The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Robber Bride
Book Review: a female bonding soap opera saved by brilliant writing..
Summary: 3 Stars
Margaret Atwood is clearly amongst the most talented writers of modern fiction today. When her gift is matched with a wonderful story, as with her recent "The Blind Assassin", the reader is truly in for wonderful entertainment (yes, I really loved that book). However when the story is marginal, as with "The Robber Bride", one is left with a feeling that a great opportunity was wasted."The Robber Bride" is about three middle-aged women, each a bit unique (ie, odd) in their own way, whose lives have been changed for the worse by their evil "friend" Zenia. Zenia, who is of course both beautiful and intelligent, snatches boyfriends/husbands, deals in drugs, steals money, lies, etc - she is one larger-than-life monster. The story opens where these three women meet five years after the Zenia's funeral. While having their regular social in walks Zenia (!). And then Atwood gives us the full story on Zenia, the three women, ... and finally the mystery is unravelled.
While Atwood does entertain us with fine prose and well-developed characters, "The Robber Bride" is almost comical in its rather contrived story. Worse, she resorts to throwing many male (and female) stereotypes into the stew. Examples: all men are victims of gorgeous "femme fatales", women are either weak or they are wicked, ... and Ms. Atwood throws in a perverted uncle for good measure.
Bottom line: entertaining in an outrageous sort of way. Margaret Atwood has matured since completing "The Robber Bride", so I suggest going after those novels first. However this book is certainly not bad; female readers looking for a Jackie Collins-type of novel with panache will certainly enjoy "The Robber Bride".
Book Review: a gilded lily of a novel
Summary: 3 Stars
This is my fifth foray into Margaret Atwood territory. The journey began with The Handmaid's Tale, during a trip to Sicily, and continued with Oryx and Crake, Alias Grace, The Edible Woman, and then The Robber Bride. By far, this is the longest I've ever taken to complete an Atwood novel.
Just having wrapped this one up last night, here are some thoughts, and a plot spoiler or two. Zenia, the antagonist, is a man-eater with a gift for well-crafted lies, and a Shakespearian sense of treachery and tragedy. One man commits suicide, another is deported back to the U.S., and another is psychologically emasculated. Their three spouses form a comraderie, licking each others' wounds and forming a safety net for one another.
The most shocking tale of cunning is when Zenia shows up at Charis' doorstep with a black eye, pretending to have cancer. That was the biggest sucker-punch in the whole book.
Taken as a whole, this novel has customary flashes of Atwood brilliance, but is just too bogged down at several points. Of the three women, I liked Tony the most. Normally, anything related to military strategy bores me to death, yet I found myself caught up in Tony's fascination with war. If anything, this added the most thrust to the plot. The next most-interesting is Roz, a poor little rich girl who is self-loathes and has a strong feminist streak. As for Charis, her pajamas-and-fuzzy-pink-slippers brand of New Age spirituality wears thin quickly.
With such an unwieldly plot, Atwood spends less time ornamenting her prose. Unlike Alias Grace or The Handmaid's tale, or even The Edible Woman, there aren't too many sentences that made me want to stop to relish. Some wonderful passages surface, such as Roz's thoughts on naming lipstick shades after rivers. Still, this is a dish in need of more of that seasoning.
Yes, there is also some fierce humor; I laughed aloud when Zenia was described as an "upmarket slut," and the "robber broad."
I wonder if a little more editing would have made of a masterpiece of this sometimes-dull novel.
Book Review: blah 2....
Summary: 3 Stars
As with other disappointed readers, I am finding this book very blah. I'm slogging through it, hoping to find another book soon that I will enjoy more. Maybe it's the "Canadian thing." The characters never really sparkle; they are a bit too shlumpy for me, and the writing (and some of the characters' pecadillos) seem contrived, like Atwood threw them in to "flavor" the book - but who cares? It's a little like a stew that looks good, should be good, but has some flavors that are just 'wrong.' And the reviewers here are correct: who in the heck is Zenia and why should we care about what she did to these rather self-centered ho-hum women? One reviewer was so right on about the stereotyping of these women. I want really rock-solid individuals in a novel. Nothing seems terribly important. The descriptions of Roz's twins and her son and his girlfriend actually do (unlike what one reviewer said) border on the sentimental. Too cutesy, their puppy-dog-like behaviors or, in the case of her son Larry, rather limp ones and his stereotypical girlfriends to boot - left a taste in my mouth, of an artifically-sweetened pastry. I have read three Atwood novels now and just don't care for them particularly. Yes, the writing is great - it's great, contrived writing. I'm always so aware of it - too aware. It's a self-conscious "good writing" style. But many people love her, so don't go by me. You'll probably love it.Book Review: great
Summary: 5 Stars
One of Margaret Atwood's best. A compelling, suspenseful story of three friends who are thrown for a loop when an old friend they all thought was dead suddenly reappears in their lives.Book Review: intensity comes from all the history
Summary: 2 Stars
Ms. Atwood knows how to craft a good story. The intensity comes from all the history. The main character is a historian, and it is from her that a lot of the true insights come from.
I must admit I skimmed a lot of the story. I am not interested in abused or used women or men, so their stories, while, my wife read them and liked the story more than I did, just were not worth my while to read thoroughly. It was, however a truly interesting book. I liked what she wrote about history, it has no beginning or end, just arbitrarily given starting and end points. For us normal people, our personal history is so really there, we can not avoid it, trauma or not, even the death of perpetrators does not make it go away, we will remember for the rest of our lives our history.
The story is set in Toronto, Canada. Three girls attend college and live in the same dorm, in the mid sixties. At that time only one, Tony, knows Zenia well. The others know of her and, later, get to know her as well as Tony, for the same reason. Zenia is bad news for these three girls.
The story is mixed with the histories of each of the girls getting her turn to remember their past and into the present. This where you hear of the abuse and sadness each has suffered and where I could just scream at them, "Take a chance!! Do something for yourself!!" But, hey, I am not there going through what they are (even they are not there, this is fiction), so I do not feel right in correcting them. It is hard to say that I would truly act any differently, but I do not have to read it throughly.