Woman, Eating: A Literary Vampire Novel

Perhaps it's morose of me to see so much of myself in the character of Lydia. Constantly tormented by the what if's of a life out of her own reach, unable to make peace with her own self. Struggling so hard against becoming who she is. Consuming other's lives (and by this I mean watching their behavoirs both in life and through video) and being wholly unable to understand what they feel like. Only truly being able to feel when they are feelings that others created.

I mean, morose maybe. But true.

I always appreciate getting notes from the librarian on a book I'm borrowing. In the case of [b:Woman, Eating|58536037|Woman, Eating|Claire Kohda|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1627322860l/58536037._SX50_.jpg|90046265], it was intriguing to be told, "I had very mixed feelings". Now that I've read it, the sentiment is easy to understand. My feelings are also somewhat confused and ambivalent. The novel is narrated in first person by a young woman named Lydia who is a vampire. As the book opens, she has just installed her mother, also a vampire, in a care home and moved alone to London. Lydia's mother has brought her up to believe she is demonic and should only consume pig's blood. The narrative treats vampirism as an allegory for an eating disorder in a very unsubtle way. I found this an interesting idea and not one that I've seen as fully explored in vampire fiction before. Lydia is isolated and traumatised by how she's been brought up to view her vampirism, as well as constantly, debilitatingly hungry.

Although the central conceit is clever, I was a bit puzzled by Lydia's relative lack of curiosity about vampirism. Also I find it odd that she didn't think of stealing from a blood bank or buying blood on the dark web. Her mother refused to give her any useful information, but faced with independence Lydia is largely interested in trying to be human. She gets an internship at an art gallery and rents an art studio space, which she also show more lives in. After meeting a man named Ben (about whom I can recall nothing much as he is dull as hell), she yearns for cohabitation, marriage, kids, etc. I found it puzzling that this guy shared her dreams, yet neither seemed to realise that a boring job and heterosexual relationship would actually be easier than their attempts to make a go of their art. Perhaps the implication is that in the art world, a mundane lifestyle is daring and transgressive? That seems pretty unlikely, given that the art gallery is depicted as highly commercial and run by a man who sexually harasses the young women working for him. Lydia's point of view thus frequently mystified me. Her fixation on human food that she couldn't eat worked well, though.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the most interesting and memorable moments in the book are the strangest. I really liked the concept of Lydia absorbing the memories of beings whose blood she drank. She also seems able to see people's futures, but this power is selective in some mysterious way. Near the end, there's also an acknowledgement that she's stronger than humans to some extent. Her flashbacks to living with her mother are suitably unsettling, both in a psychological and supernatural sense. When Lydia was born she was human, but her mother immediately turned her into a vampire so she would survive.

I enjoyed Lydia most when she was draining the blood from a dead duck or talking to a puppet and least when she was pondering whether to text Ben or working at the gallery. I was relieved that at the end she finally cracks and eats the rapist gallery owner, yet found it a bit unearned. Apparently rejection by Ben drives her to drink human blood? Given how boring Ben is (and he has no personality traits except Dying Mother), I didn't see why she didn't try it earlier. Ultimately I don't think the combination of first person literary fiction and vampirism was executed as well as it might have been. The extreme lack of context for Lydia's vampirism made the narrative seem slight, although the analogy with an eating disorder is good. Lydia seemed determined to be less interesting than she could have been, which was odd. [b:Woman, Eating|58536037|Woman, Eating|Claire Kohda|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1627322860l/58536037._SX50_.jpg|90046265] would have been much more substantive had it told something of her mother's story too. show less

The truly shocking part of this novel is the vampire's infatuation with the world's most vanilla man.

"When you were a baby," she said, "I stayed up all night every night to watch you just in case I missed something about you changing." When I was around nine, she told me that she wished she could make my childhood last forever, so she could watch me grow up- becoming taller, becoming stronger, becoming womanlier, becoming more assertive and independent- for her whole life. When I stopped changing, when I stopped becoming and was just a stagnant thing that had become everything it could become, my mum drifted away from me. She stopped caring, it seemed, stopped showing me that she loved me, and, in fact, made me feel the opposite, as if, now my body was as unchanging as hers, I could no longer represent goodness to her. "I guess I do miss my mum," I say.

A unique take on vampires. I found it dragged a bit in the middle and the metaphor was heavy-handed at times, but it pulled through in the end. Lydia's loneliness came through on every page. Quite a few passages had me putting down the book to sit with what I just read.

I didn't love the ending, but I'm not sure if any other ending would have been more fitting. It felt abrupt when the rest of the book was very meandering.

It wasn’t quite the book I expected it to be, but “Woman, Eating” is a weirdly enjoyable and softly sad novel that’s like the modern vampire version of “My Year of Rest and Relaxation”.

I really enjoyed this. It's a gem of a book with so much to unpack, and I found the ending deeply satisfying. I would definitely recommend this to anyone who loves a good literary spin on the supernatural or has felt there are two warring sides within themselves.

This one is for the mummy issue havers out there.

I'm not sure if what I'm about to say is going to make sense but... As a whole this book hit really hard, but the individual parts just didn't click somehow? It was relatable in a way that my brain feels forced to like it because it's just so accurate. I think my opinion of this book will be more positive when I'm looking back and remembering it in the future. Thinking about it now having just read it however, I feel like 3 stars is what I want to go with.

Though parts of it were a bit slow, and the main character was frustratingly passive for the majority of the novel, I found this book to be a fascinating reading experience.

Kohda can certainly write.

I understand this may be her first novel (though a prolific writer in other genres) and will be interested to see where she goes from her. I will have to see if I can find some of her other work.

I was intrigued by the initial set up (a young vampire (Lydia - Lyd) looking to 'move/branch out' from living with her (vampire) mother and possibly to renounce from her vampiric calling.

But the hunger experienced by Lyd is palpable and ever present. And in her new life Lyd comes across a range of new people, some decent, some despicable, others unsure.

A potential relationship develops with Ben but is cut short because of Ben's existing relationship with Anju.

But my sense is that Kohda didn't know how to bring the novel to an end other than to an abrupt end. I won't say what it is but it is somewhat predictable (in one sense, but not if you thought the novel was going somewhere) but not one that progresses the story me thinks.

It is a bit like many of Philip Glass' (who I love) musical works where he simply 'stops'. There are many examples but here is one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kARkXVuBMtE

I would invite you to listen to it all (7 minutes) , but if you only want to hear the 'stop', listen to the last 30 seconds! Glass' works are diverse so don't think they are all like this, but there is the knock knock joke

Knock knock
Who's there
Philip Glass
Philip Glass who?
Philip Glass
Philip Glass who?
Philip Glass
........

Big Ship

29 November 2022

3.5
Existential millennial with an eating disorder but make it vampire.

This book was right up my alley -- I tend to be interested in any new takes on vampires, and I have a high tolerance for books in which nothing much happens. This definitely ticked those boxes!

https://donut-donut.dreamwidth.org/862242.html

What a waste. There was no plot at all and not much happened.

Why was this so short?! I could easily have read another 200 pages.