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Life Before Man

by Margaret Atwood (Goodreads Author)

3.39 of 5 stars 3.39 · rating details · 2,929 ratings · 157 reviews

Imprisoned by walls of their own construction, here are three people, each in midlife, in midcrisis, forced to make choices--after the rules have changed.Elizabeth, with her controlled sensuality, her suppressed rage, is married to the wrong man.She has just lost her latest lover to suicide.Nate, her gentle, indecisive husband, is planning to leave her for Lesje, a perenni...more

Paperback, 361 pages

Published April 13th 1998 by Anchor (first published 1979)

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Apr 19, 2011 Aerin rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: litrachur

The back of this book says it's about love, but I hope that's not the case. Because reading Life Before Man made me feel like an alien in some campy sci-fi film of yore, inquiring in a monotone: "What is this thing you call... love?" If it's what this book is about, count me out of the love thing. FOREVER.

There are five main characters:

Chris is dead - he shot himself in the head, presumably to get the hell out of this book.
Elizabeth was Chris's lover; she is a psycho bitch.
Nate is Elizabeth's hu...more The back of this book says it's about love, but I hope that's not the case. Because reading Life Before Man made me feel like an alien in some campy sci-fi film of yore, inquiring in a monotone: "What is this thing you call... love?" If it's what this book is about, count me out of the love thing. FOREVER.

There are five main characters:

Chris is dead - he shot himself in the head, presumably to get the hell out of this book.
Elizabeth was Chris's lover; she is a psycho bitch.
Nate is Elizabeth's husband; he is a sad sack.
Lesje is Nate's lover; she hearts dinosaurs.
William is Lesje's ex and Elizabeth's lover; he's a pompous ass.

Basically, everyone is just screwing everyone else, for reasons I can't fathom, because none of them seem to like each other in the slightest, or gain any joy from being with one another. From what I can tell, Elizabeth thrives on manipulating people, Nate is trying to find himself through sex, and Lesje's got low self esteem. They're all totally co-dependent and utterly depressing to read about, the kind of people you just want to bar from interacting with other people romantically for a year. Maybe longer. Until they can learn to be on their own and like themselves.

And sure, this is Atwood, so the writing is beautiful and fascinating (though not much, plotwise, happens at all). And, as character studies, these people were interesting - we learn about their troubled childhoods, their elaborate inner lives, their self-justifications or lack thereof. I could relate a little to Lesje - she, too, doesn't really get this whole human-interaction thing, though why she'll fall "in love" with any man who looks her way, despite what a self-absorbed ass he may be, I don't understand. Most of the time, though, they were all just awful, awful people behaving in strange, self-destructive ways.

In the end, the characters I felt for the most were Janet and Nancy, Nate and Elizabeth's young daughters. They're barely there in the narrative - the three narrators (Elizabeth, Nate, and Lesje) hardly pay them any attention at all - but in the glimpses of their behavior we do see, it's obvious they are struggling desperately against forces they have no control over. Their parents' sham of a marriage and various affairs, the animosity filling their home, the maze of parental neuroses they must navigate. No kid should have to shoulder all of that, and if their parents weren't such overgrown children themselves, they would have done something to protect them from it.

Ugh. What a depressing book.(less)

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Apr 25, 2013 Philip rated it 4 of 5 stars

