Edible Woman [Mass Market Paperback]

I was pleasantly surprised by this book, especially after reading the blurb which loudly declared "The Edible Woman" to be a book about wild sex. Luckily it actually turned out to have more substance than that: if anything, the sex scenes are so low-key as to be nonexistent. Instead the focus is upon the psychological aspects of Marian's relationships with her fiancee and with Duncan, and most of all upon the way she views herself. While on the surface "The Edible Woman" can be viewed as a feminist rant against marriage and commitment, this would be in my opinion a reductive perspective to take. "The Edible Woman" is primarily the charting of one woman's loss of identity as she attempts to mold herself to conform to the expectations of others.

Despite the serious and even dark undercurrents, this is a light, fun read. The characters are almost caricatures, even the main character, saying and doing things that no one in their right minds would ever do in real life. Fortunately this cartoonish treatment of the characters works in the novel's favor: it makes Marian's strange disorder more believable, and ultimately the message of the book being carried through in such a manner makes it--dare I say--more palatable. Atwood may have an axe to grind, but she does it with such delicate strokes that one can only appreciate the elegant subtlety she employs.

Atwood's prose is lucid and witty, and she takes some playful jabs at academia that are truly hilarious. The assembled cast of characters, even while they are too zany to be real, are also vastly entertaining. This book is not incredibly deep or substantial; though it does deal with some complex themes, it is in the end exactly as it comes across on the surface: a fun read. I probably wouldn't read it again, but I'm glad to have read it once.

Marian McAlpin is a recent college graduate living in an unnamed Canadian city. She began dating Peter, an attorney, just as she started her job as a copy writer at a marketing research firm. Before she even realized that their relationship was serious or "going somewhere", she and Peter become engaged. Strangely enough, it happens after a fit of anxiety that literary causes Marian to run frantically into the night, away from Peter and the possibility of captivity.
The wedding plans are hastily taken over by Marian's family, the plans for the rest of their life are taken over by Peter (plans that included Marian quiting her job and becoming a housewife) and Marian begins to feel consumed.

Marian's onset of food aversions are comical, but also very symbolic--the thought of being coldly and methodically consumed keeps Marian from eating during the weeks leading up to her wedding as she tries to imagine giving up her independence.

Nearly every aspect of this novel is a symbol, a cultural comment of some kind. The most obvious, of course, is about food, but there are others, including the deep pit Marian stares into just days before her wedding. The characters are also neatly compartmentalized into varying degrees of traditional stagnation. They range from the stodgy old sexless landlady; the 3 "office virgins" at Marian's company; Clara, a college friend who is deeply immersed in the doldrums of wifery and motherhood; and the scheming Ainsley, Marian's roommate who plots to become pregnant with the help of an unsuspecting man. Peter, Marian's fiancee, openly balks at marriage at the novel's beginning; however, superb plot development shows that men have nothing to lose and everything to gain. It's the wife-to-be who is expected to surrender everything. Not-so-subtle remarks about uppity women who "trap" men by becoming pregnant (like Ainsley and the wife of Peter's friend Trigger) and about the perils of educating women (it's a risk to allow them to get ideas, you see) make this novel all the more wonderful.

This is not a lightweight novel, in spite of its somewhat silly subject matter and hilarious plot twists. Only those who go in with their eyes wide open will finish this novel having been enriched and satisfied.