It is the 1970s in Canada and Marian MacAlpin
is a modern city girl living the bachelorette life and in the first part of the
novel she shares that life and her thoughts through a first person narrative.
Her job with a market research company is
satisfying enough while hardly stretching her recently graduated status and she
rubs along in a shambolic symbiotic fashion with flat-mate Ainsley, united by a
common enemy in the shape of the woman downstairs, their landlady. And there is
a boyfriend, handsome and soon to be well-heeled lawyer, Peter. All is fine,
normal; maybe, when she thinks about it, even boring. Maybe Marian needs a
change, but one is coming as Peter stumbles into a proposal that Marian readily
accepts.
A change occurs in the second part of the
novel. Marian seems to cede, willingly, much of her autonomy to Peter. Much but
not all. Within her, unconscious seeds of resistance sprout. Her body begins to
reject certain types of food, increasingly and inconveniently narrowing her choice
of diet. And her mind dwells on a strange young man she first meets during a
survey, then repeatedly bumps into. And her story is now told in in the third
person.
The tension between the conventional
trajectory of her normal life and the subliminal intervention of her mind and
body is played out in typical Atwood style (though this is a very early work).
How will it end? In a short part three, but whether told in first or third
person could hold the key.
What could have been a standard story of
conflicted relationships becomes in Atwood’s hands a memorable, slightly
off-kilter, fine piece of writing.
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