Matt
Genuinely hard to believe that this was Margaret Atwood's first (published) novel. All the elements that would go on to make her such a distinctive voice are already in place, and it landed at the perfect time to capture the cultural zeitgeist of the nascent second wave feminist movement (even though Atwood herself notes it was written before that really landed, so can't really be considered a product of the movement).
The story of Marian MacAlpin who finds herself fighting a losing battle to meet the expectations of the moment is pretty straightforward, although the switch between first and third person perspectives is a fun authorial flourish that a more seasoned writer would probably discard but really works for this story. While a product of a specific moment in time, Marian's disintegration and symbolic rebirth still hits just as hard today, although as Atwood notes in the foreword it's not like her options are much better at the end of the story than at the beginning (which is very milennial coded, when you think about it). The supporting characters are uniformly fun and well drawn too, although long-time MVP Ainsley is probably aging the worst of the bunch due to <insert literally everything she does to and with Len>.
Genuinely hard to believe that this was Margaret Atwood's first (published) novel. All the elements that would go on to make her such a distinctive voice are already in place, and it landed at the perfect time to capture the cultural zeitgeist of the nascent second wave feminist movement (even though Atwood herself notes it was written before that really landed, so can't really be considered a product of the movement).
The story of Marian MacAlpin who finds herself fighting a losing battle to meet the expectations of the moment is pretty straightforward, although the switch between first and third person perspectives is a fun authorial flourish that a more seasoned writer would probably discard but really works for this story. While a product of a specific moment in time, Marian's disintegration and symbolic rebirth still hits just as hard today, although as Atwood notes in the foreword it's not like her options are much better at the end of the story than at the beginning (which is very milennial coded, when you think about it). The supporting characters are uniformly fun and well drawn too, although long-time MVP Ainsley is probably aging the worst of the bunch due to <insert literally everything she does to and with Len>.