Life Before Man by Margaret Atwood is a thoroughly disturbing read. It is beautifully written and imaginatively constructed. The prose is a delight, as are insights into character and comments on contemporary life which, in Life Before Man, happens around mid-1970s Toronto. What is disturbing about this tale of the eternal triangle, the love triangle, of course, is that these people seem to be imprisoned by the inevitable. Theirs, by the way, is less of a triangle than a dodecagon. They all seem...more Life Before Man by Margaret Atwood is a thoroughly disturbing read. It is beautifully written and imaginatively constructed. The prose is a delight, as are insights into character and comments on contemporary life which, in Life Before Man, happens around mid-1970s Toronto. What is disturbing about this tale of the eternal triangle, the love triangle, of course, is that these people seem to be imprisoned by the inevitable. Theirs, by the way, is less of a triangle than a dodecagon. They all seem to be quite prolific in their pursuit of the attainable. They are also reminiscent of people trying to break out from their own limitations, but who remain doomed to repeat their accustomed mistakes. Intervention might possibly break the cycle, but this would appear to be an imagination beyond where anyone lives. And any interruption to the apparently inevitable would surely just recreate circumstances that would ensure reversion to type.

Lesje (pronounced Lashia) is in one relationship with William and another with fossils. Sometimes she becomes confused as to which is which. She and William are not married. This may or may not have significance, depending on the moral stance you take on contemporary ideas of the permissive. In fact Lesje is espoused to her work in the palaeontology section of the museum where she is employed, along with, if not exactly alongside, other members of the plot. Lesje is a slight figure, small breasted and thin, but she seems to punch above her weight intellectually and also physically, when she finds what she wants.

Elizabeth is married to Nate. They have two children and what was called at the time an “open” relationship, that in reality is about as open as a deceitful closed door. Being open for them, appears to require them not to lie openly about how much they are deceiving one another.

Superficially Elizabeth appears very confident. She seems to want to call the shots, but often finds that she has not only run out of ammunition, but also that she has become the target. When we reassemble her affairs – mostly finished – and her unhappy childhood shared with a demanding sister and a foster mother called Auntie Muriel, we can start to reconstruct the miasma inside her head, the mess that apparently tries to recreate itself in most aspects of her life.

Nate, Elizabeth’s nattily named husband, is sometimes a gangling fool, often clumsy and inept. At other times he knows precisely what to do with his tools and gets the job done, usually to the delight of all concerned. He certainly seems to string the ladies along. Lesje becomes the latest. The timing seems doubly crass and insensitive, especially because Elizabeth’s recently rejected, Chris, has just responded to change by blowing his brains out with a shotgun. A tale of everyday folk, this…

It seems that these lives become simultaneously a form of torture and masochism. For these participants, it also seems to work, depending on which side of the transaction anyone wants to be. The purpose of existence seems to be the seeking of pleasure in order to inflict pain, both on oneself and on others. Elizabeth and Nate’s children will grow up to reproduce the pattern, because it will be all they have known. And eventually, of course, they are destined to be passed around like so much chattel.

Lesje likes to have everything catalogued, neatly labelled and filed away in its box for future reference. It’s a tendency that is as unlike the lives of these people that it even becomes rather comic.

Life Before Man is a truly imaginative title. It may refer to Lesje’s dinosaur fossils. It may refer to the women, who indeed may have envisaged a life before encountering their men. It may also be simply human life, all of it, laid before us, all of us.

Whatever the slant, Life Before Man intrigues, excites and illuminates all at the same time. Margaret Atwood’s perceptions and ability to sum up the human condition at the flick of a phrase are uncanny. There is also a hint of derision, a suggestion that these people may not only be their own worst enemies, but everyone else’s as well. Perhaps Life Before Man was thus a relatively privileged state. We wouldn’t know, of course, because we are what we have become. All else is fossil.
(less)

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Jan 20, 2011 Leah rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: canadian-authors, feminist-authors, 20th-century

