Yay or Nay?: The Robber Bride (Novel)

“Male fantasies, male fantasies, is everything run by male fantasies? Upon a pedestal or down on your knees, it's all a male fantasy: that you're strong enough to take what they dish out, or else too weak to do anything about it. Even pretending you aren't catering to male fantasies is a male fantasy: pretending you're unseen, pretending you have a life of your own, that you can wash your feet and comb your hair unconscious of the ever-present watcher peering through the keyhole, peering through the keyhole in your own head, if nowhere else. You are a woman with a man inside watching a woman. You are your own voyeur.”

Meghan: I'm really happy I get to start the first review of Margaret Atwood May with this book. I love Atwood's work, it fits right in with the style of writing I like to do, and read. It's really weird though. While most people know her two most popular novels: Alias Grace and The Handmaid's Tale I like her less known novels better. My absolute favourite, however, is one I'll be doing with Olga later in the month, The Blind Assassin. I read it during my travels in Europe last summer, and it's provided me with some new ways of going about story writing.

The Robber Bride, however, makes my top three favourites of Atwood's work. She has such a great way and unique way of structuring her stories that you can't help but be intrigued from the start of the novel. 

The Story

“How old do you have to get before wisdom descends like a plastic bag over your head and you learn to keep your big mouth shut? Maybe never. Maybe you get more frivolous with age.”

The story begins with three old friends, Tony (Antonia), Charis, and Roz meeting for lunch at their favourite restaurant, "The Toxique". At the same time, they see their old friend, and now nemesis, Zenia, walk through the doors of the restaurant. This is problematic, you see because Zenia supposedly died four years ago. 

From this point, Atwood takes the reader back showing the perspectives of each individual woman, to how they got to the point they're at now, and how Zenia managed to interfere with each of them. 

Essentially, this is the modern, gender-swapped version of the fairy-tale The Robber Bridegroom" in where a man takes his brides away only to kill them. Instead, Zenia, the "Robber Bride" devours (metaphorically), each woman's life and love, until they become the hardened women they are. 

A Show of Humanity's Darkest Sides

“Every ending is arbitrary because the end is where you write The end. A period, a dot of punctuation, a point of stasis. A pinprick in the paper: you could put your eye to it and see through, to the other side, to the beginning of something else. Or, as Tony says to her students, Time is not a solid, like wood, but a fluid, like water or the wind. It doesn't come neatly cut into even-sized length, into decades and centuries. Nevertheless, for our purposes, we have to pretend it does. The end of any history is a lie in which we all agree to conspire.”

One of the best things about this novel is that it does not hesitate to show some of the darkest sides of the characters, in Zenia especially and in others. For Tony, she's a university professor teaching history, whose husband fell in love with Zenia, and is literally obsessed by her. When she comes around, Wes (Tony's partner) is gone. But when she leaves him, he's always heartbroken, running back to Tony like a lovesick puppy. Tony knows she's second-best to him, even though she loved him and took care of him. Even though Zenia was once her close friend. 

For Tony, she alludes Zenia to being like the plague, or a historical figure: 

“The story of Zenia ought to begin when Zenia began. It must have been someplace long ago and distant in space, thinks Tony; someplace bruised, and very tangled. A European print, hand-tinted, ochre-coloured, with dusty sunlight and a lot of bushes in it- bushes with thick leaves and ancient twisted roots, behind which, out of sight in the undergrowth and hinted at only by a boot protruding, or a slack hand, something ordinary but horrifying is taking place.” 

This becomes one of the only ways she can cope with thinking about Zenia. She's an event, the ultimate undead, and dead character. A storm which comes to threaten Tony's peace at every turn. Tony is strong and stoic, but Zenia hits at her weaknesses. It becomes a battle, a manifestation of hate. 

But it becomes Tony who must end Zenia, and affirm her as the "Robber Bride". 

I actually found this better to read than a description of her, because it's harder to picture something, but much easier to picture a personality (in my mind). Personality is what is reinforced, but appearances change. 

For each character, Zenia is something different, but the same. For Charis, she once was a sweet but naive woman who took Zenia under her wing, only to get burned. For Roz, they were business partners, and she also got burned by Zenia. 

