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Boekverslag Fay Weldon
The life and loves of a She-devil
Geschreven door: | Lieneke (4 vwo) [meer] |
Datum ingestuurd: | 13 juni 2002 |
Taal: |  |
Woorden: | 2.600 |
Bekeken: | 14984 keer (16 deze maand) |
Waardering: | |
Deel op: |
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1. Explanation of the title.
Ruth thinks she is a she-devil. The book tells about her life and her love with men and how she controls other people's lives.
2. Biographical information of the writer.
Fay Weldon 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. Andrew´s 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 Bar and Meryl Streep.
3.Number of pages and edition.
The book has 256 pages. I don´t know what the edition of the book is, because the book
doesn't say anything about it and I also couldn´t find it anywhere else. The only thing I know about something that maybe has to do with the edition is that the book was first published in 1983 and first published in paperback in 1984.
4. Theme(s) like love, revenge, friendship or war.
The themes are: love and especially revenge.
In the beginning Bobbo and Ruth loved each other, but then Bobbo loved Mary Fisher. The rest of the book all Ruth wanted was revenge, by destroying the lives of Bobbo and Mary.
5.Setting ( when and where does the story take place ).
At the begin Bobbo and Ruth live in a house at 19, Night-bird Drive in Eden Grove.
When Bobbo is going to live with Mary he lives in the High Tower.
Ruth lives at different places: first she lives at the house for the elderly, “Restwood”, after that she lives in a prison for the criminally insane, “Lucas Hill Hospital”. Ruth also lives with the judge and his wife, Vickie and later with Father Ferguson.
So the book takes place at a lot of locations.
6. List of main characters and a description of each.
- Ruth: she´s a very fat, ugly and big woman.
She´s married to Bobbo. They have two children Andy and Nicola.
Ruth is very clumsy and behaves like a she-devil.
- Bobbo: He's a very handsome man.
He´s married to Ruth and makes a lot of money by working as an accountant.
- Mary: she´s a slender, pretty and small woman.
She isn´t married, is very rich and lives in a very big house called the High Tower near the sea.
7. Summary of the plot.
Bobbo and Ruth are married and live together in Eden Grove. They have two children, called Andy and Nicola.
Ruth finds out that Bobbo is having an affair with Mary Fisher a pretty and rich woman who writes novels, while Ruth is fat, ugly and clumsy.
Bobbo´s parents are coming over for dinner. Ruth spoiled the food because of her clumsiness.
Bobbo can´t take it any longer and is going to live with Mary in her house; the High Tower.
From that day on Ruth becomes a she-devil; she wants revenge.
The first thing she does is putting the house on fire, after that she drops the children with Mary and Bobbo in the High Tower.
Ruth gets a job in a home for the elderly. It´s called “Restwood”.
She knows Mary Fisher's mother lives there. Ruth convinces the old Miss Fisher that it´s better for her to live in the High Tower.
Ruth knows that the head of “Restwood”, Mrs Trumper, hates incontinence and that everyone who´s incontinent has to leave the house. So she makes it look like Miss Fisher is incontinent.
But because Ruth didn´t tell Mrs Trumper earlier that Miss Fisher was incontinent, she gets fired.
In the mean while Nicola and Andy cause Mary a lot of trouble.
Mary can´t concentrate herself very well with the children around her making such noise, so her next novel is very bad. Her publisher doesn´t want to publish it.
Ruth left the home for the elderly and gets a job in a prison for the criminally insane, which is called “Lucas Hill Hospital”.
She can work there because she has some fake certificates. She has changed her name into Vesta Rose.
Nurse Hopkins and Ruth become very good “friends”.
In Ruth s spare time she went to secretarial and book-keeping classes in the city.
She still has a key of Bobbo´s office, with that key she writes a lot of money from Bobbo s business account to Bobbo´s personal account and to her account in Switzerland. In the end she has a sum of 2 million dollars from Bobbo´s account.
When Ruth and Nurse Hopkins have found an empty office, they take their chance and leave the hospital to start their own employment agency. Ruth called it “ the Vesta Rose employment agency”, it´s a company for women who want to find secretarial work.
