Bodily Harm

Bodily Harm by Margaret Atwood
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Bodily Harm

Rennie Wilford, A Young Jounalist Running From Her Life, Takes An Assignment To A Caribbean Island And Tumbles Into A World Where No One Is What They Seem. When The Burnt-Out Yankee Paul (Does He Smuggle Dope Or Hustle For The Cia?) Offers Her A No-Hooks, No Strings Affair, She Is Caught Up In A Lethal Web Of Corruption.

About the Author


Born November 18, 1939, in Ottawa, Canada, Margaret Atwood spent her early years in the northern Quebec wilderness. Settling in Toronto in 1946, she continued to spend summers in the northern woods. This experience provided much of the thematic material for her verse. She began her writing career as a poet, short story writer, cartoonist, and reviewer for her high school paper. She received a B.A. from Victoria College, University of Toronto in 1961 and an M.A. from Radcliff College in 1962. Atwood's first book of verse, Double Persephone, was published in 1961 and was awarded the E. J. Pratt Medal. She has published numerous books of poetry, novels, story collections, critical work, juvenile work, and radio and teleplays. Her works include The Journals of Susanna Moodie (1970), Power Politics (1971), Cat's Eye (1986), The Robber Bride (1993), Morning in the Buried House (1995), and Alias Grace (1996). Many of her works focus on women's issues. She has won numerous awards for her poetry and fiction including the Prince of Asturias award for Literature, the Booker Prize, the Governor General's Award in 1966 for The Circle Game and in 1986 for The Handmaid's Tale, which also won the Arthur C. Clarke Award.

Details of Book:

Bodily Harm

  • Book:

    Bodily Harm

  • Author:Margaret Atwood
  • ISBN:0099740818
  • ISBN-13:9780099740810, 978-0099740810
  • Binding: Paperback
  • Publishing Date: -
  • Publisher: Vintage
  • Number of Pages: pages
  • Language: English
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Book Reviews of Bodily Harm
Not Margaret's best, but engaging still
Margaret Atwood is one of my favorite authors, but I had to read this book over two sittings nearly 10 years apart. Rennie is the protagonist, and she's a bit of an enigma. Bodily Harm follows her as she struggles to feel whole again after a mastectomy. She goes to Barbados and gets caught up in some strange events; throughout this adventure, she recalls her failed relationships with two other men. I love that we do not get a clear picture of what's going on, but I think that's why I had a hard time with it when I first attempted to read this book: back then, I needed clear direction and answers when I read. While there is resolution at the end, the book is not as tight as I think it could be, and the women's voices falter a bit. Whether Atwood intended that, is beyond me...perhaps I can ask her next week when I hear her speak!
This Time Next Year
I'd previously read "Lady Oracle" & "Alias Grace." So when I saw this @ a library sale, I picked up a vintage edition. I didn't realize that the protagonist, Rennie, has breast cancer. Since the passing of my wife from that awful disease several years ago, I probably would not select a title focusing on this since it's still too immediate for me. I didn't put it down, but kept reading. Thankfully, Atwood uses the disease as a catalyst to generate changes for Rennie. Rennie writes articles on travel & food. Assigned to visit a small island St. Antoine where every tourist is suspected of being a spy, she finds little to recommend the place as a resort. With the British having just ended colonial rule, there is political unrest. She heads over to a smaller island, Ste. Agathe, and steps into the aftermath of a close election & political assassination. Flashbacks punctuate the story with her ex-boyfriend and her attempted fling with her surgeon, while in the present she hooks up with a secretive military type Paul for an icy affair. I didn't ever fully connect with Rennie. So I felt a bit distant. I wasn't particularly worried for her during the most difficult parts, more just wondering whether Atwood would kill off her main character. At the end, after everything happened, I wondered, "So what?" This time next year, I probably will have forgotten what this story was about. Taxi!
Very nice realistic book
Very nice book. Although dealing with a hard story of breast removal it is not more or less emotional. It provides strong, hopefull messages to the readers.
A bit of a slow read in the beginning
I found the story to be largely boring during the first 1/3 of the book or so, but things quickly got interesting. I saw Rennie as a naive woman in a country with a system she didn't understand. I thought the decisions she made were extremely naive considering she was in a foreign country. However, I guess these days we're taught to be more diligent when traveling, so the old rules no longer apply.

3 stars but I wouldn't recommend this.
Lethargic
Bodily Harm / 0-385-49107-7

You can tell this is one of Atwood's earlier works. The subject matter (a woman struggling with her own mortality after a bout with cancer) is grim and is thoughtfully and carefully explored, but the actual prose is a bit lethargic and difficult to wade through. I read this and Cat's Eye in the same week and Cat's Eye felt a much faster read, even though the book is two or three times longer than Bodily Harm.

The main character struggles through the daily routine of her life as a magazine writer, unsure how to break through the haze induced by her struggle with cancer. She has, for the time being, won and the cancer is in remission, but at a cost - her left breast has been removed. She knows that the cancer can and may resurface, at any time, but she finds it difficult to "live for the moment". She struggles with the realization that, in some ways, she would rather be definitely dying rather than stuck in this limbo were she is expected to feel lucky, happy, and saved, but cannot.

The bulk of the novel involves her trip to a distant island as a tourist writer, and her immersion in the local political unrest. This is the longest and, in some ways, most unrealistic part of the novel because the protagonist does not respond realistically to external stimulus. When she finds she is spiraling further into danger, she does not tuck tail and flee the country, which would seem to be the most logical choice. I think the reason for this, however, is because her surgery has left her so devoid of emotion and feeling that it is easier for her to be swept away than to make any effort to remove herself from danger. It is frustrating to the reader, however, who feels that s/he would be more sensible in similar circumstances.

This is a good enough book, particularly if you are an Atwood fan, as I am. But I would save this one for last, once you've exhausted all her other fine works.

~ Ana Mardoll
Source - Amazon
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