LIFE BEFORE MAN by Margaret Atwood (First published 1980)
Margaret Atwood is an intelligent enough writer not to depend on contrived drama or sensationalised events, but with this novel she’s almost dispensed with a plot too. This wouldn’t necessarily be a drawback if any of the characters were likeable but I couldn’t warm to, or care about, any of them.
The story, if you could call it that, is told from three perspectives. The dated chapters alternate between the points of view of an unhappily married couple Elizabeth and Nate and his recently acquired lover Lesje (pronounced Lashia).
Both women are paleontologists which, given the title, seems an obvious cue for rating the male of the species on a par with dinosaurs. The nearest we get to this accusation is near the end when, at the end of her tether, we are told of Lesje that “it’s long been her theoretical opinion that Man is a danger to the universe, a mischievous ape, spiteful, destructive, malevolent”. Continue reading
