Bodily Harm [Paperback]

Margaret Eleanor Atwood (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Bantam Dell Pub Group (February 1, 1999)
• ASIN: B001IC514O
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)

More About the Author

MARGARET ATWOOD, whose work has been published in over thirty-five countries, is the author of more than forty books of fiction, poetry, and critical essays. In addition to The Handmaid's Tale, her novels include Cat's Eye, shortlisted for the Booker Prize; Alias Grace, which won the Giller Prize in Canada and the Premio Mondello in Italy; The Blind Assassin, winner of the 2000 Booker Prize; and her most recent, Oryx and Crake, shortlisted for the 2003 Booker Prize. She lives in Toronto with writer Graeme Gibson.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars This book is difficult to read., July 4, 2000

By 

Auliya "An Avid Reader" (Austin, TX USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bodily Harm (Paperback)

Alright, maybe you have to be extremely sophisticated to understand this book. Or maybe I just wasn't up to the task. I adore Atwood's work, largely speaking. I love the play on gender issues, the windows onto the character's personal worlds, the suspense and tension Atwood can introduce and tease into page-turners... But this book? Maybe it's because it spent so much time developing a "politics" sub-plot, or because it took place on an island that was difficult for me to render inside my head... but I just never understood what was going on. Never exactly understood, never could get "connected" enough with anything to care. That's so weird, since I get completely wrapped up in her other stories and novels, and I've read them all. I don't want to give this book a thumbs down, for fear that it's my own lack of skill *as a reader* that made the book so opaque and boring... but at least this review might give you some information pertaining to the apparent difference in this work from Atwood's others, you know?

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Wasted potential, but still a good read, September 20, 2006

By 

e. verrillo (williamsburg, ma) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bodily Harm (Paperback)

Bodily Harm is one of those rare books which is almost impossible to evaluate. On the one hand, Atwood's prose is flawless. (You really cannot complain.) The plot is excellent, and the "back story" is quite compelling. The title manages to cover all bases - the "bodily harm" serving to cover the main character's (Rennie's) breast cancer, her abuses at the hands of her boyfriend (cleverly not described as abuses), her wretched childhood and then onward and upward through hard pornography, Caribbean revolution and the continuing "bodily harm" perpetuated on third world nations by "sweet Canadians" and their counterparts down here in the belly of the beast. Nevertheless, this book fails to live up to its title and to its potential.

Where Atwood falls down is in the way she has structured her novel. The flashbacks into her main character's past had an appeal at the beginning of the novel, and served to thoroughly "peg" her personality, but eventually they slowed down the action - and right at the worst possible moments. (Do we really need a boyfriend flashback when her life is in danger?)The device gets so old towards the dramatic climax, that you may be tempted to throw the book down in disgust.

But you won't. You will continue reading (because the climax really is dramatic) until you reach the last page, when you will be tempted to burn it. Because after countless pages in which Atwood devotes herself to laying out the inner contradictions of her main character, the horrific challenges to her shallow, self-absorbed "life so far," Atwood - unforgivably - does not devote more than a single sentence to the transformation which finally takes place in Rennie's soul (and long overdue I might add). One measly little sentence of resolution to all the endless anomie, despair, confusion, depression and utter willful ignorance which we have been subjected to throughout the exploration of Rennie's ragged interior is enough to make the most hardcore Atwood fans pull out their hair.

All that being said, I would still recommend this book. Even when she doesn't live up to her own well-deserved reputation, Atwood is still a remarkable read.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Strange but Compelling, August 29, 2000

By 

Amy Krug "amykk25" (Centerville, OH United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bodily Harm (Paperback)

Though I wouldn't consider this my favorite Atwood novel, it is a good one, nonetheless. Atwood has a way of involving you with her characters, even if you don't necessarily like them. I couldn't put this book down, because I was so intent on finding out the fate of the heroine. Part mystery and part romance but all introspective, I'd recommend it.