book review of the pumpkin eater
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(as of Jan 07, 2025 14:34:15 UTC - Details)
The Pumpkin Eater is a surreal black comedy about the wages of adulthood and the pitfalls of parenthood. A nameless woman speaks, at first from the precarious perch of a therapist’s couch, and her smart, wry, confiding, immensely sympathetic voice immediately captures and holds our attention. She is the mother of a vast, swelling brood of children, also nameless, and the wife of a successful screenwriter, Jake Armitage. The Armitages live in the city, but they are building a great glass tower in the country in which to settle down and live happily ever after. But could that dream be nothing more than a sentimental delusion? At the edges of vision the spectral children come and go, while our heroine, alert to the countless gradations of depression and the innumerable forms of betrayal, tries to make sense of it all: doctors, husbands, movie stars, bodies, grocery lists, nursery rhymes, messes, aging parents, memories, dreams, and breakdowns. How to pull it all together? Perhaps you start by falling apart.
ASIN : 1590173821
Publisher : NYRB Classics; Reprint edition (April 26, 2011)
Language : English
Paperback : 224 pages
ISBN-10 : 9781590173824
ISBN-13 : 978-1590173824
Item Weight : 8.8 ounces
Dimensions : 4.96 x 0.69 x 8.06 inches
Reviewer: Laurel-Rain Snow
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: HE HAD A WIFE AND COULD NOT KEEP HER....
Review: In Penelope Mortimer's most popular work, we read a semi-autobiographical account of one woman's descent into what might be a postpartum depression, but then again, is probably more likely a sad commentary on the deplorable times when women had no audible voice. It explores the "problem that has no name" that has reared its ugly head for one wife and mother living in London (Betty Friedan wrote about this "feminine mystique" a year after this book was published).Married four times with eight children, the unnamed woman's difficulties come to a head during her marriage to Jake Armitage, a successful screenwriter. Theirs is a complicated relationship filled with tumult, infidelity, and the inevitable betrayals that chip away at the marital bond.We meet the woman first on her psychiatrist's couch, and throughout this tale, we see her confidences, her thoughts, her dreams, and sometimes her fantasies...and then, in the end, we see how Mrs. Armitage finally chooses to carve out some time for herself for contemplation and resolution.A short and captivating tale, The Pumpkin Eater (New York Review Books Classics) is a chilling, yet sometimes humorous portrayal of marriage and family life. Five stars.
Reviewer: My 2 Cents
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: A look age old issues with a twist of humor
Review: The Pumpkin Eater is an interesting story, which takes place in London, and is reported to be somewhat autobiographical. The story begins with an unnamed woman talking with her therapist Mr Simpkin. We learn the woman is Mrs. Armitage. She's been married (4) times, she hates dust and messes, and has (8) children from her previous marriages. She seems to be her own worst enemy. Her current husband Jake and she have been married (13) years and, she wants to have a baby with him, but Jake does not. Jake's a womanizer, and he has a bit of a temper as well. The last thing he wants is another child in the house, in fact he wants to send his wife's (3) oldest boys off to boarding school. Mrs A seems only to know how to reproduce. Her whole identify has been tied to having babies. She has servants, so she need not worry about caring for the babies once she has them. When she does become pregnant once again, abortion is discussed, decisions need to be made. Mrs A is forced to examine her marriage and her life.There was a lot to think about in this book. It covered the age old topics of marriage, motherhood and fidelity in oftentimes humorous fashion. I was a little surprised that abortion was raised in this story, since this book was originally published in 1962 London. The book is well written.As I read, I couldn't stop thinking about the nursery rhyme by a similar name throughout this read......"Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater had a wife and couldn't keep her ". While in the nursery rhyme, Peter .... "put her (his wife) in a pumpkin shell ", in this story, although the Armitages' live in the city, Jack builds a glass tower in the country, for their "happy years", and his wife escapes to the tower for much needed quiet contemplation about her life.
Reviewer: Meryl Starr
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: A "Mad" tale
Review: The used book was in fine shape. Took a long time to get to me.The story itself is "mad". But, I had to keep reading to see what Mrs. Armitage was up to next. It's a well written tale of a very dysfunctional family. Whose family isn't? It's a fast read and I'd read it again to see if I missed anything.
Reviewer: Wisco gal
Rating: 1.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Disappointed
Review: Thus book was chosen by our book club because the local half price book store had enough copies for all of us and it had received good reviews. As soon as I read what the book was about I was skeptical. I really did not enjoy this book at all and couldn't wait till I was done. All of the others felt the same way, in fact, the gal who picked this, apologized for wasting our time. I know other people really like the author and this book, maybe if you are into psychology you may enjoy it . Good luck- my advice- skip it- there are way too many really awesome authors and titles out there to read stuff you don't appreciate.
Reviewer: Ruby Chew
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: I saw the movie when I was younger and I ...
Review: I saw the movie when I was younger and I always wondered if there was a book. The book is interesting, although I have not finished reading it.
Reviewer: anne oneill
Rating: 2.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Two Stars
Review: Interesting but sad
Reviewer: Moisio
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: The Subject: Exhaustion
Review: This book is suffused with a weariness that is finally relieved in surprisingly believable fashion by an image more suited to The Sound of Music than a disappointed (but admittedly quite lucid) housewife's lament. I didn't feel particularly drawn to Mortimer's main character but the writing more than compensated.
Reviewer: Suzanne
Rating: 1.0 out of 5 stars
Title: After purchasing this book I was excited to get reading. However as I began turning pages the alignment was sorely off.
Review: Kindle Version Flaws-Refund please!
Reviewer: Javier
Rating: 1.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Evidentemente lo usé para leerlo, pero no me gusta no poder comprar Kindle mas que en .es cuando puedo comprar libros fÃsicos en todos los dominios.
Reviewer: Ned Hopkins
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Wonderful to get to read this classic early '60s novel. Mortimer ransacked her stormy marriage to playwright John Mortimer for material as a writer, and his influence as a purveyor of brilliant dialogue is very noticeable. Unlike the - otherwise excellent - film version which was scripted by Harold Pinter and is consistently downbeat, in her book Mortimer allows the authorial voice to add her sense of irony and sly self-deprecation to modulate the conversations and narrative. But although there is plenty of bleakness in this story of a woman who loves having babies but has problems keeping her men, she wins your sympathy without ever seeming to ask for it. An excellent picture of the position of middle-class women in a England in the buttoned-up, male-chauvinist '50s and early '60s, just before the fall of the Conservative government, The Pill and The Beatles etc ushered in a far more liberal attitudes to the role of women in British society. A companion to Mortimer's slightly earlier novel Daddy's Gone A-Hunting (re-issued by Persephone Books) which is also highly recommended.Books) which
Reviewer: Nancy Chapman
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: A really excellent book - Mortimer is a wonderful novelist with great vocabluary and the ability to engage the reader and this example of her work is still current today nearly 60 years later!
Reviewer: K Macey
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Good book
Reviewer: June.Reads
Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: It started off in a way that I was so confused about what I was reading. I am still confused! Nevertheless, I found myself finding it hard to put it down. I understood that she felt trapped in her life and she was depressed but the narrative wasnât really my cup of tea and for that reason, I think I didnât really understand it the way I should have.â£