La donna da mangiare

Right around the time I turned 20, a boyfriend of mine dragged me to a Yes concert. I say “dragged” not because I have anything against the band, but because I knew only two of their songs, and I was the only girl going. My then-boyfriend and his friends were big Yes fans, and they had rented a limo Leggi tutto

Margaret Atwood’s prescient first novel still offers lots to chew on Marian, a 20-something woman in 1960s Toronto, gets engaged to her dull-but-respectable lawyer boyfriend, Peter, then soon begins losing her appetite for food. This causes problems leading up to the wedding, as Marian suffers a seri Leggi tutto

A novel with a major, very creepy power. Very different from her latter books, "The Edible Woman" is about the destructive power of man-woman relationships and it takes place in a world of robotic emotions and mechanical compulsions (not too far off from the Victorian variety!). The novel, a true av Leggi tutto

Have you ever been emotionally cannibalized, like Marian - the antsy but eminently lovable heroine of this, Atwood's first novel - written in the late sixties BEFORE she was famous? I have, and so I LOVED this one! I have very vivid memories of reading it soon after it was released - in a Voyageur coa Leggi tutto

First published in 1969(!), this was Atwood's first published book. Entering the lives of single woman Marian and her 1960's world of work, relationships and friendships. This is a pretty interesting debut for the now world famous writer as it assuredly sets a marker in the sand for what came next o Leggi tutto

I decided to re-read this because its white spine always calls my attention next to the black spines of Austen and Brontë. My review from two and a half years ago, to paraphrase Talking Heads, seems to talk a lot but not say anything. The Edible Woman was Atwood's first novel, and thus I must treat Leggi tutto

This story is perhaps the most pathological, dystopian and absurd I’ve ever read.... I try to leave my profession as a psychiatrist hidden and behind, I know, impossible thing and I would like to evaluate with the eyes of an average, normal person this book, as happened to me, that not wanting to ta Leggi tutto

The first book I read by Margaret Atwood in the mid-eighties and the one that made me a fan. I had never read anything quite like it before and I was hooked.

Written just before the founding of NOW, The Edible Woman is as relevant today as it was in 1965. The novel’s protagonist, Marian, has recently graduated from college and is working for a public opinion company. She is dating a man, Peter, who everyone thinks is perfect. Once engaged Marian begins t Leggi tutto

The Edible Woman , Margaret Atwood’s debut novel, is a slightly topsy-turvy inverted fairytale, with shades of Mad Men in its focus on consumer culture and the stifling social conventions of the mid-Sixties. Published in 1969 but written a few years earlier, Atwood’s sly humour elevates this stor Leggi tutto