God like a radish

I'm back to reading Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin. I took a break from it for a lighter book or two. Needed a diversion from its dark brilliance.

But I'm back now, and quotes jump off page after page.

One section about Christmas gifts is a good illustration. The protagonist, and old lady retelling the story of her life, describes a plum pudding she received as being made of molasses and caulking compound. The same person also gave her a two-dimensional painted wooden cat with a halo and angel wings. The giver suggested that it would look nice hanging over the stove.

Here's the paragraph which follows this setup:

"Good position, I told her. Angel above, and a carnivorous angel too -- high time they came clean on that subject! Oven below, as in all the most reliable accounts. Then there's the rest of us in between, stuck in Middle Earth, on the level of the frying pan. Poor Myra was baffled, as she always is by theological discourse. She likes her God plain -- plain and raw, like a radish."