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Fiction. Mystery. Science Fiction. Historical Fiction. HTML:The bestselling author of The Handmaid's Tale and The Testaments weaves together strands of gothic suspense, romance, and science fiction into one utterly spellbinding narrative, beginning with the mysterious death of a young woman named Laura Chase in 1945. Decades later, Laura�??s sister Iris recounts her memories of their childhood, and of the dramatic deaths that have punctuated their wealthy, eccentric family�??s history. Intertwined with Iris�??s account are chapters from the scandalous novel that made Laura famous, in which two illicit lovers amuse each other by spinning a tale of a blind killer on a distant planet. These richly layered stories-within-stories gradually illuminate the secrets that have long haunted the Chase family, coming together in a brilliant and astonishing fin… (more)
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The title of her latest book, The Blind Assassin, announces its recklessness right up front. It’s a killer novel,
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Don't put it on the bottom of your TBR, don't list it as a book to read next year, don't forget about it - read it soon. Do not despair when the plot seems to lag. Appreciate the beauty of the language, the well constructed paragraphs of prose that flow like no
I will be honest - I resisted the urge to like Margaret Atwood, and I resisted this book. I read Alias Grace earlier this year and loved it, yet I was hesitant to believe in the genius that is Atwood. I don't know why - I generally love Canadian authors, and read as many as I can. Maybe it is because Atwood has such a reputation for greatness, and I was worried I would be disappointed. Maybe it is because she is one of those love-them or hate-them authors, and I, being a bit rebellious at times, wanted to belong to the "hate" camp. Maybe it is because her books start slowly. Whatever the reason, I read the first 100 pages of The Blind Assassin weeks ago, and then stopped. I just could not get into it.
Then yesterday I picked it up again - and read the remaining 550 pages in one day. It would have been one sitting, except I needed to eat dinner. I know a lot of us have 50-page rules, but please, give this book 100 pages. After all, it is a big book, so percentage-wise, it deserves that you persevere. If you do, I think you will love it. In fact, it just may be one of those books that changes the way you think about the world.
Plot Summary: The Blind Assassin actually has four plots. Atwood uses a framing narrative, which is a structure or a story within a story within a story. Generally, these stories all fit together to prove some larger point. Think of Frankenstein, which is first a series of letters, then the story of Victor, then the story of the Creature, then the story of Felix and Safie. Or Wuthering Heights, which is actually a story told by Lockwood, who hears it from Nelly. I love framing narratives, and Atwood's is quite complex. First, we have Iris, our main narrator, who at eighty is trying to write down her life, to pass on to her absent granddaughter. We read about her daily struggles to remain independent, and her interactions with Myra and Walter, friends of her family who take care of her. Then, Iris tells us the story of her youth - of her childhood at Avilion, her younger sister Laura, and the ruin wreaked by the Great Depression. Laura, who was always an odd child, committed suicide in 1945. After she died, Iris found a manuscript of a short novel that Laura had written, and decided to have it published. This novel is The Blind Assassin. Chapters of The Blind Assassin serve as the third level of the narrative, and revolve around a young couple having a secret affair. The final level of the framing narrative is a science fiction story, which the couple in The Blind Assassin write together when they manage to meet.
Atwood moves between these four narratives perfectly - whenever you are becoming very involved in one, she switches to the next. In this way, the reader is constantly on her toes, wondering which story is coming next, trying to keep the events separate. However, it soon becomes clear that these four narratives are not separate, but very intertwined. Is the woman in The Blind Assassin Laura? Is her novel about her own experiences? Who is the man? Why did Laura kill herself? How did Iris, once a very rich woman, come to live alone, poor, with a granddaughter who refuses to see her? As Iris' story moves closer to the outbreak of WWII, the forces in her life seem at war as well - and death, betrayal, and catastrophe are looming.
In case I haven't been clear enough, let me say it again: this book is brilliant. The writing is beautiful, Iris is a complex, well-drawn character, and the narratives weave together towards an ending that is surprising, intense, and moving. The greatest strength of this book, and of Atwood in general, is the fact that her characters are not grand people doing noble deeds. Iris is ordinary, she makes many mistakes, and her life is, on the surface, not very exciting. She is true to life, and it is our ability to believe in her and her relationships - our ability to see that we too, would make the same mistakes, feel the same feelings, cause the same harm - that makes this book a genuine masterpiece.
This novel had all the elements that make reading nourishing for me: lovely, flowing prose, thought-provoking metaphors, a compelling authorial voice. On top of that, the characters were intriguing and the plot was ingeniously constructed in several interrelated parts (a "book within a book," as well as various newspaper articles and pieces of correspondence) that shifted their apparent relation to one another as the narrative progressed. Beginning with an old woman recalling her sister, a series of newspaper obituaries, and the perhaps-fictional story of two anonymous lovers making up stories together, the novel twists and turns its way towards a conclusion that's gut-wrenching, yet satisfying. Atwood's feminist passion is still here, but it's incorporated more smoothly and less didactically than in either of her other novels I've read, and is just one part of a seamless, enthralling story. Reading The Blind Assassin inspires me to pick up some of Atwood's other more recent fiction, and it's always lovely to discover that such a prolific author holds riches for me, after all.
I love Margaret Atwood. I have read and enjoyed many of her books and would recommend them. If you’ve ever read The
This book details the life of the Chase family, primarily the father and 2 daughters since the mother makes an early exit (a wise choice). The book opens with the suicide of one of the daughters, Laura. It is told in the first person narrative by the older sister, Iris. Within the novel is another novel, written by we are not exactly sure until close to the end of the book. This novel within a novel is a science fiction story that, while not as tedious as the book in which it is contained, is convoluted and unsatisfying, not to mention rather sexist. In my mind it does nothing to advance the original story. It is written by two illicit lovers, presumably one of which is one of the sisters, but it’s not made plain which one until the end of the book. The story of the lovers could have easily been told without this additional story, and so it is jarring and feels not quite right. This is distracting and I was left wondering what the heck it was there for, instead of being able to immerse myself in the story. Are you confused yet? Welcome to my book world.
