The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood (#15, Fiction)

I love Margaret Atwood.  This is one of her first books and was published in the late 1960s during the second-wave feminist movement.  While I applaud the many symbolic topics the book tackles, it was pretty bizarre. 

After finishing The Edible Women I found a journal article about demystifying the female form in relation to this novel.  Thanks to the journal article I learned there were way more representations, dualisms, embodiments, theories, cultural experiences, concepts, analogies, disruptive narratives, significances, etc, etc, than I could possibly wrap my 11 years separated from college brain around. 

My explanation of the book would be "the protagonist was torn between traditional social norms of women and her own intellectual ideas, and began to be consumed by her acceptance of a traditional future."  Or I could leave you with this quote from the article in the Journal of International Women's Studies:

"In The Edible Woman, Atwood disassembles the patriarchal concept of femininity and offers a new account of the female body. By re-appropriating the body, Atwood is able to articulate women’s anxieties over her oppressive cultural experiences as well as confront that oppression." 

 

3 out of 5.