Tuesday, June 14, 2011

BOOK: The Edible Woman by Margaret Artwood


For background information and summary of the book, click onto this wiki link

This book was written when she was 24 (1965), so there's a lot of nervous energy, doubts and idealism presented in the story, as expected from a young writer. but the effortless way she wrote about matters undoubtedly deep and witty. the book pushed Artwood's career to the sky, when due to negligence the publisher only published her book in 1969, coinciding the heat of Feminism movement in North America.

She surely have secured her place in my must read list. i love the way she wrote, the raw passion and honesty. the dialogues were totally believable, the storyline fantastic. she wrote lots of quirky nonsense that actually make sense, once you try to think it over. and she's funny.

OOOO... forget all those qualities, she won my heart over when she correctly mentioned pitcher plants as bulbous leaves. Kukuanga* loves you girl.

so, i must thank siti, for lending me this wonderful book. because on my own, i wont go near this type of book (feminism and all). its too intimidating. i dont see the point of fighting for something as elusive as gender equalisation. where in the end, the fighter dont even know how to handle victory. that's the problem with us girls, we dont actually know what we really want.

i was dumbfounded when a certain lady in position within the Ministry i serve made a comment on the paint colours of our building when the main discussion was on the future intakes of students and development planning for the college.

* Pitcher plant (in Dusun language)

5 comments:

Hidayah Ismawi said...

Sounds like a good read, will put it on my to read list too :)

kukuanga said...

i read it twice to come to this conclusion. the first read led me to depression and pasal tak puas hati, i re-read to find exactly, what was it. the second read, somehow made me wrote this review.

i guess, its an acquired taste.

Siti said...

Glad you liked the book.. It's interesting to read about feminism in a pre-feminist movement era. Ad you're right, Margaret Atwood is good at making her story seem so real, what a storyteller.

Tina said...

There's an Artwood book I'm looking for and I can't recall the title but it has no 'edible'. BTW, I've got a copy of the book I had wanted to borrow... Jeannette Walls' book with broke and horses in the title. Maybe what I really need is a book to show me how to improve my memory.
I came across a book where the Australian author mentioned that 'kukuanga' is rafflesia and I believed him!

kukuanga said...

siti,
i thank you for lending me the book. what a loss to miss reading a great story because of my prejudice to feminism.

tina,
send me your mail address, i'll mail it to you. and kukuanga is really a pitcher plant, the genus of Nepenthaceae. another Australian guy, Charles Clarke wrote 2 books on kukuanga.