Before reading Life Before Man, I never thought of myself as "too young" to read a particular book. Certainly, I've read material that wasn't "age appropriate" before, in terms of content. And I struggled as a child with some of the classics, owing to the vocabulary and not being able to properly appreciate different time periods' values and mores until teenhood. However, I can say with conviction that I am far too young to appreciate Life Before Man, as a twentysomething woman with no husband a...more Before reading Life Before Man, I never thought of myself as "too young" to read a particular book. Certainly, I've read material that wasn't "age appropriate" before, in terms of content. And I struggled as a child with some of the classics, owing to the vocabulary and not being able to properly appreciate different time periods' values and mores until teenhood. However, I can say with conviction that I am far too young to appreciate Life Before Man, as a twentysomething woman with no husband and no children. I may read it again in my late thirties and forties, and appreciate it more, but for now, I was left feeling blank.
This is probably due to the subjects the novel explores: Adultery, relationships between men and women after the "milestones" of marriage and children, a sort of chilled distance between your adult life and your children. To further alienate, the novel is very much a product of 1979, the year it was published, in a time too familiar to be exotic like the dystopias of Oryx and Crake and The Handmaid's Tale, but too foreign to be relatable. This wasn't as much a problem in Atwood's other present-day work, such as Cat's Eye and The Edible Woman. That can be attributed to the setup though. Cat's Eye was a story spanning childhood to adult life, and thus had a timeless quality. The Edible woman was a story of a college-aged woman on the cusp of marriage and children, but not teetering over the edge, so it was more familiar to me. Life Before Man was a downright alien in that respect to me.
The story is simple enough, and like The Robber Bride, it focuses on several different characters who share the POV as the book goes on. Like many of Atwood's novels, the timeline is uncertain. One moment you're in the present with them, the next, it's all recollection. But each one is neatly divided by a name: Nathan, Elizabeth, or Lesje (Pronounced Lah-shia, by the way) all intersecting in each other's lives. Elizabeth and Lesje know each other from their work at a museum, with the younger Lesje being involved in Palaeontology and the older Elizabeth having a more traditionally feminine management position, and being married to Nathan.
Lesje is the most interesting of the three, a sort of precursor to other antisocial intellectual female Atwood characters, such as Tony from The Robber Bride and Toby from Year of The Flood. Elizabeth is closer to the more passive feminine characters that also pepper Atwood novels, like Offred, Roz, and Iris. Nathan is less of a primeval Atwood archetype, being male, but there's a bit of West from The Robber Bride in him, and a bit of Jimmy from Oryx and Crake/Year Of the Flood. He's good-hearted, but flawed. His and Lesje's chapters prove to be the most interesting, while I falter at Elizabeth's. Fortunately, the varied perspectives keeps things interesting, and prevents the reader from becoming too subjective towards one particular character's actions, the three protagonists have the benefit of getting their voice in. However, sadly, a good portion of what goes on remains foggy.
I'm forgiving of this, after all, it was one of Atwood's earliest works and she had not yet developed a strong voice yet. I noticed this fogginess in Surfacing as well. Her later works are considerably stronger than this one, and it was not what I would call enjoyable, simply because I'm at the wrong age for it, and it was not set in a world where I could marvel or sympathize. I'm afraid that if I do take the path necessary to understand it, I'll end up a miserable adulterous housewife in Southern Ontario. Not sure that's measures I want to take to appreciate this. (less)

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Jan 20, 2011 astried rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011, on-falling-down-n-getting-up-again

This book need to be read in a right timing. For those who aren't lucky enough to catch it at the right time of their life, they will be dissapointed by the lack of plot. This is no Oryx & Crake or Year of the Flood. It dwells so much on the small nuances of feeling you would scream for it to get on.

Fortunately, this one is exactly right for the current me. I was avoiding love-happy-ending-hero like a plague and stumbled on the title Life Before Man & decided that should be a good enough...more

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Sep 05, 2010 Angela Nicole rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I hate to give anything less than a glowing review to something by Margaret Atwood, as she's recently become one of my very favorite authors. However, I was pretty underwhelmed by this book.

***spoilers ahead, also vague references to her other books****

Atwood often takes a peek into the past or the future in her books, but the ones I've really loved kept a sort of "present day" that was consistent and gave the reader a sort of starting point. Oryx and Crake, for example, gave you a present day...more

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Oct 07, 2009 Mel rated it 2 of 5 stars

I was very disappointed in the book. It was difficult to get into because of her changing pov at random. A Chapter starts out present natrration and slide right into first person pov.
This book has giving me the "false" impression that Canadians are not pretty people and are so guilt ridden or insecure that they can't enjoy the good things in their life because they are too busy analyzign.

