#fiction 2022; ISBN: 9780857528124
Lessons in Chemistry is a fairly satisfying and entertaining book set in the 1960s, highlighting female empowerment almost from the first page. Forced to terminate her path of academic research in chemistry, thirty-year-old single mother Elizabeth Zott became a rising star of America’s most popular cooking show, Supper at Six.
Elizabeth is a very smart and talented chemist, but all she can get in the male-dominated chemical world is being suspected, suppressed, disgraced, and even destroyed. What makes this character more fictional and legendary is that she practically never sways – neither questioning herself, nor changing her firm mind about combating serious gender inequality.
This feminist thus fights against her authoritative and lewd advisor in the university, as well as the men in Hastings Research Institute – “she was not going to let some fat man at UCLA, or her boss, or a handful of small-minded colleagues keep her from achieving her goals.” Additionally, after Elizabeth is dismissed, she uses the show as a channel for teaching women in the country not only to cook but also to reform the social status quo, in a calm, rebelling, and intransigent way of her own.
The book is filled with daily conversation so readers can easily relate it to their own life. I particularly like the writer’s usage of a repetitive element: the (number-two) pencil. It can be the tool to write down the heroine’s mindful thoughts, to connect with her lover Calvin Evans, and can also be the weapon to resist her advisor’s violation. Carried by Elizabeth, the pencil could appear anywhere throughout the book, to some extent, symbolising the absolute control of her own rights as well as her attitude of never compromising.
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