Book report
BOOK REPORT
AUTHOR: Fay Weldon
She was born in Birmingham, brought up in New Zealand and educated at Hampstead School for Girls. At the age of twenty, armed with an MA from St. Andrews' she took a job at the Foreign Office shuffling papers that sent spies to an uncertain fate in the East Bloc. She left when pregnant with the first of her four sons and subsequently worked for a succession of leading advertising agencies in increasingly exalted positions. Since then she has become one of Britain's leading literary writers, screenwritten successfully for film and television, and in her journalism acquired a reputation for wit and controversy. Her work sells worldwide in translation.
After a highly acclaimed BBC television adaptation, The Life and Loves of a She Devil was made into a Hollywood film starring Roseanne Barr and Meryl Streep.
Other books: The Fat Woman's Joke; Leader of the Band; Letters to Alice: On First; Reading Jane Austen; Little Sisters; Polaris and Other Stories; The President's Child; Puffball; Remember Me; The Shrapnel Academy; Watching Me, Watching You.
TITLE: The Life and Loves of a She Devil
CLASSIFICATION: The Life and Loves of a She Devil is a novel. The novel is divided into 34 chapters.
MAIN CHARACTERS:
Ruth Patchett
(main figure)
Bobbo Patchett Andy & Nicola
(her husband) (their children)
Mary Fisher Garcia
(Bobbo's affair) (one of Mary's lovers)
Ruth: She is six foot two inches tall. She has dark hair and a jutting jaw, eyes sunk rather far back into her face, and a hooked nose.
Her shoulders are broad and bony and her hips broad and fleshy, and the muscles in her legs are well developed. Ruth isn't satisfied with her body and often thinks that Bobbo doesn't really love her. She has always been the "little ugly duckling" in the eyes of her mother and she often thinks about this. She swears to avenge the dishonour that Bobbo left her because of Mary Fisher.
Ruth is sometimes the narrator of the novel. The narrative form changes between the first person and a know-all narrator.
Ruth and Bobbo live in the best part of Eden Grove.
Bobbo: He is a good-looking man. As an accountant he knows many people and so he gets to know Mary Fisher. All he does is that he leaves his wife and children having an affair with Mary. In the course of the novel he and Mary Fisher are the victims of Ruth's revenge just because of his unfaithfulness. Bobbo also deceives Mary Fisher.
He is the type of man who loves young innocent women but isn't interested in any marriage with them. He says that Ruth is a perfect mother but he loves Mary Fisher and not her.
Mary Fisher: She is a beautiful romantic novelist and lives in a High Tower, on the edge of the sea. Mary Fisher is forty-three, and accustomed to love. There has always been a man around to love her. She is small and pretty and delicately formed, prone to fainting and weeping.
All in all she is the opposite of Ruth. Mary Fisher loves Ruth's husband but she also has other affairs like Bobbo (such as Garcia her caretaker).
PLOT:
At the beginning of the book Ruth tells us something about Mary Fisher, her own life, Bobbo's character and the place where she with her family and Mary Fisher with her lovers live, Eden Grove and the High Tower. Ruth is very well informed about Mary Fisher's accounts.
All the trouble starts with the visit of Bobbo's parents, Brenda and Angus. Bobbo wants to conceal the problems of his family but in the end Ruth cries out that he is having an affair with Mary Fisher.
After Bobbo's parents left the house he tells Ruth that he is going to stay with Mary. At first Ruth doesn't know what to do but then she swears revenge.
Bobbo doesn't give them enough money to keep up the household. Ruth becomes a she devil and her first action as she devil is to blow up the house on purpose that Bobbo won't get any money from the insurance agency. After that she brings the children to her husband and Mary Fisher. Ruth also starts having affairs.
Next she works in the residential home where Mary Fisher's mother stays. She persuades Mrs. Fisher to return to her daughter and live with her. Mrs. Fisher is incontinent and so Mary has to look after her mother.
In a prison for the criminally insane she gets to know Nurse Hopkins with whom she founds the Vesta Rose Agency an employment agency.
Meanwhile she goes into Bobbo's office at night and changes the accounts of his clients. Ruth gets about 2.5 million dollars and Bobbo has to go to prison for seven years. Nobody knows it but the judge has been one of Ruth's lovers.
Ruth always changes her name when moving to another place to stay anonymous.
Mary Fishers romantic novels are sent back by her publishers because they aren't as good as her earlier ones.
She earns less money and in the end she dies of cancer as a poor woman.
After cosmetic surgery Ruth looks as pretty as Mary Fisher does and she buys the High Tower where she lives with Bobbo for the rest of her life.
Ruth is caught in an unhappy situation. She has been left almost penniless by her husband. Because of her looking Bobbo doesn't really love his wife. She depends on him and therefore she is a friendly and helpful mother who forgives her husband every fault.
When Bobbo leaves Ruth she sees that he isn't the trustworthy husband. She also recognises that the years have gone by without giving her a happy and free life. As a she devil she has the chance to do what she wants. The exaggerated actions she does (especially the actions against Bobbo and his mistress Mary Fisher) are described in a funny but extraordinary way. Many things are unbelievable but it shows the contrast to Ruth's earlier life much better. The end of the story is very unrealistic.
Ruth looks like Mary Fisher and her husband loves her once again. He can't be so silly that he doesn't recognise that Ruth has been the cause of his destroyed life. Mary Fisher learns that she is wrong but she dies of cancer. She has no chance to apologise. Ruth is the actual winner of the whole story. She gets everything she wants.
She has to fight for her new life, which isn't easy, but she manages all kinds of problems. Perhaps it isn't the right way to destroy one's life just because of the fact he has left you. The leaving of the partner could also be your own fault.
Fay Weldon could have her own experiences in relationships that have gone to an end and therefore she has written the novel The Life and Loves of a She Devil to revolt against the power of men.
I found the play easy to read, but the plot was a bit unrealistic. It was strange that Ruth had success with each of her plans.
Otherwise it was interesting to read a novel. I like the structure of the novel. The play comes to a climax and after that it ends in a happy end. It is hardly possible to know the end of the book when you haven't finished it. At first you think Ruth would start a new life without Bobbo or another man but in the next moment you hear that she has an affair. And in the end Bobbo comes back to his - now - pretty wife.
Sometimes I didn't like the exaggerations in the book. Perhaps they are necessary to open our eyes.
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