I do beleive that the affairs are no big deal, that they all have an arrangment with playing rules. I just...more

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Jul 21, 2009 Roy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Much recommended 1979 novel. Atwood has outdone herself is the consensus.
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If there are such things as "poet's novels," Margaret Atwood writes them. Each of hers has a controlling, spooking metaphor; here the central idea is that today's men and women live in an era that is without the consolations of history, in which old forms are dying out, not to reappear. So it's no accident that the women here work with remnants of the pa...more Much recommended 1979 novel. Atwood has outdone herself is the consensus.
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If there are such things as "poet's novels," Margaret Atwood writes them. Each of hers has a controlling, spooking metaphor; here the central idea is that today's men and women live in an era that is without the consolations of history, in which old forms are dying out, not to reappear. So it's no accident that the women here work with remnants of the past: Elizabeth Shoenhof, a director of a Toronto museum, is married to Nate, once a lawyer but now a maker of chic wooden toys. Both have had and will still have other lovers, but they're struggling to stay living in the same house for the sake of the children. Elizabeth's latest lover has just killed himself; Nate's most recent girlfriend has dumped him. And when Nate then goes toward museum paleontologist Lesje, Elizabeth retaliates with a calculated seduction of Lesje's live-in boyfriend. The actions are unsubtle and desperate, the air bleak, the light almost wholly interior. The pre-history of emotions and social codes here is entropic, using up and discarding modern feelings without ready alternatives: the only saving grace to Nate-and-Elizabeth's grotesque marriage is its eventual guaranteed extinction. To this end, Atwood leaves no self-doubt uncovered, and there are chapters - it's a book of chapters above all, some of them memorable - in which the characters numbly go through rituals (Elizabeth, for instance, visiting the planetarium, staring up at the faked stars) that are as spare and just as poems, veined with their own strange blood. Yet, for all the generosity, such unrelenting social and emotional chaos makes the book very confining: everyone's center is constantly being stirred, the struggles slow and nearly unbearable, until the entire novel comes to seem like one large tar pit. And though this is an effect Atwood no doubt wants, it's one that nevertheless makes for a gooey, close read. Monumentally depressing, thoroughly gifted work from a very special novelist.(less)

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Jun 20, 2012 Z rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012

This book is depressing, negative, and throws human frailty into the sharpest possible relief - and I must say I enjoyed it. Elizabeth and Nate (trapped in a loveless marriage) and Lesje and William (trapped in a directionless relationship), and the intersection of all their stories, come to life with these strokes of Atwood's swift, relentless pen.

Relationships end, and do not always have happy endings. Equally, many relationships do not end in the traditional sense of the term, but are none th...more

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Jul 21, 2011 Alice rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011, audio, library, classic, feminist

Going by previous reviews, I should be proud I even got through this book. It wasn't a chore to read, exactly, but it definitely misses a lot of what I like about other Atwood books.

The book follows the perspectives of three people. Nate and Elizabeth are married, but neither of them are happy about it, and they have an agreement to sleep with other people. Nate wants to have an affair with Lesje. Elizabeth is deep in depression because her last affair ended with the guy shooting himself in the...more Going by previous reviews, I should be proud I even got through this book. It wasn't a chore to read, exactly, but it definitely misses a lot of what I like about other Atwood books.

The book follows the perspectives of three people. Nate and Elizabeth are married, but neither of them are happy about it, and they have an agreement to sleep with other people. Nate wants to have an affair with Lesje. Elizabeth is deep in depression because her last affair ended with the guy shooting himself in the head.

