Fat In Literature
Kate wrote a piece for Powell‘s about fat characters in literature. I love fat people and literature! And I read it with great interest:
Truly fat women in books and movies are most often villains, mammies, overbearing mothers-in-law, or unlikable tertiary characters (think the irritable secretary with a box of donuts in her desk drawer). The chick lit boom brought us a handful of chubby to moderately fat heroines — the aforementioned Jones, Jemima J., Cannie Shapiro, Heather Wells — but you almost never see a non-thin female character in a mainstream novel whose weight is not a major issue for her. Jemima and Cannie struggle with their weight and eventually lose a lot of it. Bridget yo-yos within about a 10-pound, not-really-fat range, and only considers liking her slightly plumper self when a man comes along and says he does. Two of Meg Cabot’s three novels featuring “average-sized amateur investigator” Heather insist that she is “not fat” right in the title. You hear? Not fat! Don’t even think such an awful thing! Also, why the hell are a bunch of mysteries titled with references to the protagonist’s weight in the first place?
I just finished reading a cute fluffy book called Holly’s Inbox and I had the experience I often do, of trying to figure out what size the character is. She refers to herself as wanting to lose weight and being larger than a size four, but I think it’s a Bridget Jones-type situation, because she also talks about wearing a bikini at one point (dead giveaway that she’s thin). Weight is not mentioned very much at all in this book, but even when I’m reading fluff, I want to know where I stand, if you know what I mean.
So what was the last book you read with a female protagonist? What size was she? And how was it dealt with?
Posted by mo pie
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I will admit, i don’t read a lot of “chick lit” because, and I mean this in the least pretentious way possible, I find most of it fluffy and somewhat boring. I think the last piece of “female focused literature” I read was the Earth’s Children series, which was sometime ago. In that series of books the female heroine is of a pre-historic time and as such is not concerned about her weight, however I bet she was a bit chunky as she did have to brave winters in caves and such. She does have to deal with “looking different” than everyone else in her clan and most of the people she meets initially condemn her outright for being “ugly” because she does not look like them, her reaction is to defy the law of the time and not only prove herself valuable but effectively bring down her biggest detractors through use of sheer skill and clever wit. Ultimately she is seen as one of the most important people in her clan.
If you haven’t read these books, I totally recommend them as they are not only entertaining but focus on a fiercely strong and powerfully independant female character. In fact, I hope to have a daughter one day to pass these books on to so that I can give her a positive female character to look up to who is more likely to kick your ass than to gripe about her chubby butt.
i just finished reading a historical romance by lisa kleypas ‘suddenly you’ …. and after reading a zillion books about a 5.9′ , 110 pounds, tiny waist and big breasts; this was a welcome relief.
The heroine here is plump and the hero is to die for. try it. she says she is plump, he says she is lush. and the best part her figure is not the recurring topic on every second page … she is strong, opinionated and does not constantly obsess about her weight
i’m eager to read other comments so i can get good book recs :) … i love books with full figured heroines who donot get miraculously slim by the end of the book
Janet Evanovich’s numbered novels featuring bounty hunter Stephanie Plum are as close as I get to chick lit. Stephanie is a pretty ordinary-sized gal, but her kick-ass, ex-‘ho partner, Lula, is a VERY large woman with a new job but one who still shops at Ho’s Be Us
for her come-hither wardrobe. As a personality Lula is truly larger than life & a lot of fun to read.
Carol, I read those books too! Total fluffy fun, and I love Lula!
Totally OT, but how much control do you have over the ads on this site? I saw this ad http://www.flickr.com/photos/13726346@N02/3641883360/
It says something about cooking yourself thin and learning to make “skinny” food. It seems like that doesn’t belong on a website like this one.
Thanks for the alert, Samantha! Here is the peek behind the curtain: I do have it set up so BlogHer will not include any “weight loss” ads, but sometimes one slips through their filter.
I had some Weight Watchers ads on the site briefly until I noticed they were popping up. When I asked, BlogHer rectified the situation very quickly. I will let them know in this case also; thank you!
