Edible Woman, The [Mass Market Paperback]

Margaret Atwood (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 1991

Marian has a problem. A willing member of the consumer society in which she lives, she suddenly finds herself identifying with the things being consumed. She can cope with her tidy-minded fiancé, Peter, who likes shooting rabbits. She can cope with her job in market research, and the antics of her roommate. She can even cope with Duncan, a graduate student who seems to prefer laundromats to women. But not being able to eat is a different matter. Steak was the first to go. Then lamb, pork, and the rest. Next came her incapacity to face an egg. Vegetables were the final straw. But Marian has her reasons, and what happens next provides an unusual solution. Witty, subversive, hilarious, The Edible Woman is dazzling and utterly original. It is Margaret Atwood’s brilliant first novel, and the book that introduced her as a consummate observer of the ironies and absurdities of modern life.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Articulate and sophisticated.…Extraordinarily witty, and full of ironic observation.…A tour de force.…”
–Toronto Star

“[Atwood is] one of the most intelligent and talented writers to set herself the task of deciphering life in the late twentieth century.”
–Vogue

“Remarkable.…The Edible Woman assumes the force of a banal dream that has turned, without the dreamer quite noticing, into a nightmare.…[It] conceals the kick of a perfume bottle converted into a Molotov cocktail.”
–Time

“Delightful – spare, precise, mordantly witty.…Exquisitely written.”
–Journal of Canadian Fiction

“[The Edible Woman] is chock-full of startling images, superbly and classically crafted.…”
–Saturday Night

“Few writers are able to combine wit and humour.…Margaret Atwood is a poet and novelist who seems to be able to do anything she wants.”
–Newsweek

“A pleasure.”
–Kirkus Reviews

“Funny, sharp, witty, clever.”
–The Times (U.K.)

“Marked by a keen eye for evocative details which cohere into vivid incidents.”
–Canadian Forum

“[Atwood is] a subtle and penetrating observer of relationships between men and women.”
–Sunday Times (U.K.)

“Reflections on marriage, guilt and the relationship between the sexes – classic Atwood territory.”
–The Guardian (U.K.)

“[Atwood] knows exactly what she is doing with every phrase.”
–Vancouver Sun --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From the Publisher

"Chock-full of startling images, superbly and classically crafted...Kept me in stitches."
-Saturday Night

"Extraordinarily witty, and full or ironic observation."
-The Toronto Star

"Atwood has the magic of turning the particular and the parochial into the universal."
-The Times (London)
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 295 pages
• Publisher: Bantam (November 1, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 055329699X
• ISBN-13: 978-0553296990
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (49 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #946,411 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

66 of 68 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A tasty treat!, January 13, 2003

By 

Dianna Johnston "Compulsive Reader" (Joplin, MO) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Edible Woman (Paperback)

I will have to admit that curiosity is the prime reason for reading this book. The back cover blurb doesn't give much by way of details of the actual storyline, just that the main character feels like she is being eaten. I couldn't stop myself from reading this book after reading that! However, the story wasn't exactly what I was expecting, although it was still pretty good.

Set in Canada in the late 1960s, the women's role in life is slowly trying to break free from the 50s television version of the housewife that vacuums in pearls and heels. Marian, a recent college graduate, considers herself a pretty independent woman. Even her relationship with her boyfriend, Peter, doesn't get in the way of her independence. She lives on her own with her roommate and best friend, Ainsley, and she makes her own living as copywriter for a survey service. But when, out of the blue, Peter proposes marriage, strange things start happening. Marian begins to feel consumed with making plans, quitting her job, moving in with Peter, and settling down for her role as housewife. All of a sudden she can't eat certain things and she has strange panic attacks that come from nowhere. Her freedom is being threatened, but Marian sees no way out. Or is there?

While Marian's story is the core of this novel, the host of supporting characters intrigued me the most. Ainsley decides she wants to have a baby and begins her search to find the lucky man to help her out. Marian's friend, Clara, and her husband, Joe, provide a stunning example of what married/family life will be like (and not always in a good way). Then there's Duncan, a man who answers the door when Marian is out doing surveys, who has his own issues. All of these storylines are full of feminist symbolism, and I believe it is important to know this before you read the book. It will definitely help you understand the novel more clearly.