I'm not sure what the book was trying to say. There are messages about environmentalism, about life being better off before humans came along, about politics. As the book takes place in Canada in 1976-8, it whooshed right over my head.

I wanted so much to sympathize with someone in this book, to feel like their actions were justified within some semblance of a value system. But if these people had values, or mores, or anything resembling a conscience, I never saw it. Maybe that was the point, but it made the reading experience difficult to stomach. The only character I liked, I don't think I was supposed to, because Elizabeth hated her with a passion I didn't understand. Judging from the text, Elizabeth hated her Aunt Muriel because Muriel tried to instill values in her. It went beyond simply disagreeing with her perspective, though, and she alluded to abuse and maltreatment that I didn't see supported in the text.

The language, itself, is poetry, and, awful plot though it was, it was soothing to listen to on audio. The narrator sometimes took a plaintive, whiny tone for younger characters that irritated me at times, but dialogue was sparse, and most of the prose was long, eye-opening descriptions of a city and buildings I'll never see.

I can't see myself recommending this, except to people who like poetry and enjoy the train wreck effect of watching people make consistently poor decisions. I've consistently disliked books based on the premise of stupidity. I don't think these characters were stupid, exactly, but I do think they were self-destructive and made stupid decisions. So instead of disliking it, I'll just say that it wasn't my favorite of Margaret Atwood's books.(less)

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Apr 22, 2013 Christine Ward rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Note: The above rating should be 2 1/2 stars.

Better than "The Edible Woman", this early Atwood novel is ostensibly about two disaffected couples - Nate and Elizabeth; Lesje and William - but the book focuses much more on Elizabeth, and to a slightly lesser extent, Lesje - than it does Nate or William (who is basically a supporting character only).

There are some poignant passages in this novel, but it doesn't have the same impact on me that other Atwood novels - "The Handmaid's Tale", "Cat's Eye...more

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Apr 21, 2010 Tatiana rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: dedicated Atwood fans

Shelves: 2010, contemporary

The point of this novel is lost on me. Am I not sophisticated enough to understand it? Or is it just pretentiously pointless? I don't know...

At the center of "Life Before Man" is a married couple. Elizabeth is an administrative worker at a historical museum, Nate is an ex-lawyer turned wood toy maker. The two have been together for over 10 years, they have 2 children, but their marriage is a sham. Elizabeth has been through a string of lovers and encourages her husband to do the same - find love...more The point of this novel is lost on me. Am I not sophisticated enough to understand it? Or is it just pretentiously pointless? I don't know...

At the center of "Life Before Man" is a married couple. Elizabeth is an administrative worker at a historical museum, Nate is an ex-lawyer turned wood toy maker. The two have been together for over 10 years, they have 2 children, but their marriage is a sham. Elizabeth has been through a string of lovers and encourages her husband to do the same - find lovers on the side, but only the type of lovers that guarantees she ultimately has him for herself. The two go on like this for a while, until Elizabeth's latest lover commits suicide. She is depressed and consumed by her own regrets and misery and temporarily fails to see that Nate is in love again. His new flame is Elizabeth's co-worker - Lesja, a young, naive woman, who is more interested in her dinosaur fossils than real people. Lesja and Nate soon become lovers, but Lesja continues living with her boyfriend William. When Elizabeth wakes up from her depressed stupor and finds out that her husband's new lover is a threat to her marriage (Nate is taken by Lesja enough to be willing to move out), she decides to stir things up - not only does she make William her next lover, she also reveals to him that Lesja is cheating on him. A lot of of lukewarm drama follows...

While on the surface "Life Before Man" seems like a moderately interesting tale of an unhappy marriage and cheating, the book is not really as great as this short summary might imply. The characters, while meticulously established and analyzed by Atwood, are hard to relate to and extremely unlikable - Elizabeth, manipulative and greedy, Nate - an indecisive loser, Lesja - an insecure doormat. Their trials and tribulations are not compelling. Their pointless and unhappy lives are uninteresting. The book synopsis promises a dramatic climax, there is none. "Life Before Man" is pretty much a sad, depressing novel about unhappy, unlikable, selfish, and at times suicidal people who do nothing to make their lives better, choosing instead to carry on their miserable existence.

