1. EXPLANATION OF THE TITLE
She thinks she is a She-Devil. She gets her power from the devil by destroying other people's life and making love to men.
2. BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION OF THE WRITER
A biography of Fay Weldon is placed on the first page of the book:
Fay Weldon
Fay Weldon was born in Birmingham, brought up in New Zealand and educated at Hamp-stead 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, screen written 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.
I've also found this biography:
Fay Weldon was born in Worcester, England in 1931 (or 1933).
Her father was a doctor and her mother was a writer of commercial fiction under the pen name "Pearl Bellairs." Her parents divorced when she was five, after which her family moved to New Zealand. She lived with her mother, sister and grandmother until she started college and, as a result, grew up believing "the world was peopled by females."
She returned to England with her mother and studied economics and psychology at the University of St Andrews in Scotland.
Her actual christened name was "Franklin Birkinshaw" (something to do with her mother's interest in numerology) which she feels contributed to her being accepted at St Andrews and permitted to study economics: the school assumed she was a male student applicant. (Sounds very much like a Fay Weldon novel, doesn't it?)
In her early twenties she was briefly married to a man more than twenty years her senior. It is not clear whether she had her first son during this marriage or earlier.
Raising her son as a single mother, she looks back on her twenties as times fraught with "odd jobs and hard times." She worked on the problem page of the Daily Mirror and then as a copywriter for the Foreign Office. She then embarked on an extremely successful career as an advertising copywriter becoming famous for her slogan 'Go to work on an egg'.
"Advertising was the only thing I could do in order to earn a decent enough living. . . I did it for about eight years."
She married Roy Weldon in 1962 and had three more sons. She then went through a mid-life crisis: "I was thirty, inadequate and depressed and ignorant, and knew it." She went through psychoanalysis, which gave her the self-knowledge and courage to give up advertising and start writing. Her first novel, The Fat Woman's Joke, was published in 1967, but by then she had already written some fifty plays for radio, stage, or television, the most well-known being Upstairs, Downstairs and her adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice
For the next 30 years she built a wonderfully successful career, publishing over 20 novels, collections of short stories, television movies, newspaper and magazine articles and becoming a well-known face and voice on the BBC. She and Ron divided their time between bucolic splendour in Somerset and a flat in London. Eventually they did divorce in 1994.
Fay subsequently married Nick Fox, a poet, and her writing and career continue to flourish. They live in Hampstead, London.
3. NUMBER OF PAGES AND EDITION
The book has 256 pages, including a biography of the writer, a list of books the publisher published and a copyright-page.
I don't know which edition of the book this is, because I couldn't find it anywhere. I do know that the first publish was in 1983, and in 1984 was the first publish in paperback.
4. THEME(S) LIKE LOVE, REVENGE, FRIENDSHIP, WAR
The themes of this novel are love and revenge. Ruth and Bobbo loved each other at the beginning of the book, but than Bobbo falls in love with Mary Fisher. Then Ruth wants revenge: she's going to ruin Bobbo and Mary's life.
5. SETTING (WHEN AND WHERE DOES THE STORY TAKE PLACE)
The story takes place in the 90's.
The story takes place in different places. In the beginning Ruth and Bobbo live at 19, Night-bird Drive, in Eden Grove, then Bobbo is going to live at Mary Fisher's house, the High Tower. Ruth is going to live at the Travelodge for a while, she's going to work at Lucas Hill Hospital and at the Old Ladies House, and she is going to live at Judge Bishop and his family. Ruth also is going to live at Father Ferguson's house. In short: the book takes place at many locations.
6. LIST OF MAIN CHARACTERS AND A DESCRIPTION OF EACH
Ruth: Ruth is a big, fat, ugly woman. She was married with Bobbo and she has two children: Nicola and Andy. Ruth is a very mean person. She has black hair and a very big hairy mole on her chin. She has also a large nose.
Bobbo: Bobbo is a good-looking accountant. He was married with Ruth. But he left her for Mary Fisher. He's Mary Fisher's accountant. He is successful in his work. He earns a lot of money with his job.
Mary Fisher: This good-looking, thin woman is a writer of novels. Her age is forty-three. She lives at the High Tower, at the edge of the sea. Once, she was married with Jonah, but they divorced. Now Garcia (her gardener) is her lover. She has also a housemaid, Joan. There are also two Dobermans living in the High Tower. Her novels are selling very well. She's also very rich: she owns four houses. Bobbo is her accountant.
7. SUMMARY OF THE PLOT
Bobbo and Ruth are married. They have two children: Andy and Nicola. They live in Eden Grove; a nice and calm village. Bobbo married Ruth because he made her pregnant. It wasn't really his intention to marry her. Bobbo felt in love with Mary Fisher. He is her accountant. Mary lives in the High Tower and she is a writer of romantic love-stories. Ruth hates Mary.
