I am currently reading The Pumpkin Eater by Penelope Mortimer. An excellent Christmas present from my very good bumblebee companion. It is not about pumpkins at all albeit the Pumpkin themed title, insinuating a pumpkin is to be consumed.There is an amazing nursery rhyme about pumpkins, oh and the cover is mostly orange. The story is about a women who is addicted to having children, and her coping mechanisms with dealing with a philandering husband. Maybe it is called The Pumpkin Eater, as eating pumpkins is a metaphor for addiction as her addiction to children is like my addiction to eating pumpkins!
The simply suggestive poetic lines really capture Mrs Armitage's collapsing world and fragility. The book has also been converted to screen by Harold Pinter.
Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater,
Had a wife and couldn't keep her.
He put her in a pumpkin shell
And there he kept her very well.
I love this poem, I like the light rhythm echoing a limerick style soft beat. Such a dainty metaphor for being entrapped inside a pumpkin!
Although I wouldn't complain!
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