I learned nothing from this book, I felt nothing for the characters. What was the point of this novel?(less)

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Jan 06, 2011 A_na rated it 4 of 5 stars

Not my favourite Atwood novel but definitely a good job on her part. The novels explores the relationship and power struggle between three protagonists Nate, Elizabeth and Lesje (pronounced Lashia). As the POV shifts so will the readers sympathies. It's impossible not to dislike Elizabeth while reading the story from Lesje's point of view while at the same time it's impossible not to fall backin love with Elizabeth while exploring her own thoughts and feelings. Nate's POV will leave the readers...more

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Jul 10, 2009 Kristiana rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: at-work

It wasn't my favorite, but as the novel progressed I was able to see some of the traits and themes that Atwood develops in her later novels.

It was hard to feel sympathetic for any of the characters, but I think she accurately brings to life those characteristics within all of us that are awful. You are frustrated by Elizabeth's desire to make everyone miserable because you've probably thought to do that. You are angered that Lesje is unable to stand up for herself because you've experienced the...more

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Aug 07, 2007 Rachel rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: fans of DINOSAURS

Shelves: for-a-class

This was one of the first Atwood books I read in a major author seminar on her and I was just bowled over by how sharp it was. In this book, Atwood has immense reverence, I think, for human resilience...but none for human relationships. A very interesting naturalist bent going on, too.

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Mar 01, 2011 Frank rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: literature

..articulate and with a craftsmanlike dedication to characterisation worthy of MA's protagonist, Nate; LBM had me constantly wanting to stand up and slap the characters to wake them from self-induced obliviousness and weak kneed evasions. Not Elizabeth though. Elizabeth deserved to be shot (she'd thanked me for it), although I discovered myself feeling some sympathy to this alter ego to her sociopathic Aunt Muriel. I suppose Elizabeth can be compared with a president of some Latin American count...more

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Jun 16, 2009 Andryl rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: epl

A very early Atwood, and less satisfying than others I've read. The focus on three people's (interconnected) lives made it hard, I think, to find any sort of resolution, any ending point which would be satisfying, and I was dramatically unsatisfied with the point Atwood actually chose. It also led to pacing problems as the end of the book approached-- the first part of the story is told reasonably continuously, but later time starts skipping, and eventually skips fast enough that I lost track of...more

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Jul 23, 2012 Samantha rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 50-books-challenge-2012

There's a number of thing i Just couldn't get over, which is why I ultimately gave this book a two:

1. I'm puzzled by the need for Parts... 5 of them? There wasn't really any change in theme or anything.

2. So this was the thought of a "Modern Marriage" from the mid-late 1970's? Blug! Just an open relationship in which we (the reader) grow to (kinda) sympathize with the Home-Wrecker.

3. Speaking of the Home-Wrecker, non of the character were very likable. (I even grew to dislike Lesje... the least...more

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Jun 14, 2009 Leisha Wharfield rated it 2 of 5 stars

I read this as the second in a single volume of three Atwood novels that starts with Surfacing and ends with The HandMaid's Tale. This was my least favorite novel -- how am I supposed to relate to any of these little people? They're mean, selfish, monstrous, pathetic victims of their own design, of circumstance, and of society. Her drama is good; her tension, the way she stages these puppets in opposition to each other is engaging. But then, suddenly, the novel drops off with no polish, no finis...more

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Sep 26, 2010 Jane rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is my first Atwood book so I've probably missed alot of what the author intended. Nonetheless, I found the book very complex and multi-layered. The three primary characters are weak, pitiful humans who seem caught in the quagmire of life. There's nothing to endear these people to the reader. In fact, there isn't really a typical plot. There are chapters - and these chapters, written by one of the three character's voice, takes the reader into a subhole of the person's life, be it work, rela...more