One day Ruth's parents came over for dinner. Ruth spoiled the food because of her clumsiness. Bobbo couldn't take it longer and leaves Ruth to go to the High Tower, to go to Mary Fisher. Ruth wants now revenge. She set the house were she lives on fire and went to the High Tower, to drop Andy and Nicola there. She leaves and goes to an old friend, Carver, and she makes love to him. Then she leaves again.
She's going to the home for aged, where Mrs. Fisher lives. The gets a job there and she convinces Mary's mother to go to Mary and that it is good for her that she stays there. Mary is very busy to care for Bobbo, his children and her mother. This turned her live completely mad.
Ruth left the home for aged and went to a hospital for the criminally insane. With many false certificates she gets a job at this hospital. In her spare time she went to secretarial and accountancy classes. When she thought she had mastered the basics of accountancy, she goes to Bobbo's office and she transfers big sums of money to her account in Switzerland. At the end she has approximately 2 million dollars.
Ruth and nurse Hopkins, who's a friend from the criminal hospital, are starting with "The Vesta Rose Agency". The Vesta Rose (Vesta Rose was the name Ruth had chosen for herself as a fake name) Agency is specialised I finding secretarial jobs for women. Ruth sends a girl named Elsie to Bobbo's office. Elsie looks like Mary Fisher.
Bobbo makes love to Elsie, but when she says that she wants to marry him, he fires her. Elsie writes a letter to Mary Fisher and tells her about the affair with Bobbo. It makes Mary feel disappointed and sad. Ruth enjoyed it. The police finds out about the faults in Bobbo's administration, and there is a trial.
Ruth went to the judge who would adjudge Bobbo. She is going to work there as a householder. The judge and his wife are going to like Ruth. The judge has many aggressive feelings from his job. Most of the time he gets rid of it by hitting and punishing his wife. Now he is using Ruth for this. But, Ruth uses the judge to give Bobbo seven years in prison. When the trial is over, Ruth leaves the judge and his wife.
In the meantime she has shortened her teeth.
Now Ruth wants to live anonymously, and she is going to live at a pregnant mother who has got already two children. She gives her the following advice: " Sell your children and then make a new start."
Ruth thinks of changing her outside. So, she wants plastic surgery. Therefore, she has to lose weight.
Now she is going to live with a priest, named father Ferguson. She makes love to him. Ruth manipulates father Ferguson so much, that he goes to Mary Fisher to say to her that her books aren't good. She does this to torture Mary Fisher. In the meantime she has lost enough weight and she leaves father Ferguson also.
Ruth wants to look just like Mary Fisher. When she is in a Californian clinic (for her plastic surgery), she gets a letter. That letter says that Mary Fisher has cancer. Ruth completely destroyed Mary's life.
The High Tower is sold. Mary does this because she doesn't have any many anymore. She lost the money because the trial of Bobbo. Then Mary passes away. Ruth goes to Mary's funeral. Some people think that Mary is still alive. Ruth buys the High Tower and she restores it, just as beautiful as it was once. Garcia is her householder, and when Bobbo returns from jail, he doesn't understand the whole situation, but he had to undergo it. Ruth has now completely power over Bobbo and Garcia. Her life becomes pleasant after all.
8. SAY WHETHER YOU LIKED THE BOOK OR NOT AND GIVE REASONS WHY
I liked the book very well, because there were many funny moments in the book, and the whole story is wrote very easy and funny. There were some chapters less funny (like the chapter that Ruth goes to the judge and his wife) but the rest compensated it. I also liked it because of the fact that someone who's very rich becomes poor and powerless, and that someone normal becomes very rich and powerful.
9. QUOTE ONE PASSAGE WHICH YOU LIKED AND ONE YOU DIDN'T LIKE
The passage I liked is on page 252: 'This is Mary Fisher's funeral,' said one of the warders, as if to a child. 'So how can that be Mary Fisher?'
I liked it so much, because of what the warder says can't happen. If someone's dead, he can't go to his/her own funeral.
The passage I didn't liked is chapter twenty-three, page 145 up to including 168: Judge Henry Bishop had considerable charm.
I didn't liked this chapter, because it was long and boring. And perhaps I didn't like it because this part of the book isn't in the movie.
10. WOULD YOU ADVISE OTHER PEOPLE TO READ THIS BOOK?
I advise everyone to read this book.. The book is very funny and ironic. It is not difficult to read and the story is good to follow. The story is also fascinated. So that's why I think everyone should read 'The lives and loves of a She Devil' by Fay Weldon.
REACTIES
1 seconde geleden
S.
S.
heb je toevallig op het schoonhovens college dit waren precies de antwooden op de vragen die ik had. Heel erg bedankt
mzzzzzzzzzl
23 jaar geleden
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D.
THANK YOU!!!
kiss danielle kuzz
23 jaar geleden
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