I have been given a reprieve on stepping up to play lead piano in the pit for the show I'm working on. The issue was pushed even after I calmly explained to the director that for the amount of time I have to dedicate to arrangements and teaching, there was no way in one month I could play the entire score well enough for the production. Now I've been told to take private lessons to do it next year since the director has no intentions of rehiring a double-booking piano player. The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood, Part 3 Atwood's influence can be seen in many other projects. Most obviously, novels like Surfacing and Lady Oracle feature a similar detachment from the primary characters, exaggerated rhetoric, and dry layered writing capable of eliciting a laugh at seemingly inopportune times. Another obvious area of influence comes from her own work in reclaiming the literature of Canada and bringing it out into the greater public sphere. CanLit exists, to a certain extent, due to the earlier successes of Atwood and her Canadian contemporaries in prose and poetry. Similar styles of writing, detachment from characters, unusual subject matter, heightened sensibilities, etc., can be seen in a wide variety of prose, including one of my favorite novels of all time, Geek Love by Katherine Dunn. Advertising gags and commentary similar to The Edible Woman can be seen in novels like The Learners by Chip Kidd. While the works that followed Atwood's debut novel may be coincidentally connected, the success of The Edible Woman certainly influenced the literary landscape. One of the more unique areas Atwood's novel may have influenced is the approach to detachment in film. A film like In My Skin, about a woman who is so obsessed with her career and doing everything right that she loses the connection to herself and changes her life forever thanks to a cut on her leg, might not exist without the character arc presented in The Edible Woman. And, as a final disturbing example of Atwood's influence through The Edible Woman: Atwood fans have been known to hold parties where they reenact the penultimate scene of The Edible Woman as a centerpiece to their celebration. Visit again on Tuesday for a new topic. And try your hand at The Edible Woman. It's a fun, quick read. On a final note, here is the closest Margaret Atwood has ever come to extensively investigating a sport, ala Joyce Carol Oates' On Boxing.