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Jul 28, 2011 Kristen Coppess added it

Sex-starved Canadian Palentologists sleeping with each other's spouses, commiting suicide, building models of pre-historic mammals...sound vaguely interesting. Strangely not. Atwood explores the effect each employees maternal figures played in their life choices. The characters and reactions are flawlessly believable but as the reader, I frankly didn't care. They made their beds (literally) so I don't feel for them when they face disillusionment for lying in it. I just feel bad for the parents t...more

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Mar 16, 2013 Nuria rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2013-reads

Like friends, there are some books I just click with and some I don't mind but will spend time on for the sake of it. Life Before Man fell into the latter category.

Every character in this book annoyed me, a lot - particularly Lesje and William. Never have I encountered such pathetic personalities. It seemed like after halfway through this book, by the time Nate left and whatever, it could go on forever. There were no new developments, everyone just seemed to get more and more miserable. In shor...more

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Dec 19, 2012 Jane Mackie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 20th-century-fiction

Apparently, I forgot the entire plot -- but in some ways that makes the way its imagery haunts me all the more noteworthy. There are certain scenes near the museum that remain familiar years later, and I didn't even remember that the book dealt with infidelity. While this reflects on my readership as much as it does on the book, please take my word that while this is what could be dismissively referred to as a minor work, Atwood's mastery of the language is readily apparent throughout.

That said,...more

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Jun 03, 2012 Karen rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book I would classify as challenging. Like all Atwood novels, really deep, on the darker side, truly interesting, and masterfully written. But...challenging. The story is about 3 individuals - all so self-centered and not extremely likeable. All 3 are depressed and depressing. This was my hot tub book & at one point I wanted to shove the book underwater to symbolically drown all three of the characters and symbolically put everyone out of their collective misery. So...hated the story/ch...more

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Mar 25, 2012 Tiffany rated it 3 of 5 stars

Life Before Man was tough for me to get through. The book itself is character-driven, so nothing really happens, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I failed to connect with any of the characters.

Elizabeth and Lesje, the female protagonists, are victimized by men repeatedly, even Nate, Elizabeth's husband and Lesje's lover. While Elizabeth seems to be the stronger of the two females, she still manages to get violated in a car by a panties salesman. These women just allow themselves to be c...more

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Apr 05, 2013 KOMET rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction-canada, margaret-atwood, zz-out-of-residence

This novel, set in Toronto from late 1976 to the summer of 1978, is centered around 3 people: Elizabeth & Nate Schoenhof, a married couple with 2 young daughters; and Lesje, a paleontologist more at home with dinosaurs and fossils than with most people. The Schoenhofs have been married for 10 years and find that they are not well-matched.

Elizabeth, a rather self-assured woman and museum administrator who likes to feel she can control almost any situation and exert her influence on almost an...more

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Feb 19, 2011 Ana Mardoll rated it 5 of 5 stars

Life Before Man / 0-385-49110-7

I love this novel if only because it's a visceral reminder not to judge a book by its title: I'll always remember when a young man chastised me for my choice of "feminist literature", only to blanch when I informed him that the title references a dinosaur museum!

Punch-ups aside, though Atwood is often identified as a feminist writer, she can be just as accurately described as a humanist writer: of the four main sympathetic actors in this book, two are male, and bo...more

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Jan 11, 2010 Maura rated it 3 of 5 stars

I am a huge Margaret Atwood fan. After reading her newer books, however, it was interesting to revisit one of her earlier books. My problem with this book is that it was about the relationship between three people who I found to be fairly unlikeable and unsympathetic. The book is written from three different points of views. Presumably, the three are all vying for the reader’s sympathy. In reality, I found all three to be unsympathetic. Elizabeth was mean and selfish, Nate was selfish and immatu...more

