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24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Beautiful, true, compassionate and memorable, 13 Feb 2002
By A Customer
One of the best books I have ever read, The Robber Bride is a work to read at one [very long] sitting, and then read again, and again, and again. Atwood creates a world so real that you can touch it, and the extraordinary things which happen there are utterly convincing and deeply moving. Her four heroines are all, even the villain, created with consummate skill and a compassion which grabs the reader and sweeps you along in the stories which are woven together in this wonderful book. The complex structure is extremely satisfying, and is sustained by the creation of three distinct - and glorious - narrative voices, a stunning feat of writing which makes this an amazingly enjoyable read. Lots to think about, characters to love, and a real joy in language. The ending, or endings, in particular, are amazing, and even thinking about them brings tears to my eyes.
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28 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Virtuoso chaos, 7 Jan 2004
I have just re-read this, one of my very favourite contemporary novels, and consider it to be an extraordinary achievement.
Its major strength surely lies in the highly skilful interlocking of themes and narrative technique and structure. The lives of three different women, Toni, Charis and Roz, have been ransacked in various unsavoury ways by the baleful influence of the mysterious Zenia. The reader is given ample opportunity to see things from the points of view of three characters with highly contrasted personalities and attitudes to life in general, and as a result is gradually led to realise that, while all three women are in many ways likeable, none of them is perhaps one hundred per-cent trustworthy...
Many articles and reviews have set out to establish what "really" happens in this novel, who, if anyone, is "really" responsible for what happens in the end. This surely misses the point, which is that subjective interpretations of "reality" inevitably and by definition clash with and contradict one another. And, after all, perhaps Zenia, like the witches in "Macbeth", doesn't "really" exist as any more than a personification or metaphor of the neuroses, uncertainties and vulnerabilities of the other characters?
Margaret Atwood heaps up the images which correspond to the chaos and fragility of our inner lives, and alludes very deftly to the fact that so much of what we do and how we behave corresponds to largely anarchic impulses, rather than to rational, planned behaviour.
I haven't yet read "Oryx and Crake", but I put this firmly at the top of the list of Atwood's novels. Although it wasn't shortlisted - five of her others have been, including "Oryx and Crake" and "The Blind Assassin", which went on to win in 2000 - this, for me, is the one that really deserved the Booker.
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
I am amazed that no-one has yet reviewed this book!, 10 Nov 2000
By A Customer
This is one of my top 10 books ever! (I'll spare you the whole list). If I enjoy a book I am usually disappointed by the conclusion - but in this case the entire book fulfilled the expectations of the first few chapters. The reader (me) could identify with all the main characters, and the villain is delicious in succeeding at all the duplications expected of a woman of 'a certain age' and managing to succeed undetected. As ever, Atwood does not dwell on some idealised 'sisterhood', but acknowledges the support that women can get from their peers without necessarily trusting them wholeheartedly. The whole book fits in with my own experiences, both first hand and vicarious.
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