I tend to read a lot of fantasy and so in my experience with this genre when you find good female leads they have to be awesome AND thin and beautiful because they can’t be awesome without being thin and beautiful too *sigh*
I did happen to read Tamora Pierce’s series about a tall, strong, stocky girl named Keladry training to become a knight. The plots weren’t the greatest but I did like the character. I also read two relatively newish books by YA authors, one called “Fairest” by Gail Carson Levine, a sort of Snow White spin off with a fat main character trying to learn to love herself and one called “Princess Academy” by Shannon McHale where the main character is described as petite but describes all the other girls who are of all different shapes and sizes as beautiful in their own way, which was quite refreshing to read, particularly because the “Princess Academy” seemed sort of like a fantasy version of “the Bachelor” and that kind of comradeship between women in a competitive setting like that seems pretty novel.
Oooh! I love this question! :D Last book I read was Persuasion by Jane Austen and the protagonist, Anne, is noted for being plain and unattractive, partly for being too thin. She is later “improved” with “plumpness.” It’s also interesting to note that at one point the narrator describes a sailor’s plump wife as being “afflicted” (she was mourning her dead son) and says that, fair or not, there are certain “conjunctions” that are unbecoming. Being both fat and afflicted is one of them. It is more becoming to have a “graceful set of limbs” and be afflicted. Crazy, right? You can see my post on Persuasion and exercise here: http://www.feedmeimcranky.com/?p=1221
Pride & Prejudice & exercise here: http://www.feedmeimcranky.com/?p=663
Love your blog! <3
The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. I haven’t read any of the books yet, but after watching (and LOVING) the HBO series, I’m seeking them out. Precious, our herione, has what is referred to in Botswana (where the stories are set) as a “traditional figure” and is played by the beautifully radiant and very ample Jill Scott. The character is layered, intelligent, kind and is beautiful and sexy in the eyes of many.
The Goldy Schultz murder mystery novels by Diane Mott-Davidson is about as close as to “fat literature” as I get. Goldy is a caterer and although she frequently complains about her weight, doesn’t diet. She enjoys cooking, enjoys eating, and in one early novel, married a cop named Tom Schultz who always tells her she’s beautiful and doesn’t care what size she is.
I just finished re-reading She’s Come Undone, and I’m still emotionally drained. The entire (LONG) novel is based on a girl who’s had a weight problem her entire life, along with a host of other problems, and it’s one of the most compelling novels I’ve ever read. When I first found out it was written by a man (Wally Lamb) I was stunned at how realistically he captured a woman’s voice and thought process.
another YA book-in Tamora Pierce’s magic circle series, one of the characters warns another who I think is supposed to be stocky about some women “starving themselves to death trying to be something they’re not” in a pretty size acceptance way. However, this stocky character has always seemed to me to be supposed to be read as black, so there’s some significant race issues there.
I just reread for the umteenth time those parts of the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett that focus on the witches. One of the witches (Nanny Ogg) is frequently described as food-loving with a comfortable figure, but it seems that this is only described in a non-negative way because she is also old. One young witch, Agnes, is fat, and at several points it is mentioned that inside every fat girl is a thin girl and a lot of chocolate. Her thin girl inside has her own name (Perdita) and is more or less a separate character. Perdita seems to hate Agnes quite a bit, so her lines are usually bitchy. And not only is she not very nice to Agnes, she has completely opposite character traits, fantasy of being thin in action. There is also diet talk: In “Carpe Jugulum” vampires turn up and one promises Agnes weight loss when he bites her, because if she became a vampire her diet would be low-carb.
So, not even fantasy is free of stereotypes and other annoyances.
I just read _Breadfruit_, about a Tahitian woman and her family, most especially her relationship with her daughter. It has its ups and downs, but the main character is a big woman, and not bothered by it, and it actually doesn’t hold her back in any way. Perhaps because it is set in Tahiti, and she doesn’t have American cultural biases to deal with? Anyhow, it’s a good read, and is FILLED with all kinds of women, fat, thin, young, old, with it, screwed up…kind of like real life, actually.
A book I loved when I was a teen, “The Sterkarm Handshake”, has a female main character who is tall, solid, and fat. She’s mocked in her own time period (modern), but when she travels back in time to be an ambassador to a group of kind-of Scottish-highlands inspired people, the men all love her. She actually lands their most favored, handsome warrior.
I never thought about this before-but you are so RIGHT!