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Jun 29, 2009 Kari rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: drama

I'm not a fan of this Margaret Atwood novel. Overall, I love her work, but I was disappointed. At the end the book redeemed itself, but still it wasn't very good.
Life Before Man examines the difficulties people face in their relationships: cheating, divorce, beginning a relationship when one person has kids. In respect to these situations, the novel does well to show how people fall in and out of love. However, the novel also demonstrates how selfish these characters are; they have little conce...more

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Apr 29, 2009 Lisa rated it 2 of 5 stars

told from four different perspectives jumping back from past and future i'm having a hard time sinking into this book as with margaret's others that i've read. the story begins in the aftermath of a suicide, so the mood is so heavy and dark. it's a bit of a downer really- especially since the characters have yet to endear themselves to me. reading dark heavy stories is easy if you love the characters. so far, about 100 pages in, i have yet to even find them likable. not sure if i'll keep pushing...more

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Oct 17, 2008 Rod rated it 4 of 5 stars

Life Before Man is a bleak book. It is hard to imagine a positive outcome for any of the main characters, all of whom swap partners in the course of it, though it is hard to see why they bother since the change doesn’t bring improvement with it. . It’s a bit like reading a book by John Updike mercifully lacking the excessive sexual detail – except that the motivations of the characters and the dynamic between them is better realised.

They are all dysfunctional one way or another and the reason f...more Life Before Man is a bleak book. It is hard to imagine a positive outcome for any of the main characters, all of whom swap partners in the course of it, though it is hard to see why they bother since the change doesn’t bring improvement with it. . It’s a bit like reading a book by John Updike mercifully lacking the excessive sexual detail – except that the motivations of the characters and the dynamic between them is better realised.

They are all dysfunctional one way or another and the reason for this is always explained, usually very well. It’s as if, in their different ways, each is in thrall to the past which shaped them. You feel the book was written by a determinist and there’s no hope for any of them. Towards the end Lasje secretly abandons contraception and looks ahead to who knows what. And taking a gamble might be one way to break out of what is otherwise pre-determined. But she doesn’t like children! She’s provoked into it by her experience of Nate’s children whom she can’t even tell apart!!

Elizabeth ends up losing Nate to Lasje because her deft manipulation back-fires. Her strategies to control other people are clever but unattractive. There is the suggestion that her sister Caroline committed suicide as a child. She also has the dreadful Aunt Muriel to put up with in the absence of her alcoholic mother. But the fact she had a bad childhood, which she did, does not make her any more pleasant as an adult.

If I had to select a chapter to exemplify just how skilled the author is I would choose the chapter beginning on page 237, Wednesday June 22, 1977. It is about Lesje and how easily she is wrong-footed by events, usually involving the children (Nate and Elizabeth’s).

The book is very well written, the characters and their relationships unusually well realised.

On page 228 there is a reference to the poor quality of hotel food in Thunder Bay. I wonder what my many relatives in Thunder Bay would make of that?

I assume the title of the book is a reference to Lasje’s work in palaeontology.
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About Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood was born in 1939 in Ottawa and grew up in northern Ontario, Quebec, and Toronto. She received her undergraduate degree from Victoria College at the University of Toronto and her master's degree from Radcliffe College.

Throughout her writing career, Margaret Atwood has received numerous awards and honourary degrees. She is the author of more than thirty-five volumes of poetry, childr...more

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The Year of the Flood (MaddAddam Trilogy, #2)

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Quotes from Life Before Man

“I wish I didn't have to think about you. You wanted to impress me; well, I'm not impressed, I'm disgusted...You wanted to make damn good and sure I'd never be able to turn over in bed again without feeling that body beside me, not there but tangible, like a leg that's been cut off. Gone but the place still hurts.” — 36 people liked it

“China does not exist. Nevertheless, she longs to be there.” — 2 people liked it

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