Tuesday, September 27, 2005
Book Review: The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood
Writing Style-7.5
Originality-7.0
Plot-6.6
Literary Merit(whatever that means)-6.7
Overall-7.0
This was a surprisingly fun read. There are many books that are sometimes a chore to read but then you really appreciate them after you are finished, and then there are books that are super fun to read but then you don’t feel like you got much out of the whole experience when you’re done and looking back on it. This book is more of the latter.
I’m not real sure what the point of the book is. Basically, it is about three very different women who became friends in college and have kept in touch since. They were brought together and have kept up with one another mainly through their relations with a fourth female named Zenia. Zenia is a pretty bad person. She tricks each of the three women into letting her into their lives (and their houses) and then steals their men.
The book is almost simply a character study of the three women. One is a very intelligent, scholarly person who is a history professor that focuses on military history. The second is kind of flighty, works in a new age type of shop, and believes in astrology, eastern mysticism, that kind of stuff. And the third is also intelligent, but more street smarts than scholarly. She is very successful in business and has a high-powered CEO type of job. Each of them has an intriguing story from their past that perhaps sheds light on their current relationships and the way they lead their lives.
So, it seemed almost as though the point was to study these three women and the shortcomings that they perceived in themselves when reflected against the superior (in terms of “winning”, meaning fooling them and stealing their men), but duplicitous, Zenia.
It should be pointed out that we never learn exactly who Zenia truly is. She morphs into whatever the other person wants her to be. She changes into whatever will gain trust or pity or whatever she needs in order to get her into each of the women’s good graces. She will also become whatever each of the women’s spouses or lovers want her to be to make them fall in love with her.
I kept waiting for an epiphany about what Atwood might be trying to say with this novel but it never really came. One particular excerpt stood out in which I thought there might be something to grasp hold of.
[“The Other Woman will soon be with us,” the feminists used to say. But how long will it take thinks Roz, and why hasn’t it happened yet?
Meanwhile the Zenias of this world are abroad in the land, plying their trade, cleaning out male pockets, catering to male fantasies. Male fantasies, male fantasies, is everything run by male fantasies? Up on 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. The Zenias of this world have studied this situation and turned it to their own advantage; they haven’t let themselves be moulded into male fantasies, they’ve don it themselves. They’ve slipped sideways into dreams; the dreams of women too, because women are fantasies for other women, just as they are for men. But fantasies of a different kind.]
There is also an epilogue in which Atwood talks briefly about the purpose of The Robber Bride. She talks about how feminism should not just be about how women can be just as good at anything as men, but how they can also be really bad and do dastardly things.
[“Where have all the Lady Macbeths gone? Gone to Ophelias, every one, leaving the devilish tour-de-force parts to be played by bass-baritones.” Or, to put it another way: If all women are well behave by nature—or if we aren’t allowed to say otherwise for fear of anifemaleism—then they are deprived of moral choice, and there isn’t much left for them to do in books except run away a lot. Or, to put it another way: Equality means equally bad as well as equally good.]
But it seems to me that there already exists a sexy bitch man-eater stereotype in literature that male authors masochistically love to write about and other feminists typically rant against. So, I was kind of confused by this because Zenia is precisely this type of character. I felt that the novel was more about the 3 women as contrasted with Zenia and their flaws in dealing with her which are a result of their early (childhood) experiences with men and end up allowing Zenia to steal the men that they are currently in a relationship with.
Regardless of what the book is about or what it says to you as a reader, it’s a riveting read. Atwood is a phenomenal writer and the book was really a page turner for me because she is such a good storyteller that it really didn’t matter that the plot is jumpy and I couldn’t find a consistent theme.
Everyone MUST read A Handmaid’s Tale at some point as it is destined to be a classic. So, if you haven’t then start there. But, if you have read it, then don’t be timid in picking up The Robber Bride. Its quality shit.
Originality-7.0
Plot-6.6
Literary Merit(whatever that means)-6.7
Overall-7.0
This was a surprisingly fun read. There are many books that are sometimes a chore to read but then you really appreciate them after you are finished, and then there are books that are super fun to read but then you don’t feel like you got much out of the whole experience when you’re done and looking back on it. This book is more of the latter.
I’m not real sure what the point of the book is. Basically, it is about three very different women who became friends in college and have kept in touch since. They were brought together and have kept up with one another mainly through their relations with a fourth female named Zenia. Zenia is a pretty bad person. She tricks each of the three women into letting her into their lives (and their houses) and then steals their men.
The book is almost simply a character study of the three women. One is a very intelligent, scholarly person who is a history professor that focuses on military history. The second is kind of flighty, works in a new age type of shop, and believes in astrology, eastern mysticism, that kind of stuff. And the third is also intelligent, but more street smarts than scholarly. She is very successful in business and has a high-powered CEO type of job. Each of them has an intriguing story from their past that perhaps sheds light on their current relationships and the way they lead their lives.
So, it seemed almost as though the point was to study these three women and the shortcomings that they perceived in themselves when reflected against the superior (in terms of “winning”, meaning fooling them and stealing their men), but duplicitous, Zenia.
It should be pointed out that we never learn exactly who Zenia truly is. She morphs into whatever the other person wants her to be. She changes into whatever will gain trust or pity or whatever she needs in order to get her into each of the women’s good graces. She will also become whatever each of the women’s spouses or lovers want her to be to make them fall in love with her.
I kept waiting for an epiphany about what Atwood might be trying to say with this novel but it never really came. One particular excerpt stood out in which I thought there might be something to grasp hold of.
[“The Other Woman will soon be with us,” the feminists used to say. But how long will it take thinks Roz, and why hasn’t it happened yet?
Meanwhile the Zenias of this world are abroad in the land, plying their trade, cleaning out male pockets, catering to male fantasies. Male fantasies, male fantasies, is everything run by male fantasies? Up on 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. The Zenias of this world have studied this situation and turned it to their own advantage; they haven’t let themselves be moulded into male fantasies, they’ve don it themselves. They’ve slipped sideways into dreams; the dreams of women too, because women are fantasies for other women, just as they are for men. But fantasies of a different kind.]
There is also an epilogue in which Atwood talks briefly about the purpose of The Robber Bride. She talks about how feminism should not just be about how women can be just as good at anything as men, but how they can also be really bad and do dastardly things.
[“Where have all the Lady Macbeths gone? Gone to Ophelias, every one, leaving the devilish tour-de-force parts to be played by bass-baritones.” Or, to put it another way: If all women are well behave by nature—or if we aren’t allowed to say otherwise for fear of anifemaleism—then they are deprived of moral choice, and there isn’t much left for them to do in books except run away a lot. Or, to put it another way: Equality means equally bad as well as equally good.]
But it seems to me that there already exists a sexy bitch man-eater stereotype in literature that male authors masochistically love to write about and other feminists typically rant against. So, I was kind of confused by this because Zenia is precisely this type of character. I felt that the novel was more about the 3 women as contrasted with Zenia and their flaws in dealing with her which are a result of their early (childhood) experiences with men and end up allowing Zenia to steal the men that they are currently in a relationship with.
Regardless of what the book is about or what it says to you as a reader, it’s a riveting read. Atwood is a phenomenal writer and the book was really a page turner for me because she is such a good storyteller that it really didn’t matter that the plot is jumpy and I couldn’t find a consistent theme.
Everyone MUST read A Handmaid’s Tale at some point as it is destined to be a classic. So, if you haven’t then start there. But, if you have read it, then don’t be timid in picking up The Robber Bride. Its quality shit.