Bobbo calls and asks for a secretary; Ruth sends Elsie( who looks a bit like Mary) and as Ruth expected Bobbo makes love to Elsie. Elsie says she loves Bobbo, but when she said that to him he doesn´t want her anymore.
Ruth thinks Elsie has to write a letter to Mary Fisher, to tell her that she has had an affair with Bobbo. Elsie does write the letter. When Mary reads it she is very sad.
The police has found out that Bobbo has embezzled money.
Mary hires the best lawyers to get Bobbo out of prison.
Ruth is goes to the lawyer who´s going to adjudicate Bobbo. She manipulates him so much that he gives Bobbo seven years prison, while he first wanted to put him in prison for five years.
After she has left the judge and his wife, she´s going to live with Vickie. She´s a pregnant, single mother who needs some help with baby-sitting and a little housework.
Ruth has a lot of conversations with Vickie, about that she´s always pregnant and about the fact that the father of her kids isn´t with her anymore. The advice Ruth gives is to sell her children and to build a life for herself.
When Ruth has said this, Vickie gets very angry and Ruth decides to leave and go to Father Ferguson, who already had offered her a job in his house.
At the same time, she has shortened her teeth and has gone to a doctor for plastic surgery.
In two years Ruth gets changed into a Mary Fisher look-a-like. She buys the High Tower, which Mary had to sale because she had consumed all her money for the trial of Bobbo.
Ruth says to Father Ferguson that he has to tell Mary that her books aren´t as good as she thinks they are, so he does. Ruth does this to torture Mary. Ruth has now completely annihilated Mary´s life.
After Mary has discovered she has cancer doesn t it take long before she dies.
Ruth buys the High Tower, renovated the house and contacts Garcia ( the old householder of Mary) if he wants to come work at the High Tower.
When Bobbo returns from prison, he doesn´t recognize her anymore and just lives with Ruth, he doesn't seem to care anymore.
Ruth is happy after, what was a long time, an unhappy time of her life.
8. Say whether you liked the book or not and give reasons why.
I really liked the book very much. Although I found it sometimes hard to follow and although it has a lot of pages, I found it very interesting to read how a woman can change her body and mind to make her feel happier.
I found the part that she did undergo the plastic surgery and let herself change into Mary Fisher a bit strange. Because she first hated Mary and at the end wanted to look like her and also acted as Mary did.
Sometimes I also found the book funny because of Ruth's actions.
9. Quote one passage which you liked and one you didn ´t like.
I really like the passage on page 154 up to including 168. `Sentencing is like ………………had considerable charm´.
I liked it very much because of the way she talks to the judge about Bobbo and the trial. She manipulates the judge so much that he puts Bobbo into prison for seven instead of five years.
The passage I didn´t like is on page 57 up to including 60.`Carver lived in ………………….what she had´.
I didn´t like it because I found it a bit weird that Ruth just had lost her husband and after that immediately makes love with another man. I found it a bit unlikely.
10. Would you advise other people to read this book and give an explanation why.
I would advise other people to read it because I found it a very interesting book.
I think a lot other people also would like it, because it ´s an subject that everyone can imagine. Most of the people want to look like Mary Fisher; to have a big house near the coast, to be rich and famous and to make love with whoever you want to. I think it´s a subject that especially women would like, because it´s about ugliness and beauty, rich and poor, fame and unfamiliarity.
11. Comparison between the book: “Life and loves of a she devil” and the movie: “She devil”.
1. Movie: called “She devil”.
Book: called “Life and loves of a she devil”.
I prefer the title of the movie, because it doesn t sound so poetic.
2. Movie: guinea-pig in the soup.
Book: hairs in the soup.
I prefer the movie, because it´s a lot worse when you have a guinea-pig than when you have a couple of hairs in your soup.
3. Movie: Bobbo.
Book: Bob.
I prefer the movie, because it is more a pet name than Bob. I think it fits better in the picture of the movie with the big villa and a beautiful woman.