I find myself actually filtering what I read based on how much it offends my FA side. If there’s too much about fatty fat fat as negative I’ll just put it aside. If there’s only one or two mentions I’ll truck through it. I recently tried to read a Jennifer Weiner book (Certain Girls) and I just couldn’t past the reflection of society’s obsession with fat. I wanted to like it because Weiner is one of those fat women in public types and I want to support her and read her work, but it was just too negative. I second the mention of No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency. I only read one of the books, but I LOVE the tv show–I got HBO just for that! Some of my favorite books lately are by Tahir Shah–but they don’t really talk about women and size at all…
PLEASE read Kerry Greenwood’s Corinna Chapman books. She is FAT (not chubby, not curvy, but big old FAT and is super sexy), has a hot, hot boyfriend, a successful career (owns a bakery), lots of beloved friends, a gorgeous building she lives in, and solves mysteries in her spare time.
I think “Earthly Delights” is the first one.
There is a wonderful book of short stories called “The Strange History of Suzanne LaFleshe: And Other Stories of Women and Fatness” that I would totally recommend to everybody.
Blue Diablo by Ann Aguirre. It was an awesome book but it had a few moments that made me cringe, especially since the heroine’s weight had no bearing to the plot or character and so why was it an issue at all? There was a moment where her weight is mentioned (I think it was a whopping 120 or 130 lbs.) and she gets all defensive about how she’s retaining water but inside warns herself to stop eating so many sweets (which she is shown eating in the book, oh, practically never). She also goes out to dinner with a guy and has to eat a salad while he gets to have a potato because OMG carbs, what do you think she hates herself or something? It was ugh.
I find that many male authors write about their perfect fantasy woman: thin, ‘slender’ (god, I’m so fed up of that word in modern romances and erotica), and generally lithe.
The average fictional female weighs 120 lbs. They have no curvatures. they’re always slim, they don’t even have any lean muscle or boobs.
Jemima J nauseates me to the point of my guts exploding out of my body. Wendy McClure at Poundy.com did the best job of detailing WHY that “plus size” character is so horrible and I was very happy to see that other people besides myself find that book so awful.
I seriously think, that for my next NaNoWriMo, I need to convert my poem, “What’s the Matter, Fella, Don’t You Like Fat Chicks” to a novel. It may not be a great novel, but at least I’ll know someone wrote a novel about a fat chick *laughs*.
I have mixed feelings on the Heather Wells books (“Size 12 is Not Fat,” etc.) On the one hand, I enjoy mysteries like that. I also think that in theory the “not fat” in the titles tries to make a point in spite of the negative connotation given to the word fat. On the other hand the descriptions of what she eats/her behavior are over the top – the one that particularly bothers me is the idea that the character takes baths instead of showers so she doesn’t have to do any extra standing. Definitely perpetuates stereotypes…
I actually like Cannie Shapiro (“Good in Bed,” “Certain Girls”). She does lose weight in the first book, but it’s not at all glorified. (For those who haven’t read it, she loses weight after a trauma because of depression.) She also does gain the weight back, winds up happy, and gets the guy. Jemima J semi-acknowledges that what she’s doing isn’t healthy, but ends with her still thin. And if I remember correctly, there’s a sense of “but it’s OK because she goes from being too thin and sort of anorexic to a little bit heavier so she’s perfect thin and not as anorexic. Hooray!”
Is anyone else familiar with Jonathan Kellerman books? (Also mysteries, I call them the literary equivalent of CSI or Law & Order). In describing characters’ ages he often comments that “fat is a great wrinkle filler.” That always bothers me a bit, but he also has a (male) character in most of them who’s supposed to be fat and is something around 6′ and 240 lbs. Oh yeah, huge….
Years ago I was attending a conference and the Keynote speaker was Sue Ann Jaffarian, a writer who has a series of mystery novels featuring a plus-sized heroine. I picked up a couple of her books (the first one is “Too Big to Miss”), but haven’t read them yet (though I intend to), so I can’t really comment on how fat girls are represented, but maybe someone here might like to check out her work.
“The Other Side of the Story” by Marian Keyes (only chicklit author I like) has a plus-sized heroine, Jojo. She’s portrayed as hugely successful, attractive and is generally fabulous. Her weight is not a plot point at all. It’s awesome.
This thread makes me want to start a book club! I totally want to read some of these!!
In Tamora Pierce’s Magic Circle books, the one who describes herself as “fat” is the redhead, though given that they’re still kids in the first book and none of the covers seem to show her as such, it’s probably just “mildly pudgy” leftover baby fat or getting womanly curves earlier, more along the lines of “Bridget Jones fat”. But it is the only example aside from “She’s Come Undone” that I can remember with a fictional main female character who’s not explicitly stated or assumed to be either thin, or if of average weight, all muscle.
