About book Revenge Of The Middle-Aged Woman (2003)
I've occasionally been foolish enough to make disparaging comments about chick-lit and Elisabeth finally cornered me. Either I shut up, or I read a few. I've always had problems shutting up, so I chose the other option. I certainly enjoyed Bad Manors, a light comedy. This one's darker in tone, but I liked it too. Well, how could I not like a novel whose heroine reviews books for a living, speaks French and is fond of cats? I was on Rose's side before we'd finished chapter one, and I'd be prepared to guess that more than a few women on this site will feel the same way - particularly if they've ever suffered though the unpleasant experience of being dumped in favour of a younger rival. The book almost comes across as a textbook on how to cope with this kind of crisis, and, since it's a first-person narrative, I often felt I was listening to a friend who'd been through it and come out relatively unscathed on the other side. At the start of the book, Rose's whole world falls apart within the space of a few days. Her husband, Nathan, comes home from work and tells her that he's leaving her after 25 years of marriage. He's found someone else. She's still reeling from the blow when she receives the next one: the other woman is Rose's assistant. She's furious, and immediately calls her boss to say that he has to fire Minty, or at the very least move her somewhere else. No way can she continue to work with her. But on Monday the boss calls Rose into his office, and says he's been thinking about it. They want a new look for the books page, and they think Minty can give it to them. Since Nathan works for the same company, the logical solution is to let Rose go. It'll simplify everything. So Rose has lost both her husband and her job to a woman that she'd thought was her friend. Obviously, it's not going to get much worse than this. I admired the way Rose dealt with her problems; here, in a few bullet-points, are what I thought were her most valuable pieces of advice.- At first you'll be in so much pain that you'll wonder how it's possible to live though it. After a while, it will get better all by itself.- Don't expect to be able to understand exactly why your husband left you. He probably doesn't know either, even if he believes he does. - It's natural to hate your rival. It's more constructive to think of her as greedy and thoughtless.- You may believe your rival has taken your whole life. In fact, though, you've spent decades with your husband and had many good times with him. Your rival can never gain access to those years, and they will eventually leave her feeling excluded. She'll come to realise that you understand him better than she does.- Your children will spontaneously take your side and bitterly blame your husband for leaving you. This will hurt him far more than anything you could say or do, so you might as well not bother.- Your rival may well want to start a new family. Your husband most likely doesn't. This will create tension between them.- Don't even consider killing yourself. If you fail, you'll really wish you hadn't tried. If you succeed, the people who matter may not actually think that well of you afterwards.Follow Rose's rules, and my guess is that you'll end up agreeing with her. Though I do think it's slightly optimistic to expect all of the following to happen:- Your chic French friend will take you for an afternoon of shopping at the best designer boutiques in Paris, after which you'll suddenly have a wardrobe that transforms you into a svelte, head-turning siren.- Shortly after acquiring your new outfit, you'll meet a handsome, successful old flame and be photographed with him in the daily papers.- Your rival will turn up uninvited at your daughter's wedding and proceed to make a fool of herself by hanging creepily around wishing that she was part of your wonderful family.- Your former boss will fire your rival from your old job because she can't do it, and ask you if you'd like to have it back.- Immediately after that happens, you'll meet your rival and notice that she's put on weight and looks terrible.Well, I understand that these are the conventions of the chick-lit genre and I won't criticise. In fact, I liked it enough that I think I'll read the sequel. Go chick-lit!
"Revenge of the tired cliches", like most in the "Revenge of" genre, is a story of the heroine being pursued by hordes of half dead, rotting menaces, threatening to either do her in, or turn her into one of them. In this case it is the latter. And although our heroine, Rose Lloyd, seems at first to have resources that might be enough to save her, in the end she is overwhelmed by the sheer number of half-dead cliches stumbling around ravenously, and is unable to escape. As the first scene opens with our unsuspecting Rose going about her lovely peaceful life as a book editor at a newpaper where her husband, Nathan, is deputy editor. The ominous foreshadowning music cranks upas she states that "she liked to think she had won her job on her own merits." Her perky, quirky assistant, Minty (wait was that a fang?) works energetically at her side as they bond with girl-talk confidences.After her injurious encounter with the 'middle-aged husband leaving for a younger woman' cliche, she staggers straight into the 'seemingly loyal assistant/friend takes your man and/or job', the 'pining away for the lost guy and not eating', and the 'therapy by lingerie purchase' cliches. At this point she is mortally wounded and manages to crawl away, only to be attacked by a horde of yet more ferociouscliches, hungry for blood. In the horrifying conclusion, we see our heroine/victim rising from the dead to join the 'reconnecting with first love' cliche as the cliche hordes proceed on their rampage."Revenge" also has many terrifying moments of sickly-sweet niceness and frighteningly passive 'redemption by giving everyone what they want'. Having the heroine be a book editor, was an especially nice touch that added to the horror of it all. If you want a book that makes you jump out of your skin with every new cliche attack, you could do worse than this horror-chick-lit masterpiece.Those who prefer their feminist revenge with a bit of style and bite, would be advised to go with Fay Weldon's "Life and Loves of a She Devil" which also explores the 'give everyone what they want' theme.
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So, I was prepared to find some tough gutzy women in this book, but I was disappointed. Maybe its because the author is english and their "all stiff upper lip" and what not, or maybe its because the author really doesn't like women even though she is one, but she made every woman in the book either bitter, bitchy, wimpy, weepy or wounded. I didn't find a single female character that I could really say, "yeah, you go girl". The main character is far too motherly, rubbing eczema cream on his scaly hands while pleading, please don't throw all we have away, while the husband; who leaves her for her younger woman assistant-after he's carried on an affair with her for over a year, has the nerve to blame their marriages problems on his obsession that she was in love with someone before they got married. Please, give me a break. Where is the revenge? Come on, we middle-life women need more of a role model than this wimpy simpering bit of nonsense. She loses some weight and buys some french underwear. Big deal.
—Mary
I really enjoyed this book and found myself cheering the main character along as she navigated the loss of her marriage and her job and yet never gave in to nastiness or spite. She achieves her revenge in a much calmer, mature manner and in the end she is the winner of it all. I really like the way Elizabeth Buchan writes and the way she can summon up a complete picture in words. Her characters are real and the way they interact is the way we are in real life, always slightly flawed and often self serving. My favourite character was Parsley. One day I must get myself another cat!!!. Altogether a nice, reassuring book with which I passed a few very pleasant hours.
—Phrynne
I started this book before bed and it gave me nightmares. I was so angry at the husband, angry at the trollop who lured him willingly away and frankly angry at the wife for not being angrier! Perhaps not the best genre for me as it is about a man who leaves his wife after 25 years of marriage - though she had to deal with blatant infidelity, loss of her job to the Jezebel, loss of her home . . . I could go on, but it would only depress me more. By the end of the book I was calm enough to recognize the strength that the wife displays by not pulling the other woman's hair out which I was really rooting for her to do. Somehow I expected this book to be wittier and to have a stronger main character.
—Stacey