4. Movie: Ruth doesn´t have sex with a man after Bob left.
Book: Ruth has sex with a man called Carver.
I prefer the movie, because it isn´t an important event.
5. Movie: Ruth just walks away after she put her house exploded.
Book: Ruth and her neighbour call the fire brigade after the house exploded.
I prefer the book in this case, because it s more likely that you would call the fire brigade than just to walk away.
6. Movie: Mary and Bob make love in the whirlpool.
Book: Mary and Bobbo make love at the sofa when Ruth and the children come in.
I prefer the movie, because you see better in what kind of circumstances they live.
7. Movie: Ruth isn´t going to work in prison after she has worked at the house for the elderly.
Book: Ruth is going to work in a prison for the insane called “Lucas Hill Hospital”.
I prefer the book, because at this place also happens a lot what influences the end.
8. Movie: Ruth calls the employment agency “Vesta Rose”.
Book: Ruth gives herself a new name, which is: Vesta Rose.
I prefer the movie, because she changes her name a lot already so it isn ´t necessary to do it another time.
9. Movie: Ruth leaves the home for the elderly with another woman called Nurse Hopkins and starts an employment agency with her.
Book: Ruth leaves the home for the elderly in her one and then is going to work in the prison for the insane.
I prefer the book, because it´s funny to read how she meets other people and in the movie she doesn´t meet so much people as in the book.
10. Movie: Ruth transfers money from Bobbo´s business account to his personal account together with Elsie.
Book: Ruth transfers money from Bobbo´s business account to his personal account all alone.
I prefer the movie, because I found it logical that Elsie also wanted to take revenge on Bob and in the book she didn´t.
11. Movie: Ruth hasn´t got a relationship with Nurse Hopkins.
Book: Ruth has got a relationship with Nurse Hopkins.
I prefer the movie, because it isn´t necessary that she has a relationship with Nurse Hopkins. It doesn´t influences the end of the book/movie.
12. Movie: Elsie doesn´t send a letter to Mary to confess that she has had an affair with Bob.
Book: Elsie writes a letter to Mary to confess that she has had an affair with Bobbo.
I prefer the book, because I found it a funny idea to let the wife of your lover know that you´ve had an affair with him.
On the whole I prefer the movie, because the story was going a lot faster and as you can see above with most of the comparisons I chose for the movie.
6. List of main characters and a description of each.
Ruth: she's a very fat, ugly and big woman, between 35 and 40 years old. She´s very clumsy, but she is a woman with a good heart. After Bobbo has left she wants revenge, because she´s very angry. She destroys Mary Fisher ´s life because she changes herself into a she devil.
When Ruth wants to take revenge she changes her name a couple of times, her names were; Vesta Rose, Polly Patch and Georgina Tilling.
After she destroyed Mary and Bobbo ´s lives she changed her whole body and she looks exactly like Mary Fisher.
Bobbo: he´s a very handsome account around the 35 years old. He ´s the account of Mary Fisher, with her he also has an affair after he has left his wife: Ruth.
He blames Ruth for everything that goes wrong in his life. He never understood why he married Ruth. After he has left Ruth, he lives with Mary in the high tower.
When Ruth has destroyed his whole life, he came in prison. When he got out he was very confused.
At the beginning he was very confident, but at the end he doesn ´t see that Mary
wasn ´t the real Mary, but that it was Ruth who let her whole body change.
Mary: she´s a thin, pretty and small woman, between 40 and 45 years old. She isn´t married, but she became very rich by writing novels and lives in a very big house called the high tower, near the sea. At the beginning she was very happy with Bobbo. When Ruth tries to destroy Bobbo´s and Mary´s life, isn´t Mary happy. That´s because Ruth´s children and her mother (who she doesn´t like) are going to live in her house. Mary has to clean everything, because they make such a mess.
After that she has to pay Bobbo´s lawyers, because Bobbo must go to prison. She lost all her money on Bobbo´s lawyers and then she even is unhappier.
At the end is Mary old and very sick, she has cancer. She dies a bit later; she was very unhappy at the end of her life.
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