This is the wise, unsettling, drastic story of three women whose lives share a common wound: Zenia, a woman they first met as university students in the sixties. Zenia is smart and beautiful, by turns manipulative, vulnerable - and irresistible. She has entered into their separate lives to ensnare their sympathy, betray their trust, and exploit their weaknesses. Now Zenia, thought dead, has suddenly reappeared. In this richly layered narrative, Atwood skilfully evokes the decades of the past as she retraces three women's ...
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This is the wise, unsettling, drastic story of three women whose lives share a common wound: Zenia, a woman they first met as university students in the sixties. Zenia is smart and beautiful, by turns manipulative, vulnerable - and irresistible. She has entered into their separate lives to ensnare their sympathy, betray their trust, and exploit their weaknesses. Now Zenia, thought dead, has suddenly reappeared. In this richly layered narrative, Atwood skilfully evokes the decades of the past as she retraces three women's lives, until we are back in the present - where it's yet to be discovered whether Zenia's "pure, free-wheeling malevolence" can still wreak havoc. "The Robber Bride" reports from the farthest reaches of the sex wars and is one of Margaret Atwood's most intricate and subversive novels yet.
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Add this copy of The Robber Bride to cart. $109.03, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 1993 by McClelland & Stewart.
What a juicy read this was! I certainly was not expecting a mystery with a clearly defined villain when I picked up "The Robber Bride," but that's what the novel turned out to be. The story begins with three women whose lives have been irrevocably altered by a woman who seems to haunt them like a spectre. I wasn't very far into the book before I was desperate to find out exactly WHAT this woman had done.
Zenia, the villainess who steals men (among other things) and ruins lives, embodies the fear that trust is too easily misplaced, and that some people just want to hurt people for the thrill of it. I'm not sure how realistic she is as a character, but I think that's beside the point. Roz, Tony, and Charis, the three protagonists of the book, are as real as they come, and are utterly recognizable as three variations on the everywoman.
I will say that some patience is required in reading this novel, as the narrative tends to jump back and restart itself for each woman's own story of Zenia. I went along with it, but occasionally found myself wishing that the overarching narrative thread were stronger throughout the different parts of the book.
ashleylovestoread
Jul 15, 2007
I'm not sure about this one...
After reading "The Blind Assassin" by Margaret Atwood, I was excited to read more of her stories. This one, however, just didn't excite me like "TBA." For me, it took too long to get to the actual storyline, and I find that to be pretty important in books.