Reading Matters

'The Robber Bride' by Margaret Atwood

Fiction - Kindle edition; Hachette Digital; 576 pages; 2009.

Margaret Atwood is one of those authors I know I should read more of but never do. I read Alias Grace more than four years ago, so thought it was about time I try something else by her. I opted for The Robber Bride on the sole basis that it was chunky enough to keep me entertained on a seven-hour flight from Abu Dhabi to London Heathrow.

The story, first published in 1993, is a decidedly weird one and features one of the kookiest characters I've ever come across in modern fiction. Zenia (pronounced with a long e, as in seen) is a ruthless, manipulative woman, who befriends three other women -- academic Tony, business woman Roz, and free-spirit Charis -- living in Toronto and turns their lives upside down in more ways than one. Zenia, you see, likes attached men, but the only way she can get close to them is by sidling up to their partners and ingratiating herself.

But Zenia has done her dash with Tony, Roz and Charis, and when she is blown up "during some terrorist rampage or other in Lebanon" they heave a collective sigh of relief. But while Zenia dead is no longer a threat, she has left an indelible mark on all of them. When she is spotted, five years later, alive and well at their favourite lunch-time restaurant, they don't know quite what to do. Should they confront her? Pretend they haven't noticed? Hope she goes away of her own accord?

The story is divided into hefty chunks in which each character, bar Zenia, gets to tell her tale, specifically how she met Zenia, what Zenia did to her and how they react to her return from the dead.

Zenia's presence looms large right at the beginning of the novel, but it's never quite clear what she's supposed to have done, or even what she looks like. There are plenty of hints suggesting she's a trouble-maker and someone not to be trusted, but I couldn't help wondering if she might, in fact, be a vampire, as this paragraph suggests:

Tony was the first of them to befriend Zenia; or rather, Tony was the first one to let her in, because people like Zenia can never step through your doorway, can never enter and entangle themselves in your life, unless you invite them. There has to be a recognition, an offer of hospitality, a word of greeting.

And later, towards end of novel, Roz bemoans the fact that the back-from-the-dead Zenia is looking younger than ever:

Doesn't she ever age? thinks Roz bitterly. What kind of blood does she drink?

And while Zenia may or may not be human, there's no doubt that she is a parasite. She looks for willing victims and sucks them dry. She befriends people and uses them for her own ends.

She's also a compulsive liar. Among other things, she tells Tony that she is a White Russian and was a child prostitute in Paris. She tells Charis that her mother was a gypsy who was stoned to death by Romanian peasants, and later, when trying to worm her way back into Charis's affections, she tells her that she has cancer. These are just small examples of her conniving, dishonest ways.

The story is very readable -- although it's incredibly long and could easily have lost 200 pages without sacrificing the plot. Its strength lies in characterisation. While Zenia is the stand-out, all three women are strongly drawn and believable. The depiction of their friendship, despite their very different personalities, is authentic.

But I couldn't ignore the feminist agenda which plagues this book. I'm sure it's no coincidence that all the men in this story are weak-willed or unfaithful, and that Zenia, the man-eater, is cut from the same cloth. Indeed, upon hearing about Zenia's behaviour, Roz's colleague Boyce tells her to check that she's really a woman. "It could be a man in a dress," he suggests.

At times the story reminded me very much of Muriel Spark's wonderful novels. I think it was largely the darkness of the lead character, her wicked ways and the strong streak of humour which runs throughout the narrative.

And while Atwood does not allow Zenia to tell her own story, thereby depriving us of discovering her real motivations, it allows us, the reader, to determine her agenda for ourselves: was she a mean-spirited tart intent on stealing husbands, or an angel in disguise rescuing her female friends from the men that would destroy them? Only you can decide.

'Alias Grace' by Margaret Atwood

Fiction - paperback; Anchor Books; 480 pages; 1997.

Did she do it or didn't she do it? Is she a bloodthirsty murderess, or was she simply in the wrong place at the wrong time?

These are the questions that form the driving force of this remarkable novel by Margaret Atwood, who takes this captivating true story and truly makes it her own.

Set in Canada in the nineteenth century and based on a real life crime, Alias Grace is about a teenage maid, Grace Marks, who is tried for the  brutal murder of her employer, Thomas Kinnear, and his mistress, Nancy Montgomery. She is found guilty and sentenced to death but has this commuted to life imprisonment, while her 'accomplice' is hanged.

Grace, a poor immigrant from Northern Ireland who has cut all ties with her family, tells her story to Dr Simon Jordan in a long series of visits he makes to her prison cell. Dr Jordan, who works in the burgeoning field of mental illness, is 'hired' by a group of spiritualists who believe Grace is innocent and want to secure her a pardon.

But the good doctor has problems -- professional, emotional and moral -- of his own, and before long it is difficult to tell who is the supposed crazed criminal and who is not.

Initially I found Alias Grace a little difficult to get into. The chapters are narrated in alternate voices and formats -- Grace's 'interviews' with Dr Jordan involve her telling her story from the time she left Northern Ireland to the aftermath of the murders, while Dr Jordan's story is revealed through letters written to him and by him -- which take some time to propel the narrative forward. Once you understand the rhythm of the book, it gently sucks you in and I found it difficult to put down because I was itching to get to the point where Grace would reveal what really happened on that fateful day.

Atwood structures this novel in a very clever way, so that the reader is drip fed information on an almost need-to-know basis. She also manages to successfully get inside two very different heads and tells their individual stories in a convincing way (personally, I preferred Grace's narrative, although I largely expect she was prone to exaggeration). And her writing is often beautiful. Take this example, one of my favourites, in which Grace is revealing what happened when she flees the scene of the murders:

And I thought, I am riding through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, as it says in the Psalm; and I attempted to fear no evil, but it was very hard, for there was evil in the wagon with me, like a sort of mist. So I tried to think about something else. And I looked up at the sky, which did not have a cloud in it, and was filled with stars; and it seemed so close I could touch it, and so delicate I could put my hand right through it, like a spiderweb spangled with dewdrops.
But then as I looked, a part of it began to wrinkle up, like the skin on scalding milk; but harder and more brittle, and pebbled, like a dark beach, or like black silk crepe; and then the sky was only a thin surface, like paper, and it was being singed away. And behind it was a cold blackness; and it was not Heaven or even Hell that I was looking at, but only emptiness. This was more frightening than anything I could think of, and I prayed silently to God to forgive my sins; but what if there was no God to forgive me? And then I reflected that perhaps it was the outer darkness, with the wailing and gnashing of teeth, where God was not. And as soon as I had this thought, the sky closed over again, like water after you have thrown a stone; and was again smooth and unbroken, and filled with stars.

Without wishing to spoil the ending, I have to say I am still largely undecided as to whether Grace Marks was guilty or not. Whether I missed a key element of the plot or whether this is what Atwood deliberately intended, I do not know. Suffice to say this is an intriguing and sometimes perplexing book, but it's an entertaining one too, and it's certainly made me more interested in reading more by this highly acclaimed author.

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This book was chosen for discussion in Reading Matters Online Book Group (Session 8) in October 2006.

Click here for reading group questions and discussion.