Details
Synopsis
Atwood's novel is about Zenia, a ruthless master manipulator, and the wounds she has inflicted--by stealing their men--on three other women: Tony, a scholar; Charis, an aging flower child; and Roz, a business executive.
| Size | | Height: | 7.0 in | | Width: | 4.5 in | | Thickness: | 1.2 in | | Weight: | 8.8 oz |
Publisher's Notes
First Line: "The story of Zenia ought to begin when Zenia Began."
Industry Reviews
"[A]s smart as anything Ms. Atwood has written...[her] funniest and most companionable book in years."
New York Times Book Review - Lorrie Moore
"Ms. Atwood makes her characters believable, as she does the men whom they inexplicably value--for not one of those fellows could be trusted even to put out the garbage. The settings, from bohemian Toronto to a rundown farm to a college building mustily devoted to 'worthy but impoverished departments,' are as clearly evoked as the characters. The amoral, spiteful, ruthlessly self-interested Zenia is almost too bad to be true, but she represents all the impulses that Tony, Roz and Charis have repudiated or suppressed. Good women, in Ms. Atwood's view, are their own enemies, and whether one agrees with her opinion or not, she has written a brilliantly intelligent novel to support it."
Atlantic Monthly - Phoebe-Lou Adams (12/19/1993)
"[W]omen who believe that men are people, not just sex objects--might well complain, that the three men in this novel are portrayed as ciphers....Nor is Zenia a very compelling or enlightening portrait of evil: She is merely a stereotypical vamp....Readers may well enjoy Atwood's crisp writing, neatly interwoven plotting, sharp-eyed descriptions; and wry sense of humor. But those who imagine 'The Robber Bride' to be a work of large significance with anything profound or new to say about gender, power, love, hate, or the nature of good and evil, are simply kidding themselves."
Christian Science Monitor - Merle Rubin (11/19/1993)
"Atwood is able to conjure entire lives with deft precision....If anyone embodies a stereotype, it is Zenia herself; but she, chameleon-like, is everyone's stereotype, each woman's downfall and each man's dream....[I]n a novel which remains realistic, for all Charis's magical elements, Zenia is not, finally, believable....This failing may have to do with the novel's structure....The bulk of the narrative consists of each woman's life-story....The result is not an impression of intertwining, developing lives....but rather, of a sequence of highly accomplished set-pieces, each marvellous in its way, but, in the end, isolated and forced. Atwood clearly intends this fable-like atmosphere, but its effect is didactic rather than humanly true."
Times Literary Supplement - Claire Messud (10/08/1993)
"Delicious....Breathtaking....Its unforgettable temptress causes worlds of trouble just for the fun of it."
Leadbeater
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