AEG Cassie's food choices

Dave Tallman · 21 Sep 2009, 16:10 · from 2009-September.txt.gz

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From: davetallman at msn.com (Dave Tallman)
Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2009 10:10:30 -0600
Subject: (urth)  AEG Cassie's food choices
In-Reply-To: <4AB5C60E.2050903 at gmail.com>
References: <4AB5C60E.2050903 at gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4AB7A576.3020205 at gmail.com>

I was puzzling over Cassie's statement that she didn't think she would 
ever eat fish or fruit again (288). It seemed inconsistent with my 
theory that she was Margaret, since Margaret had fruit and yogurt for 
breakfast every day.

But Cassie constantly changes her mind about what she will and won't 
eat. She accepts anchovy toast from Klauser, and seems to really enjoy 
it. So much for the fish resolution. It seems to be a red herring.

It would be interesting to track all the things Cassie eats. She 
declares she is watching her weight, and will eat nothing but "cooked 
veggies, raw veggies, bottled water, and maybe a little fruit" (p. 135). 
But all the way through the book she breaks this resolution. She orders 
double sherbet papaya delight (p. 27), a hot pastrami sandwich with lots 
of meat (p. 54), anchovy fritters (p. 61), cookies (p. 142), rock 
lobster in drawn butter (p. 228), and other fattening treats. Yet she 
does stay very thin, even while she thinks of herself as fat. It makes 
me think she might be bulimic.

In any case, she could easily get over her fruit aversion after a 
reasonable period of time (just as she is shown to have gotten over her 
fish aversion) so it's no bar to her being Margaret.

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