Customer Reviews

Woman on the Edge of Time

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I could NOT put this one down from page one. "Woman on the Edge of Time" is a heartrending novel, written with exceptional skill by Marge Piercy, a celebrated American author who wrote this so-called utopian novel and was a major literary figure in the 70's.

In this novel, Consuelo (Connie) has an abusive family who imprison her in a mental hospital. She is treated with incredible brutality, her life is discounted to the level of dumpster garbage. But Connie is far from insane--despite the fact she thinks she can time-travel.

Connie visits Massapoisset, Massachusetts in the future via a kind of mental holographic sending-receiving abilities of a local resident there, Luciente. Life in the future is idyllic, though not perfect, and Connie develops relationships with people in the Cape Cod village. But life in the mental ward becomes increasingly dangerous. Connie has to make some difficult choices to survive.

What I like best about this novel, in addition to the style which is nearly perfect, is that there are levels to the story. If you look at the events in one light, you could come to an entirely different conclusion about Connie's sanity.

I absolutely recommend you read this book--and I am putting it on my "100 best American Novels" list. If you like Margaret Atwood ("Handmaid's Tale) you will likely enjoy "Woman on the Edge of Time."

"Woman on the Edge of Time" is an excellent read. Marge Piercy did an outstanding job with this book; it was written in the 1970s, and does not appear dated. The themes are universal; how does anyone live with hopelessness and despair when their back is against the wall? And, can love win out over hate?

I'm not doing Ms. Piercy's book justice; there aren't any words to describe how profoundly meaningful this book is about those universal themes.

As for the plot, Connie Ramos is in her mid-30s, has had mental problems in the past, had her daughter taken away from her due to Connie's having gone through a rough patch in her life (her partner died and no one cared about it but her; she acted out and did drugs, which caused her to mistreat her daughter). No one seems to care about Connie; she's lost her looks, she has no money, and even her favorite people mostly just ignore her.

What astonishes me about Connie and her plight is that she is intelligent. She had some college, yet no one that deals with her ever considers her intelligent _or_ educated. And that's stupid; really, why didn't her welfare caseworker say, "Oh, Connie, you have a year or two of college. Would you like to be re-trained?" In real life, this might have happened.

However, this _is_ a fable; that can be overlooked. Besides, the social services in the 1970s in New York were terrible; they rivaled the situation that New York faces today after the terrorist attacks. There are too many people; it's very easy to get lost in the cracks. So this isn't a plot hole at all; it's a statement about how good people often get downtrodden through no fault of their own.

Anyway, Connie isn't listened to about anything, so when her niece comes in and begs for sanctuary, Connie probably should have sent her away. But Connie's kindhearted; she doesn't. That kind act gets Connie beaten and thrown into a mental hospital; while trying to defend her niece (who then promptly goes back with her abusive partner, a pimp), she broke the pimp's nose. He gets Connie committed, as she has a previous history of mental problems.

From there, things go from bad to worse; Connie is forced to participate in experimental treatments in order to ever go home, because no one really wants her anywhere. The state doesn't care, her family doesn't care, and the one man who loved her is dead. (Her daughter is either in foster care or has been adopted out.)

She makes contact with the future and manages to use those brief glimpses to continue to hope and fight her situation. She pretends to acquiesce, but is in actuality looking for a way out -- if it'll only present itself.

The subplot about the evil future, to me at least, is a metaphor. There are always choices. Even the best choice can lead to ill; you can only minimize the consequences.

At any rate, Connie's situation is appalling. Her only true friends are those in her head -- those from the future. Yet she continues to care about the present, despite having almost nobody or nothing care about her except as an object.

Anyway, Ms. Piercy does not normally write s/f. Her world-building skills, compared to contemporary s/f authors, are not what most s/f readers look for. There aren't elaborate scenes sketched; there aren't large amounts of technology lavishly explained.

I feel that is irrelevant. Ms. Piercy has enough detail of the future, both good and bad, to explain what's going on, and that's enough for me. I liked her additional words (per for a personal pronoun, rather than he or she, for example), and I enjoyed her descriptions of how things were done in the various encampments/towns. And really, this is a highly personal novel; it's psychological, and can be read on many levels. That level of minutiae would only distract, not add.

Those who want more conventionality need to look elsewhere.

As it stands, I think "Woman on the Edge of Time" is about love, and how it can conquer anything. Granted, the love I'm talking about isn't about love for another -- or even self-love, although Connie does have those (especially for her daughter, who was taken away from her during her dark period). It's about love for humanity, which is what makes it so unique in science fiction. Ms. Piercy tackled a huge theme, and made it work.

There aren't anywhere near enough stars to give this work, so I'll just say five stars plus, with the highest recommendation possible.

Barb Caffrey

I was sadly disappointed with this book. I had seen this book several times listed as an essential part of the feminist sci-fi and utopia/dystopia genres. It may be that, but if so, it is certainly no more than that. If you''re not an avid follower of these genres, don''t bother with this book. Like the other unfortunate classic, Herland, this book largely reads as an essay clumsily couched as a novel. The characters have little depth, the scenarios are thinly portrayed and highly stereotyped: all current-day scientists and medical practitioners are portrayed as domineering, power-hungry, lost people without an ounce of compassion, while the eco-friendly, sexually-open, commune-dwellers of the future offer the contrast of glossy perfection. In fact, I found this book particularly frustrating because I actually found the conceived future-society quite appealing, in principle, and very much *wanted* to like this book. But the incessant preaching and the simplicity of the portrayal left me largely unmoved. In the hands of a more skillful and subtle writer, this book might have deserved the status it has, somehow, achieved.