This doesn’t count 100% since it was a movie based on a book but… I just watched Sleeping Murder (an Miss Marple mystery) and Dawn French (probably at her heaviest) played a side character in the movie. She was presented as very pretty. Her weight was never mentioned.
It was not considered extraordinary that her character was married to a very handsome man or that there was one other man in love with her (as he fathered her child) or that her husband thought that a 3rd man was as well. Nobody was shocked or surprised that she would have garnered the adoration of multiple men. It was accepted as an ordinary fact along with all of the other ordinary facts in the movie.
In the little wrap-up at the end of the movie, the basic implication is that she ends up with both the husband and the lover or at least that both of them love her so much that they will put up with each other.
So, not really sticking with the request but if you get a chance to watch it, I would recommend it. It made me all squee-y happy to see Dawn French play a character that is presented as beautiful and aware of her beauty and her sex appeal.
In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Aunt Marge is a fat woman who is depicted as a grotesque character who has an endless appetite for cruelty.
In The River Midnight, there is a merchant character named Misha, who is “as big as any man and just as strong.” She’s depicted as a fat, robust character who enjoys a hotly sexual dalliance with a respected man in the village.
We talked about Harry Potter back in the day in case you’re interested!
in emma donoghue‘s excellent novel hood the protagonist, pen, is fat and pretty great. it’s a really cool story, and donoghue neatly interweaves pen’s understanding of herself as a (closeted) queer person and as a large woman. there’s this sense that pen doesn’t think her body is “correct” much in the same way that she thinks her sexuality isn’t: she seems to accept and even cherish both on her own, but always with an air of guilty belief that she isn’t the way she’s “supposed to be”. i won’t give away any more, except to tell you that pen begins to see herself differently by the end of the novel and it’s a fantastic read.
also, as a follow-up to the previous comment about wally lamb’s novel she’s come undone: i agree with kim that it’s a compelling read and i too was amazed at the author’s insights. however, as i recall the lead character becomes fat as an adolescent coping with the trauma of being raped, and she loses the weight once she is older and partnered (with a man). it seems a bit too cliched, and fuels the stereotype that fat people are fat due to psychological distress.
in addition, i have a problem with the scene in which the protagonist is sexually assaulted by a queer woman, whose unwanted sexual advances are very oddly combined with a session of binge eating. fat is an interesting issue in the queer community, especially due to the homophobic stereotypes of queer women being queer simply because we’re too ugly to get a man. so, while i think it was an interesting plot device to show that women too can be sexual predators, i really didn’t like the way that this was framed: it seemed to further equate food and eating with negativity, guilt, abuse, and mindfuckery.
also, see Zami: A New Spelling of My Name, a memoir-novel by audre lorde. she states her fatness as a matter of fact, and is as strong a hero as any of us could ask for.
hey, we do need a bookclub… or maybe a list somewhere on this site, of recommended fat-friendly novels?
Coincidentally, the last book I read fits this theme: The Little Giant of Aberdeen County by Tiffany Baker. The narrator, Truly, is very tall and “solid” from birth (at one point she is misdiagnosed with a form of acromegaly) and later becomes obese as well. The cover of the UK edition shows a plus-sized female dressmaker’s form.
I read this book partly with an eye to how it would deal with these things, and I was interested to find that Truly’s isolation from others in her small town is more tied up with her height and perceived lack of femininity. Her domineering and creepy brother-in-law, a doctor, comments unkindly on her weight, but she sees it as just one way in which she’s different, not the main way.
Truly has a sister who is beautiful and desired, and she’s described as “plump”, although from the context this is clearly just “not skinny”.
Does Truly lose all the weight? No, although she does lose some – no spoiler, it’s mentioned in Chapter 1. But she doesn’t become skinny and “normal” (“Don’t get me wrong: I was still me”) and the process of her empowerment and independence from her brother-in-law begins before she “begins to shrink”, and is not directly tied up with it.
On the whole, I thought Baker dealt with the issues pretty well. I would have found it unconvincing if Truly hadn’t experienced any adverse comments, but the characters who make them are well-established as unpleasant people, and Truly’s own attitudes to her body are complex and quite convincing.
I’m currently reading the Josephine Fuller mysteries by Lynne Murray, and ZOMG!!! They’re pretty awesome! Jo’s a fat chick, who’s accepted it and lives her life, I’m enjoying them.