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Book 5 - Margaret Atwood "Lady Oracle"
Feb. 6th, 2012 11:05 amBook Five of my 50 Book Challenge was completed this morning.
Margaret Atwood’s Lady Oracle tells the story of Joan Foster, an author who finds success rather unintentionally, by way of a book named Lady Oracle: she has been writing pulp Gothic romances under an assumed name, but hides this fact from everyone she knows.
The underlying theme of this novel, as far as I could tell, is identity. Joan is searching for hers, and ultimately rubs it out in order to survive. Then the other main characters too seem to have at least two identities, as Joan herself points out. She is a clumsy, somewhat endearing, humorous, childish woman whose one great motivation in life is ‘escape’.
The one grand success of Joan Foster’s life, her best selling book, is unintentional, as are most of her life’s choices and consequences. Her ultimate choice to fake her own death seems childish, but wholly typical of her- even the ending suggests a familiarity, as though we are now so accustomed to Joan’s character that this ending seems fitting.
The novel provides some characteristically sharp and poignant insights into a woman’s self-image issues in terms of obesity. There is also a fraught and sharply-etched relationship with her mother and her girlhood companions.(The snowy ravine incident is almost identical to one from Atwood’s Cat’s Eye) The extremely vivid dream imagery and story-within-story method is also familiar because of Atwood’s other works. The writing is in itself excellent; none of the characters except Aunt Lou are particularly likeable, yet the layers of identity and the underlying humour, deceit, tenderness and need for validation kept me engaged.
Atwood writes with a piquancy that comes from a doubtless razor-sharp mind, one that is unhesitating in drawing out the cruelties faced by women, and in Lady Oracle, overweight women in particular. It is also interesting to come across nuggets like ‘girls didn’t wear slacks to school in those days’ and comments about her cooking - these seem anachronistic on the surface but are essentially still true if one thinks through the layers.
I didn’t enjoy this book as much as some of the others in this challenge, but it’s still a book worth reading. She is a writer of consequence, one that I admire for intellect and intensity.
Margaret Atwood’s Lady Oracle tells the story of Joan Foster, an author who finds success rather unintentionally, by way of a book named Lady Oracle: she has been writing pulp Gothic romances under an assumed name, but hides this fact from everyone she knows.
The underlying theme of this novel, as far as I could tell, is identity. Joan is searching for hers, and ultimately rubs it out in order to survive. Then the other main characters too seem to have at least two identities, as Joan herself points out. She is a clumsy, somewhat endearing, humorous, childish woman whose one great motivation in life is ‘escape’.
The one grand success of Joan Foster’s life, her best selling book, is unintentional, as are most of her life’s choices and consequences. Her ultimate choice to fake her own death seems childish, but wholly typical of her- even the ending suggests a familiarity, as though we are now so accustomed to Joan’s character that this ending seems fitting.
The novel provides some characteristically sharp and poignant insights into a woman’s self-image issues in terms of obesity. There is also a fraught and sharply-etched relationship with her mother and her girlhood companions.(The snowy ravine incident is almost identical to one from Atwood’s Cat’s Eye) The extremely vivid dream imagery and story-within-story method is also familiar because of Atwood’s other works. The writing is in itself excellent; none of the characters except Aunt Lou are particularly likeable, yet the layers of identity and the underlying humour, deceit, tenderness and need for validation kept me engaged.
Atwood writes with a piquancy that comes from a doubtless razor-sharp mind, one that is unhesitating in drawing out the cruelties faced by women, and in Lady Oracle, overweight women in particular. It is also interesting to come across nuggets like ‘girls didn’t wear slacks to school in those days’ and comments about her cooking - these seem anachronistic on the surface but are essentially still true if one thinks through the layers.
I didn’t enjoy this book as much as some of the others in this challenge, but it’s still a book worth reading. She is a writer of consequence, one that I admire for intellect and intensity.
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