The Edible Woman, Margaret Atwood

I assumed my first reading experience of Margaret Atwood post the discovery that she is a leading light in feminism (I KNOW, KMS) would be an interesting experience - and I was right. It was also, in view of that knowledge, quite a disturbing book due to the entrenched misogyny.



It tells the story of Marilyn, who becomes engaged to Peter, a dude she's known for four months. (FOUR MONTHS!) Despite this, she starts having the world's most lackadaisical affair with Duncan, an insane scholar she meets in a laundromat. Trust Atwood to make a laundromat seem as rife with meaning and purpose as the Sistine Chapel. There's a side story about her flatmate Ainsley, who decides that to solidify her femininity she must become pregnant and lures in a mutual male friend for the purpose.

I must say I found Ainsley the most disturbing character I've read for a while – and I hope I was meant to. The deception of Len, while masterful, was also despicable, and I don't give her any feminist woman-points for it. Particularly when it was juxtaposed with the way she seduced him, which was to pretend to be younger and dumber than she was - ie a schoolgirl. Len is the creepiest of creeps but I don't hold with tricking people into parenthood under any circumstances. Then there's the part when she decides that after all the child needs a father figure because otherwise, DUM DUM DUM, he might become a ... HOMOSEXUAL. LIKE OMG WTF. I could only read her as a terrible, terrible stereotype because to do anything else would have hurt me.

I will admit to wishing Marilyn would end up with Duncan properly, but I chose to believe Atwood also wanted me to wish that in her attempt to overturn that particular trope. I might have had more faith in the 'marriage isn't everything, now I will find myself instead' party line (one that I personally espouse, too) if Marilyn didn't end up right where she started, and where in fact Atwood in the introduction says she started: choosing between a dead end job and the escape via marriage.

Atwood is just so enjoyable to read that even though I hated most of the characters and storylines (PETER CAN JUST GO DIAF), I had a good time with this.



The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller

I wasn't four pages into this before I renamed it in my head as 'The Worst Published Fanfic Ever.' Granted, I haven't yet read Fifty Shades of Grey, so that is liable to change.

Unlike apparently most of the one and two star reviewers on goodreads, I have more than a passing familiarity of the story of the Iliad (and the Odyssey) - thanks to Rosemary Sutcliff rather than Homer. Even if canon didn't point towards Achilles and Patroclus being lovers, I would have shipped them that way regardless. Therefore I didn't consider it a huge or scandalous leap for her to have made.

Miller, who's a classics scholar, clearly believes Achilles/Patroclus is the ultimate canon OTP. It's a shame, because that leads her to also believe she doesn't have to prove anything with her book. She could have been writing a kiddie version of the very true story of the Iliad from the way she assumes the facts speak for themselves and all she has to do is record them. Unfortunately, while I learned more of the minutiae of Achilles' life - more than I or the story needed, in fact - I did not for one second learn why she thought she sold me on the romance. It's so much taken as a given that even she doesn't question it, and she's the goddamn storyteller here. Not Homer, whatever his supposed intentions towards the smexing were. GIVE ME SOMETHING OTHER THAN THE SMELL OF ACHILLES' FEET FOR REAL BRO.

I'm not even kidding: there are several references (too depressing to actually count) to his pink feet and how awesome they smell. Bear in mind this is MILLENIA before the invention of deodorant and electrical showers. I'm not buying it. And the writing is crammed with real clankers; the nectar-scented feet are just the start.

"Patroclus," he said. He was always better with words than I.

Sure! Why not! Except ... this is the ONLY WORD HE SAID. Which is YOUR NAME, Patroclus. Basic identity skills do not equal eloquence! No really!



Despite the prophecy and oh noes! forbidden love! angle she chose to take, there is absolutely no sense of threat in this book, no sense of gathering menace. The plot lurches and spurts along, topping even The Night Circus in its frantic scrabblings. I read somewhere that she does women badly, but it's not true. Yes, her women - three, two of whom get speaking parts - are bad, but they're not actively worse than the men. Miller just can't write. The prophecy states that Hector will die before Achilles; the conclusion reached is that Achilles must not kill Hector. Huh? What about the THOUSAND SHIPS full of other fighting dudes, any of whom could kill Hector? Sense: not made.

In the end, the idea of Achilles, greatest warrior of all time, and his sword-mate Patroclus being touchy-feely liberals who save women by pretending to the crowd that they'll rape them and then not actually raping them does not compute. Thetis should have been the most interesting character in a host of interesting characters, but nope, all we get is tired rape apologism for poor, kind Peleus who's just so NICE, don't you know, he DESERVED to repeatedly RAPE HIS WIFE. That bitch who only wanted to save her son.