Review Page: The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood
| Title: |
The Robber Bride |
| Author: |
Margaret Atwood |
| Format: |
Novel |
| Genre: |
Contemporary |
| Publisher: |
Virago Press |
| Date of Publication: |
Reissued 6 October, 1994 |
| ISBN: |
1853817228 |
No. of Reviews: 3
Av. Rating: 10/10
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15.11.2000 - Shahrazade - 9/10
List of Reviews | Bio
This is a brilliant book - definitely Atwood's best. It's tightly plotted, vividly realised and tells a fascinating and intricate story. Readers should be aware that the three protagonists are women and that the novel is an exploration of their shared histories with a mysterious fourth. But although this is a book about relationships it's not the kind of touchy-feeling women's novel that the blurb might lead you to expect. Each of the protagonists is made attractive and interesting to the reader despite wildly differing personalities and ethical standards and the result is a fascinating exploration of skilfully drawn characters.
The three protagonists, Tony, Charis and Roz, have become friends because each of them has suffered at the hands of the mercilessly self-centred and enigmatic Zenia. Zenia lies. She lies effortlessly, intelligently and inevitably. On every count she outwits and outmanoeuvres our heroines by appealing at once to the thing they most desire and the thing they most fear. The way in which she inveigles herself into their lives and robs them of what they care for the most is impressively callous. Zenia plays on people's weaknesses and has a killer instinct which her victims lack.
The novel flits backwards and forwards in time as the characters attempt to unravel the mystery of Zenia: an impossible task since the truth is deeply buried within an endless parade of misconceptions and misdirections. A cast of believable minor characters lends colour and life to the narrative and the conclusion is unexpectedly satisfactory. Closure comes in many forms and Atwood successfully avoids the traps of the obvious catharsis.
I rate The Robber Bride as 9/10 and only hold it back from the full ten marks because it is so tricky that some readers may be confused or disappointed by the ending. But for me it worked and I think that Atwood has really shown herself at the peak of her powers in this novel. Well worth the read.
16.11.2000 - Arcadian - 10/10
List of Reviews | Bio
The Robber Bride tells the story of three friends: Charis, Roz and Tony, and their interactions with a fourth woman, the black-widow like Zenia, who suddenly strides back into their lives five years after they believe they attended her funeral.
Charis is a fading idealistic hippy with a confused mysticism, a daughter on the verge of adulthood who is rejecting much of her mother's value system, and an inability to forget Billy, a draft-dodging American who left with Zenia shortly after Charis became pregnant.
Roz is the daughter of a war-time swindler who got rich on his ill-gotten gains; she's wealthy, successful and powerful, the mother of three, and still getting over the desertion of her husband Mitch, who died in despair after realising that Zenia didn't want him as much as he wanted her.
Tony - my favourite of the three - is a short, left-handed academic with an almost bloodthirsty interest in war. She shares a comfortable, somewhat melancholy marriage with West, who used to be Zenia's lover, and who once left Tony to return to her.
And Zenia. She is, variously, a White Russian, who was pimped by her mother from childhood; the rescued child of Jews arrested in Paris and the daughter of a Gypsy woman who was stoned to death. She has many stories and many faces, she steals and lies and betrays, and she insinuated her way into the lives of Tony, Charis and Roz, in turn, after investigating their weak spots. When she reappears, she brings a fresh set of stories to tell the other women when each of them in turn comes to see her.
Each woman begins by recalling how she first encountered Zenia, and around the tale of Zenia's betrayals weaves the wider story of her own life, whilst pursuing her own attempts to discover why Zenia is back and what she is doing. The narrative is beautifully structured, allowing each woman a book in which to tell her story, and gradually revealing different facets of the whole.
While Zenia is a wisp of smoke, Charis, Roz and Tony are solid, well defined, real characters whom the reader can't help but feel affection for, even as we watch them bungling towards the returned Zenia and her purpose in their lives.
This is Atwood's best book, and I'm deeply disappointed that although some of her others are excellent, they're just not as good as this. Women and their relationships are her standard territory, but this book delves deeper into them than any of her others, and makes for a more gripping read in the process. There is little in the subject matter to suggest it, but this is an exciting book, perhaps even an adventure story, and Atwood carries it off flawlessly.
1.12.2000 - Benvenuto - 10/10
List of Reviews | Bio
This is the simply-told story of three women and the ways that their lives are affected by contact with a fourth, Zenia, a sort of malevolent principle of feminine duplicity. The framing narrative starts with their meeting Zenia in middle age, having thought her dead, and is interspersed with flashbacks describing each of their histories with her. The author moves smoothly from one narrative voice to another, giving all three protagonists equal time in the spotlight. As we red through the flashbacks we learn why their reaction to her has been so extreme, and as the present-day narratives progresses we see how they are finally able to move towards a resolution of Zenia's baleful influence over them. Structurally this novel is a marvel, with every step making perfect sense in relation to the one before, covering a tremendous amount of ground and still managing to surprise the reader with turns of events.
That's not the best thing about it though: the best thing is the characters of the three women, Tony, Charis and Roz, who convince utterly. Between them they manage to convey a wide range of female Canadian experience of the 70s and 80s, but they are far from lay figures - each has her quirks, her voice, her perspective on the world, her sympathetic and annoying characteristics. I finished the book feeling I knew them as people, which is pretty unusual for me.
If The Robber Bride were just a tour of three linked lives, though, it would be interesting and worthy but not necessarily all that inspiring. What raises it up is the role of Zenia. She seems to come out of nowhere to essentially steal the protagonists' men and disrupt their lives, lies constantly about her origins, and finally disappears as inexplicably as she arrived. The title makes it clear that she is an emblematic figure from fairy-tale, although the book has only the barest of fantastical elements at the very end. Zenia is like an externalized personification of the bad things that women do to each other: she has no real existence except in relation to her victims. The three protagonists are successively screwed over by her, rebuild their lives, and eventually defeat her - but the story is more about the personal journeys they each make to overcome their inner demons. Zenia is a symbol of the threats they face, rather than a character (or even a person) in her own right. But what a symbol!
If there is a flaw in this book it is that Atwood makes no attempt to realize any of her male characters. This really is praising with faint damns, as goodness knows she's taken on enough with the females ones. The men exist solely to be used by Zenia, with no real motivation or character of their own: this is the author consciously restricting herself to the feminine point of view, rather than inability to produce real male characters, but I found it a bit weakening that all the men were so feeble, duplicitous, vicious or pathetic, yet still loved and treasured by their women.
Anyway, to sum up: read this book. It's intriguing, inspiring and beautifully constructed.