I finished read “Eleanor Rigby” by Douglas Coupland the other day. I haven’t read anything by him in a while and I actually enjoyed it quite a bit, although I’ll admit I had to look up the lyrics to the Beatles’ song of the same name in order to understand the significance of the title. I’m just not the audiophile my husband is.

All in all I’d say the book was worth the read. But there was something about the main character that didn’t sit right with me. I think that it may be because the main character was a woman and she was created by a man. Of course, I’m not saying that authors can not create authentic characters of the opposite gender. However, I felt like I had a hard time identifying with this female character. Now could that be because her life was very different from mine? I suppose it might be difficult for me to identify with a single woman in her mid-thirties who is exceedingly lonely. But I didn’t feel like that was what didn’t sit right. It seemed like she was what a man would imagine a lonely woman would be like. Her personality and her attitude toward the world just didn’t seem entirely “female” to me.

I have tried to examine why I felt that way. Do I have preconceived notions of what femininity is or how a woman should think or feel? Probably. But I tried really hard to leave those aside and I just didn’t feel like this woman sounded like any woman I’ve ever encountered. It’s very possible there are women like her out there and that my experience is very limited to women who are similar to me. But no matter how I look at it, there was just this undefinable “something” that wasn’t quite believable about her. Nonetheless, I did enjoy reading it and would recommend it. I’d like to hear what other women think about “Liz Dunn”.