The Birth Machine

by Elizabeth Baines

Tucked up on the ward and secure in the latest technology, Zelda is about to give birth to her baby. But things don't go to plan, and as her labour progresses and the drugs take over, Zelda enters a surreal world. Here, past and present become confused and blend with fairytale and myth. Old secrets surface and finally give birth to disturbing revelations in the present. Originally published in the eighties, The Birth Machine was seized on by readers as giving voice to a female experience absent from fiction until then and quickly became a classic text. Out of print for some years, The Birth Machine is now reissued in a revised version. It is still relevant today to modern Obstetrics and Medicine, however it is more than that: it is also a gripping story of buried secrets and a long-ago murder, and of present-day betrayals. Above all, it is a powerful novel about the ways we can wield control through logic and language, and about the battle over who owns the right to knowledge and to tell the stories of who we are. The book was dramatised for Radio 4 and starred Barbara Marten as Zelda.

Genres: Fiction, Novels

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1983

About the author

Novelist, short story writer and playwright. Latest novel ASTRAL TRAVEL, published by Salt. Also available from Salt: novels TOO MANY MAGPIES and THE BIRTH MACHINE, and two collections of stories, USED TO BE and BALANCING ON THE EDGE OF THE WORLD.

Praise for Elizabeth's work:

'Intricately beautiful and abruptly brutal ... I greedily consumed every paragraph, and yearned for more free time when I had to put the book down to do something inconsequential like work or sleep ... I can't remember the last time a work of fiction aroused such sympathy and indignant anger in me ... one of the most memorable and brilliant books I've read this year' - Bookmunch on Astral Travel.

'It'll blow you away when you least expect it' - Charlie Place, The Worm Hole on Used to Be.

'Moving and compelling' - Sarah Salway on Too Many Magpies

'Quite swept me off my feet' - Dovegreyreader on Balancing on the Edge of the World

'A gripping story, a pithy book' - Katy Campbell on The Birth Machine

Reviews

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

*3.5 stars*

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I won this! Will be reading shortly..
didn't get as much reading done as i thought over the holidays, but did start this - up to p30, and so far it's a strange but compelling combination of (descriptions of) childhood play and induced labour..

..I needn’t have worried - it all comes together in a coherent and powerful way. Zelda as a child and Zelda the adult are ‘victims’ of larger things around them – in the childhood bit there is a murder of a child and she feels implicated because they (her friends and her playing with dolls and witches spells) sent the boy (who was murdered) away and thus contributed to his fate, and maybe will have to answer to policemen and the machinery of law; as a pregnant adult she is the unknowing subject in the trial of an induction programme to prove a professor’s theory about the optimum life of the placenta. Men are in charge here, they know best. The pregnant woman is treated like a child… a bit Stepford Wife-like as her husband, a timid medical researcher, may be using her to please his ‘boss’ (the professor). Her pregnancy is treated as an opportunity to try out new techniques regardless of her own wishes - and without her knowledge - and to please men (a trasverse incision. More commonly known as a bikini-line incision. …Oh, good. Now Zelda will be able to wander half clad on beaches, her sexual viability intact.)

Mixes fairy tale, satire (of the medical profession and its lecture circuit), technical language, hallucination and realism and can be a mite confusing. It is deliberately obscure in places to heighten tension. Although a little confused I was gripped, especially by the childhood scenes- the part where the children run off pursued by a policeman across a swampy building site is tremendous: The slab Zelda was standing on squelched beneath her like a spoon in jelly. I did hanker after more on the murder, and maybe more on the professor and Zelda’s husband, but Zelda herself is a fully rounded character, flawed and manipulated and drugged, she finally breaks free of all.

For me what impressed most was the language (see the lines and phrases quoted above), well observed and precise:The wine, meant to be white, lapped green in the glass, gathering, when it was moved, small black shadows, like spores drawn in then dissolved. It stank faintly like mould.

Along with birds and fish food features a lot here, particularly vegetables, pulled out of the ground, tasting wrong: The stew with swede wasn’t very tasty .. the potatoes..cut into chips and heaped in a pile, creamy and wet looking, beginning to turn orange, cold and powdery and bitter to the tongue.

This was originally published by the Womens' Press in 1982 (the author restores the original running order though as the Press re-arranged some chapters), but it doesn't seem dated at all, and although a feminist book it is not just for feminists.

[Joachim Boaz · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25/5 (Very Good)

“Ladies and Gentleman: The age of the machine” (11).

I continue my loose sequence of reviews on medical science fiction with Elizabeth Baines’ evocative fable The Birth Machine (1983) (see notes). Pushing against notions that pregnancy is “medical: illness” (51), the narrative follows a nightmarish [...]
Full review: https://sciencefictionruminations.com...

[Marlene · Rating 1 out of 5]

A weird book. While I'm sympathetic to the ideas about birth, the story is too chaotic and undone to make any sense. I won't recommend this to my students.

[Pink · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting story, especially if you enjoy feminist fiction, even if it is a bit dated already.

[Jeanette Greaves · Rating 4 out of 5]

A young woman's experience of birth is controlled by an arrogant doctor, her body becomes an experiment. She retreats into the past and remembers a childhood horror.

[Judith · Rating 2 out of 5]

A bit of a mish-mash of a novel and didn't really enjoy it. Didn't care for any of the characters, but I thought the narrative about controlling women's births was interesting and valid.

[Kels B · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hated it!

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

put it on the doctor curriculum. I don't want one who hasn't read it, gray's anatomy my ass

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a revised edition of a book which was first published in the eighties. The author has returned the chapter order to what she originally intended. A scathing examination of how depersonalising modern day birth can be this is an important book and one that deserves a wider readership than it will probably get. I’m giving it 5 stars because I can’t give it 4½. I do not like this cover – I think it detracts from the book – but other than that it’s very well written, does not overstay its welcome and does not allow its message to get distracted by being overly graphic in its descriptions.

You can read my full review on my blog here.

[Elizabeth Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a haunting and thought-provoking novel, and one which has stayed with me after I finished reading. Baines use of recurring imagery is masterful, both in linking together the narrators past and present, as well as providing extra layers to the narrative. Many parts of this novel were disturbing, especially as it dealt with complications during a birth, and the plot continued to surprise and shock right through to the final page. A very well written book.

[Elizabeth Baines]

I wrote it, so I've decided not to rate it. I guess I could say what I learned from writing it: it was my first novel, after having written only short stories, so I learned to write at length - but not great length!

[Elizabeth Baines]

I wrote it, so I've decided I can't rate it.