Marge wrote this book in the glow of the radicalization of the 1960s and 1970s. How light what she talks about seemed then, and how needed does this seem now. Right now the people who frame the discourses, own everything, buy the politicans, and do stealing and murder on an international basis, try to convince working people, people with a heart, people around the world that their choices are the only choices. In this book we find that so many of the limitations of our society can be sweetly transcended, whether we are talking about race, sex, money, adults children. This is not a dreamers book, but a book that talks about how life could simply be truly human with what we know, with what we can do, when the choices aren't dictated by patriarchy, when the choices aren't dictated by capitalism, when the choices are dictated by biollionaire liars, by men elected to presidencies who flew around in planes owned by Emron. Morever, consistent with every sentence Marge ever wrote, including things I think are just plain wrong, is a simple unromanticized, gut understanding that human beings are better than all the crap thrown at it and we will perserve, we will build a world worthy of the grandeur of life.

I could NOT put this one down from page one. "Woman on the Edge of Time" is a heartrending novel, written with exceptional skill by Marge Piercy, a celebrated American author who wrote this so-called utopian novel and was a major literary figure in the 70's.

In this novel, Consuelo (Connie) has an abusive family who imprison her in a mental hospital. She is treated with incredible brutality, her life is discounted to the level of dumpster garbage. But Connie is far from insane--despite the fact she finds out she can time-travel.

Connie visits Massapoisset, Massachusetts in the future via a kind of mental holographic sending-receiving abilities of a local resident there, Luciente. Life in the future is idyllic, though not perfect, and Connie develops relationships with people in the Cape Cod village. But life in the mental ward becomes increasingly dangerous. Connie has to make some difficult choices to survive.

What I like best about this novel, in addition to the style which is nearly perfect, is that there are levels to the story. If you look at the events in one light, you could come to an entirely different conclusion about Connie's sanity.

I absolutely recommend you read this book--and I am putting it on my "100 best American Novels" list. If you like Margaret Atwood ("Handmaid's Tale) you be likely enjoy "Woman on the Edge of Time." HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Woman on the Edge of Time is hailed as a treasure of feminist literature. It is also classified as a science fiction novel. Piercy lets readers down in both respects.

One of the problems in this novel is the blatant use of stereotypes. The protagonist, Connie Ramos, is not only a woman, but is also Hispanic, poverty-stricken, a single mother, and obese! It is as if Piercy felt like she needed to beat us over the head and say, "Connie is an outcast! Get it? You get it?" Got it. It almost seemed that Piercy did not have enough confidence in her ability to get her point across. Therefore, she needed to make it so insultingly evident that the reader couldn't miss it in the dark.

As for the "science fiction" aspect of the book, well, it isn't there. Yes, Connie time travels, and yes we see a utopian/dystopian future. But it's all window dressing for the writer's feminist agenda.

All in all, Woman on the Edge of Time is a book with a mission. Marge Piercy's prose and structuring, unfortunately, gets in the way of that mission. ...

I'm not normally a fan of science fiction, but Marge Piercy manages to create life-like characters and not get lost in too many technical details. The book centers around a woman who is hospitalized for mental illness in the 1970's. She is able to communicate with people from the future and eventually time travel to see their world. She has no real friends and her own family wants to wash their hands of her. Her friends from the future become the only ones she can turn to, especially when she and some other mental patients become part of a dangerous new experiment. Piercy's view of the future is both fascinating and startling. It is part utopia and part hell-on-earth.

A friend of mine whose opinion I absolutely trust recommended this book to me. What I found fascinating was not the book, but the way two serious readers can view a book so differently. I guess I just must have missed something, because for me, this book was poorly conceived, poorly written, derivative twaddle. But everyone else seems to feel differently so maybe I'll give it another try. I cannot recommend this book however.

I discovered this book through an another customer's amazon list of great sci-fi, what a find. A woman shifts between her world and the year 2137 when people have found more environmently friendly ways to live. There are some violent & disturbing scenes in this but I felt the ending to be positive & uplifting, a reminder that we all need, in our own small ways, to keep "fighting the war". One comment about some of the other reviews, I am unable to see why this would be taken as a "feminist" book unless it's because the central character is a woman & the author also. The message in this book is about the environment first, then human priorities over economic ones. A thought-provoking view of the future.

I read this in a Women's Lit course while in college. Almost 10 years later, this remains one of my favorite books. In fact, one year I bought it for everyone I knew, because I think that it is that relevant a story and that well-written. Piercy weaves futuristic sci-fi elements and a feminist perspective into a beautiful. yet chilling story. This text exists on so many different levels and it works well on all of them. It's a great story as a stand-alone text. On a philosophical level, it begs the reader to comprehend what truth is, and its subjectivity. It is empowering as a novel about a strong woman who is able to transcend race, gender and class inequalities. Every time I read this book, I close the back cover and think how important the decisions I make in my own life are, no matter how minimal they seem to appear. The world that Piercy creates in the perspective futures of our world makes me think "how wonderful that would be" and then, conversely, with the alternate, "oh my god." Read it.