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The Edible Woman ; Surfacing ; Lady Oracle

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This omnibus edition contains two of Margaret Atwood's offbeat and quirky "Cat's Eye" and "Wilderness Tips".

699 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1987

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238 people want to read

About the author

Margaret Atwood

668 books89.8k followers
Margaret Atwood was born in 1939 in Ottawa and grew up in northern Ontario, Quebec, and Toronto. She received her undergraduate degree from Victoria College at the University of Toronto and her master's degree from Radcliffe College.

Throughout her writing career, Margaret Atwood has received numerous awards and honourary degrees. She is the author of more than thirty-five volumes of poetry, children’s literature, fiction, and non-fiction and is perhaps best known for her novels, which include The Edible Woman (1970), The Handmaid's Tale (1983), The Robber Bride (1994), Alias Grace (1996), and The Blind Assassin, which won the prestigious Booker Prize in 2000. Atwood's dystopic novel, Oryx and Crake, was published in 2003. The Tent (mini-fictions) and Moral Disorder (short stories) both appeared in 2006. Her most recent volume of poetry, The Door, was published in 2007. Her non-fiction book, Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth ­ in the Massey series, appeared in 2008, and her most recent novel, The Year of the Flood, in the autumn of 2009. Ms. Atwood's work has been published in more than forty languages, including Farsi, Japanese, Turkish, Finnish, Korean, Icelandic and Estonian. In 2004 she co-invented the Long Pen TM.

Margaret Atwood currently lives in Toronto with writer Graeme Gibson.

Associations: Margaret Atwood was President of the Writers' Union of Canada from May 1981 to May 1982, and was President of International P.E.N., Canadian Centre (English Speaking) from 1984-1986. She and Graeme Gibson are the Joint Honourary Presidents of the Rare Bird Society within BirdLife International. Ms. Atwood is also a current Vice-President of PEN International.


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5 stars
40 (28%)
4 stars
49 (35%)
3 stars
40 (28%)
2 stars
6 (4%)
1 star
3 (2%)
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
Profile Image for Daniela L. Guzmán.
Author 6 books110 followers
April 14, 2017
Margaret Atwood es la escritora que me hubiera gustado descubrir hace años, aunque resulta que tuve este libro durante una gran temporada en mi estante de "Por leer". Anyway, nunca fue tarde para descubrir a esta maravillosa escritora que por fin cambia mi percepción de la literatura sobre mujeres escrita por mujeres.

Hasta ahora, creo que me había refugiado en una especie de prejuicio misógino de que "no se puede escribir sobre temas femeninos sin caer en el fanatismo, la cursilada u otras cosas peores que dan sopor y ganas de morirse". Atwood prueba que es posible hacer lo contrario. Aborda temas como el amor, el matrimonio, el romance, la maternidad, la relación con la madre, la marginación de la mujer y la vida doméstica con un montón de humor, absurdo y sin una pizca de sensiblería.

Además aborda otros temas más universales como la mentira, la inestabilidad, y, en el caso de Surfacing (novela que es casi una experiencia mística), la destrucción de la naturaleza y la búsqueda de una nueva conexión con la unidad primigenia de la que fuimos expulsados.

The edible woman sobresale por el humor, los personajes rarísimos y la sensación creciente de asfixia ante la forma en la que la protagonista pierde el control sobre su propia vida. Surfacing es una novela que, con un paso más lento y tristón, consigue ahogarte en la terrible sensación de separatidad a la que estamos sujetos los humanos: separación entre los hijos y los padres, separación entre la nación y los extranjeros que explotan los recursos, separación dentro de la pareja, todas separaciones que encubren la máxima separación: aquella entre el hombre y la naturaleza. La novela es una experiencia bellísima y desoladora. Lady Oracle es la vuelta a la risa, a una risa tragicómica por lo menos. Los personajes de esta novela son los más caricaturescos de todo el libro, pero quizás también los más humanos. Atwood se vuela con ellos todas las bardas del absurdo para, con sus situaciones que rayan en lo inverosímil, mostrarnos que efectivamente la gente es así de inverosímil. Entre condes polacos que escriben novelas de enfermeras, espiritistas que también ofician bodas, bullies de la infancia convertidas en luchadoras sociales, críticas veladas a la literatura, el activismo y el arte contemporáneo, Lady Oracle es una verdadera fiesta que se disfruta por lo grande.

Lo único que deploro de Atwood, quizás, son sus finales. Poco conclusivos o quizás insuficientes para novelas tan increíbles. En lo demás, no me queda a deber nada. Atwood es la escritora que me gustaría que fuera mi amiga o, quizás, el tipo de escritora que me gustaría ser si tuviera ochenta años. Directo al altar de los escritores y los libros favoritos.
Profile Image for Mommalibrarian.
941 reviews62 followers
February 5, 2009
This book contains three short novels which I have taken credit for as if they were separate books: The Edible Woman, Surfacing, Lady Oracle. All reflect the time they were written and the decades before - late 40s to mid 60s.
Profile Image for serprex.
138 reviews2 followers
Read
October 26, 2016
The editing of this version was bad, consistently misspelt, dropped letters, missing punctuation

Stories were alright
58 reviews
January 5, 2020
I read Surfacing between Xmas and New Year, and Lady Oracle after that. (I read The Edible woman last year, or the one before.)
Surfacing is amazing, the pace of takes your breath away, its twists, and builds so slowly, strangely....Lady Oracle is slightly more conventional, lots of humour. The pastiches of the protagonists Romance Novels, are laugh out loud funny, just hilarious.
Three and bit crossed with just under five, makes four!
Profile Image for Claudia.
1 review
October 18, 2017
The stories themselves are very good. The only thing I have to take issue with is all the spelling mistakes in this edition. It's pretty bad.
Profile Image for Sheryl Sato.
Author 2 books4 followers
April 15, 2022
Three early works which are compulsively readable.
4 reviews1 follower
January 26, 2008
An early work, a good read and also she takes up the theme of how a young woman can feel empowered.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews

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