I'm a new Atwood fan, having read and loved The Handmaid's Tale just a month ago. And while The Edible Woman is not as exhilarating or fascinating like Handmaid, I still found it to be very well-written with an interesting storyline, despite its heavy symbolism that mostly went over my head (I'm not too good at picking that stuff out!). I have two other Atwood books on my shelf and I'm looking forward to reading them. I believe that imagination and originality is Atwood's forte, and I have high hopes that the rest of her novels will provide a healthy dose.

27 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Refreshingly Real, September 26, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Edible Woman (Paperback)

This is only the third Margaret Atwood novel I have read--having picked them all up at various flea markets and discount stores on a whim. I am a woman who usually does not identify with female authors, most of whom seem too aware of being "female authors" to tell a straightforward story without feminist propaganda. _The Edible Woman_, however, really hit me on a visceral level. Marian is the same age as I and has a similar perspective. She has a kitchen sink with molding dishes and a refrigerator whose innards seem to be growing. She has a college education and a job that she has no emotional attachement to, in fact she is horrified when forced to sign on to a retirement package, feeling tied to forever to an apathetic existence. She occasionally feels invisible when in a room with others, particularly it seems around her fiancee, at one point sliding between a bed and a wall while her friends quaff gin and play with camera equipment, never noticing she is gone until she is squashed under the bed as one of them sits down. She seems to be wandering through life without a purpose and clings onto the idea of being a wife by becoming almost accidentally engaged to an "ideal" man. Soon after this she finds herself slowly being nauseated by different sorts of food.

If the young ladies in this book didn't dress up so much and drink alcohol and smoke while pregnant it would seem very much a generation X novel! Starring apathetic protagonists Marian and Duncan, who both manage to be vivid characters in spite of the fact that they seem to spend most of their time just floating through life. A large part of the novel's strength is its well rounded secondary characters from Ainsley, Marian's single connivingly procreating room-mate, to Clara a somewhat disgruntled mother, to Duncan's slightly deranged grad-school room-mates.

This was a very fun book filled with characters I can imagine meeting among my own group of friends.

25 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fun with the world of metaphor, December 26, 2001

By 

Michael Battaglia - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Edible Woman (Paperback)

I've got a few Atwood books and this is by far the oldest one, so if it's not her writing debut (as opposed to poetry, which I think she did as well) it's pretty close and I have to say that I was pretty impressed with how strong her narrative voice was and how confident the book feels. Reading it you get a sense that the author knows exactly what she's doing and how to go about it. That sense makes the book that much more fun to read, even if it's not going to be recognized as one of her absolute masterpieces. The story concerns a woman named Marian, presumably in her mid-twenties, who after getting engaged starts to lose her desire to eat most kinds of food. But even that description is a tad misleading because the eating aspect doesn't even come into play until almost halfway through the book. Indeed those looking for a feminist version of "Thinner" should probably go the other way right now. Instead it's an examination of a woman's role in both society and marriage and that gives the story more weight, balancing the often silly and humorous situations Marian finds herself in. It's definitely the lightest book I've read by Atwood, it's hard to believe this is the same woman who did the ultra-depressing Life Before Man. But the main focus isn't even on Marian's quasi-eating disorder but on her interactions with her fiancee, her roommate (the subplot with her wanting a baby is absolutely hilarious in a darkly absurd way) and an odd graduate student she meets while out doing a survey for her job. That graduate student and his monologues was my favorite part of the chapter and probably represents Atwood's poke at the academic world, but definitely shows off her gift for words. But be on the look out for metaphors, just about everything means something else it seems, even the switch from first to third person struck me as odd until I realized even that represented something. In the end the metaphors get stretched a bit too far and the only truly silly moment is right at the end. But it's immensely enjoyable for an Atwood novel and one of the few that you'll find yourself laughing more than feeling glad you aren't the characters.