The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood Summary and Reviews
|
List Price: Our Price: $5.78 You Save: $10.17 (64%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of The Robber Bride
Book Review: Atwood and her characters shine in this fabulous book
Summary: 5 Stars
The Robber Bride is one of those books that is thoroughly engrossing, one which creates characters and a world which we don't want to see end.The book is about 3 different, good-hearted women and the way in which their lives intersect and twist and entwine around another, powerful, sexual, and almost witch-like woman, Zenia.
First there is Roz (a wealthy, robust woman who came from money, but works hard as an executive for a magazine, is married to "Mitch," and has three chidren, two young twin girls and an older boy), then Tony (a shy, bookish history professor with a lover named West, she prefers to live in the dusty struggles of the distant past, or at least she is most comfortable there), and finally Charis, or "Karen," (a very fragile, wispy woman who lives in a run-down house on an island near the city, and who has an American draft-dodger lover, Billy, and later, a daughter, August).
What brings these women together is one woman, Zenia. Zenia is a mysterious woman, who we learn quite a bit about, (for one thing, we learn that she is incredibly powerful, and kind of like a black hole with the power to suck in unassuming men into her sexual web, no matter who they are, or what relationships existed for the men previously), but who remains a sort of shadowy enigma. Atwood makes it clear that Zenia is no ordinary woman. Through Zenia's lips come all sorts of stories about her origins. She was a Russian emigre who was a child prostitute after her mother died. She is a busty, exotic waitress who men cannot keep their eyes (or hands) (or hearts) (or declarations of undying love) off of. She is a ghost, the ghost of a woman who was killed in a far-off land while working as a photographer covering the war. She is an Eastern European goddess, with eyes and lips and a body that could sink a thousand ships. Zenia is all of these things, and many, many more. She is a mysterious, mystical force, a dark velvet magnet for the imagination, the Id of woman personified, Eve in the garden. She is also, or she can be, very, very evil, and like a storm she leaves bodies, hearts, limbs, tears, strewn behind her in her wake. She pulls a man, a woman, a Person, into her life, and then spits them out and disappears, only to appear again, in a different guise, in a different story, carrying with her the seeds of a different past, to plant them into another victim. A sort of metaphorical vampire. And the women in the book, who encounter her time and again, with years in between sometimes, swear to themselves, (and later, to each other), that this time, *this time,* they will not let her in. They know that their loves, their families, their hopes and dreams, their very lives are at stake. But it's not so easy to turn their back on her as they would like. She's the kind of person, the kind of myth, that is impossible to ignore. She is so powerful, so strong a force, that three otherwise intelligent women can't help but answer the knocking door, can't help but let her in, "just for a minute," "just for a small favor." And like the hunter that she is, Zenia worms her way inside, and greedily feeds on the marrow of all that is sacred to them, all that is theirs. Atwood creates a character here who wears a human cloak to hide the wolf inside her. Fascinating.
It's true, the book is really about the three other women, their struggles, their loves, their attempts to make a full and satisfying life for themselves in the world. To be happy with themselves, to find lasting love, or try to, to bring children into the world and create families, homes.
But the character that stuck with me, I have to say, is Zenia. I found her a fascinating creation, and proof yet again of Atwood's measurable talent as a writer and of her boundless imagination in creating her characters. Atwood is known for mixing elements of fairy tales into her work (the title of this book is even based on the fairy tale, "The Robber Bridegroom.") I think she enjoys mixing things up, and making her villain a woman, instead of a man, like we are so used to in our culture. As a feminist, I think Atwood wants to present women that are multi-faceted and not just good and quiet and motherly and sweet, like we are so often expected to be. I think Atwood fans will be delighted with this novel, and I highly recommend it to fans of feminist fiction. To enjoy this book the most, I think you have to think of Atwood as a Storyteller first (as in around the campfire, shadows everywhere, strange crackling behind you in the forest), realist fiction writer second. Zenia is a *myth*, which is what I don't think some people who've read the novel completely understood.
Book Review: Atwood at her scathing funniest
Summary: 5 Stars
Wow, this author can write so much different stuff. She writes novels, short stories, poems, and is a literary critic. Her novels range from highbrow literary, to mystery, to sci-fi. Talk about diversity.The Robber Bride is a very funny book, which you might not expect if you've read The Handmaid's Tale or Cat's Eye, both quite dark. In this book, Atwood creates a hypnotically attractive woman named Zenia who wreaks havoc everywhere. The other 3 main characters are women drawn together by their suffering at Zenia's hands and their attempts to forget her, now that she's dead. They meet occasionally for lunch - and on one of these lunch dates, in walks Zenia - quite alive, thank you.
Oh boy. Read it yourself and see what happens. In Atwood's hands, what might have been a light romance turns into a catty and witty tale of human frailty and moral choices.
Book Review: Beatiful writing, great characterisation
Summary: 4 Stars
Fantastic writing and exquisite characterisation are combined in this novel about three middle-age friends who recall their experiences with Zenia, a common friend/enemy/she-devil they encountered in different stages of their lives. Tony, Charis and Roz are wonderfully developed, but it's Zenia who is the real star here. I would have loved to read a chapter under her point of view, I'm sure Mrs. Atwood would have been up to the task!!! But perhaps this is the whole point, maybe Zenia was a sort of personification of the three friends' most deepest fears and weaknesses.But still, what shines here is the writing, which puts this book a notch above others with similar soap-operaish plots. This is a high-quality page-turner.
Book Review: Canadian women?
Summary: 4 Stars
I really enjoyed this novel (Atwood's wordplay is intoxicating), but I did find myself becoming a bit annoyed with the 'protagonists' toward the end-as they became much less real to me. I actually found myself rooting for Zenia. No American woman would have ever put up with the hell she put Charis, Roz, and Tony through. Well, an American woman never would have been gullible enough to fall for her over-the-top ruses, manipulations, and abuse in the first place. (Oh no-did I sound too much like Z. just then . . . ?)Book Review: Enthralling, but in the end not believable
Summary: 3 Stars
I fell happily asleep with this book for days. It was entertaining, intelligent, richly written. I liked the characters, who were suitably modern, reflexive, whose identities developed subtley as the book progressed. Yet in the end I found them thinner than I would have liked, and too predictable. The end made sense, but despite the wit, the characters began to disappear in trail of writers' smoke. I began to feel that after all nothing very deep was being said, it was just a cunning use of words. A facade for a hollow philosophy. Good entertainment value, nice to fall asleep with, but it didn't leave its mark.