causes more stress and she feels that escaping into her trashy novel world is better.
Eventually Joan feels that the only way to escape out of this maze she has created, she has to fake suicide. Once she makes it to Italy we readers get glimpses of the novel she is writing and we learn that there’s a fine line between fact and fiction. By the end of the book Joan realises that the truth is the only way to progress but she also makes the decision to write science-fiction i.e. focus on the furture.
There are other themes which occur in the book: fat shaming plays a huge part, abuse, male dominance as well. Incidentally the fact vs fiction theme would reoccur in Atwood’s 10th novel, The blind Assassin.
Compared to Atwood’s previous two novels, Lady Oracle is funnier, contains better writing and flows well. As I said I see it as a turning point. From now onward’s Atwood’s rise from cult novelist to bestselling author is not fully established but the signs are definitely there.
The main protagonist is Joan Foster, a woman who likes to live in the shadow of illusions and disguises. The book opens with her arriving in Italy, talking about previous men in her life and trying to remain anonymous. The reason being that she has faked her own death. The book then is about her life leading up to her current situation.
The book is full of illusion vs reality. Throughout her life Joan undergoes changes: At first she is fat, then she loses a lot of weight ( I can’t tell the reason why, it’s too good to spoil) , she travels to London settles with a Polish count and learns the art of writing trashy romantic novels under a pseudonym. She then meets her future husband Arthur, and takes on a lover as well. Due to embarrassment, Joan fabricates some her past. Saying that all her lovers put on various guises and names throughout the book and it worth noting that the only thing she does with is authentic, which is write a poem called Lady Oracle, causes more stress and she feels that escaping into her trashy novel world is better.
Eventually Joan feels that the only way to escape out of this maze she has created, she has to fake suicide. Once she makes it to Italy we readers get glimpses of the novel she is writing and we learn that there’s a fine line between fact and fiction. By the end of the book Joan realises that the truth is the only way to progress but she also makes the decision to write science-fiction i.e. focus on the furture.
There are other themes which occur in the book: fat shaming plays a huge part, abuse, male dominance as well. Incidentally the fact vs fiction theme would reoccur in Atwood’s 10th novel, The blind Assassin.
Compared to Atwood’s previous two novels, Lady Oracle is funnier, contains better writing and flows well. As I said I see it as a turning point. From now onward’s Atwood’s rise from cult novelist to bestselling author is not fully established but the signs are definitely there.