They are all brought together by Zenia and this is the coolest part. Seeing how Zenia spun a web relating them all to one another is truly extraordinary. But it also shows the capacity for Zenia as a compulsive liar, manipulator, and just a plain bitch. She's shaped them and their lives in indescribable ways. She's a real-life villain, and you do not want to meet her in your life, but likely people like Zenia exist. And as Tony studies history, their history keeps repeating itself. Zenia is the ghost that will not rest. She is a constant in these poor women's lives. 

Charis, for example, must learn to be strong and hardened on the outside, even if it's not her character. She has the urge to be kind, but because of how Zenia treated her, she's weary (and to be honest, her life was destroyed and manipulated by Zenia the most). Zenia keeps coming back to devour her because Charis is manipulated into it. It's grisly, it's gritty, but unfortunately, it's somewhat similar to real-life. It's about how people shape other people's lives, and how much one incident can affect them.

“Karen wasn't hard, she was soft, too soft. A soft touch. Her hair was soft, her smile was soft, her voice was soft. She was so soft there was no resistance. Hard things sank into her, they went right through her, and if she made a real effort, out the other side. Then she didn't have to see them or hear them, or even touch them.”

Charis was one of my favourite stories to read. Her development is probably the most tragic, as Zenia's hold on her was a friendship of emotional abuse (at least to me). The quote above aptly describes her, and she re-visions herself as "Charis", the hardened version of "Karen". It's the only way she can become more "hardened" to match with Zenia, but it's her personal development to do that, which becomes harder for her. But this is all as a result of Zenia, to which her family and life she knew are thrown to pieces. 

“Charis herself gave up Christianity a long time ago. For one thing, the Bible is full of meat: animals being sacrificed, lambs, bullocks, doves. Cain was right to offer up the vegetables, God was wrong to refuse them. And there's too much blood: people in the Bible are always having their blood spilled, blood on their hands, their blood licked up by dogs. There are too many slaughters, too much suffering, too many tears.

She used to think some of the Eastern religions would be more serene; she was a Buddhist for a while before she discovered how many hells they had. Most religions are so intent on punishment.”

It's in the language. That's one of Atwood's best strengths. The way she portrays each character through words really helps to solidify what they are like. Karen is soft, but Charis is like "blood". But even then, Charis might not be enough. Zenia will still manage to make her vulnerable. 

The pacing of each woman's life is slow and building, but still realistic and believable. Atwood lets you really become these characters and get a feel for them. I bonded with these women and when Zenia did something to them, I felt the anger at her too. It's truly amazing how well-written and well-done this novel is. 

Relatable Content (Let Me Explain) + Cons 

So, one of the things I keep mentioning throughout this review is that each woman has something relatable about her. I'll keep this short and sweet, but as I also keep saying, Zenia is not an unrealistic villain, and none of us are strangers to being manipulated, or used, as these women are. 

This goes on a deeper level. We can all remember how much being used affected us and if it changed us to any degree. Similarly, these women go through that, so I couldn't help but feel a pang of sympathy and defensive nature towards the three main characters. Characterization is super strong in this novel, so you'll have no trouble getting invested there. You may even find yourself projecting your own past onto these characters, which is why I liked it as well.

However, this novel is long, it's +500 pages, and due to Atwood's descriptive and slow start to her stories, it might throw the reader off, or bore them in the beginning. The structure of the novel is a little unique so it might be hard to follow at first. A key point here, and with all of Atwood's novels, is patience. 

I can understand that might not be every reader's cup of tea, so this may not be your thing, but I would encourage you to stick with it. It'll be really rewarding. I know this book took me a couple weeks to take on, and I can also see that the descriptive nature might hinder interest, or be plain confusing to understand. 

My Rating 

So, after all, this brings me to my rating. This is such a good novel, story-wise and character-wise. It's smart and clever, which is rather hard to find in some books these days. At the same time, it's long and sometimes convoluted to understand due to its complex nature. 

Considering this, my rating is: ⭐⭐⭐ 1/2

It's a definite YAY! 

Although three and a half stars (which is good, and meets all my expectations, exceeding in some), you should definitely buy it if you have some spare change, or borrow from the local library! You won't regret it! 

~Meghan