For me, what really makes or breaks a story is whether or not I can find something to like or at least sympathize with about the characters. At the very least I want to be given some kind of understanding as to why a character does what she does. And that was the death knell for this book. The characters are unrelentingly cowardly, miserable, immoral people. Did I mention that this book is 521 pages long? In all of those pages I could not find one thing about these people that made them likeable or truly understandable. In fact, I found myself feeling good when something bad happened to a character because I tended to feel that they deserved it. This is not my idea of enjoyable reading. Laura is a selfish little snot whom basically does only what she wants to do and the consequences be damned for everyone else in her life. A big part of the book centers around Laura’s reputation as a literary figure who’s book was published posthumously. One of the infuriating things about this is that it is never clearly explained how it is that Laura ended up with this book and why it ended up being famous, let alone why Iris is so irritated by this situation.
Iris is a mousy, gutless, empty person who fights for nothing, not even the well-being of her child. I kept reading and reading, hoping I would come to some incident in the book where Iris would do at least one thing that was noble or true and decent. My reading was in vain, and I needed to go have ice cream just to get over it. I could find nothing to like about her and nothing that truly explained her lack of will. Admittedly her childhood had its difficulties, but in the end it still does not adequately explain her inability to ever do the right thing. Her father is a jerk, and some of their childhood tutors are not so nice, but ultimately I have to ask, so what? At some point one has to take responsibility for oneself, which it seems that Iris never really does.
The father, Norval, is also a real piece of work. He is a war hero who was wounded and is of course also emotionally damaged by this. In typical novel fashion he takes to drinking and having fits of rage. He has his moments of nobility, e.g. he makes valiant efforts to save his family’s business, but in the end, he too is an empty shell; a brute of a man who passes his daughters off from one tutor to another when their mother dies, and basically trades one of them in marriage in order to get money. Another unlikable character.
Another problem with this book is that it is a curious mixture of implausible plot elements and totally predictable and hackneyed plot developments. Previous novels by Atwood have been quite psychological with interesting and unpredictable plot twists. And her plots usually involve truly unique storytelling. The only surprise for me in this book is the lack of surprise. At each turn it is fairly easy to predict what is going to happen to whom. These people never seem to change or learn anything from their experiences, which is what makes them and this book so distasteful and boring. And to add additional frustration, and thus the need for copious additional bowls of ice cream (sometimes with chocolate sauce, nuts and whipped cream, which should tell you how very serious my distress was), is the fact that in several places some vaguely interesting thing starts to happen and then it’s gone. Lines of thought or story just fade away, which was really crazy making, evidenced by the fact that by about page 325 I had gained 5 pounds and would not have been above getting on my knees and begging Ms. Atwood to give me just one thing to look forward to that would get me through the additional 200 pages. I truly had a very hard time even finishing this book. In fact, my reading partner confessed that she had not been able to bring herself to finish it. Needless to say, she did not get any ice cream.
Even the ending of this book is unsatisfying. Nothing really happens. It just ends, with several plot lines left unresolved. This is one of the most thoroughly dissatisfying and frustrating reading experiences I have had in a very long time. I know this book won a Booker Prize and the critics liked it, so I am just one voice in the book wilderness. But, I would like my $14.00 back, and I think Ms. Atwood owes me for all of the ice cream, not to mention the now needed gym membership and new clothes.
My feelings on this book are so conflicted in a lot of ways. My very first thought after finishing it was simple what I stated above. "Wow." This book is all-encompassing. It's huge, and it's intoxicating, and it leaves you feeling like you've just eaten the most wonderful
That being said, I must be honest. The first half of this book made me doubt whether I would even be able to get through the whole thing. It was a very slow narrative and there were many different things happening at all different times. It was hard to follow at some points. Atwood gives you several different story lines to keep track of at the same time, and it wasn't until the very middle of the book that they started to slowly come together. Once you get to the point, the book starts rolling. Everything picks up and the pieces of the puzzle that you've been holding on to for so many pages are now beginning to form the picture you've been looking for all along.
This is the story about two sisters, their once prominent family, their mysterious past and the bleak present. There are three different methods used to relay all the information you learn.
The first, is the narrative of Iris Chase, the older sister. She is in her present day form, an elderly lady, and she's writing about her life now while reminiscing about her past. Her entries are how we learn about the childhood of herself and her sister, Laura.
In other chapters, we read news clippings from the past, describing the world events that were happening at the time, as well as the happenings of the two sisters and their families.
Still yet, there is a final story-telling device. These chapters, which are strewn throughout the book in between Iris' narrative and the newspaper articles, you find yourself reading a novel within a novel. This novel, called The Blind Assassin, was written by Laura chase and published after her untimely death. In this novel, which gained a strong following of fans, two mysterious lovers (who we are never fully introduced to) are meeting in various secret places and hideouts to make love and they create a science-fiction story together. Each time they meet, they continue the tale.
Atwood takes these three different aspects and weaves them together. You begin to unlock the mysteries surrounding the death of Laura, as well as several others. This book isn't a very happy one, however. It is filled with a lot of struggle and heartache. It's entire plot is filled with loss and desire. And when you close the book, you feel the weight of the entire history of the Chase family upon you, and the characters remain with you as though they were real people. What started as a tough read for me left me very emotional, and very touched.
This one will definitely be pulled out again at a later date to be reread.
I loved the plot structure--knowing from the start the outcome of most characters' lives. I loved getting to know Iris through the story within the story, the events captured in newspaper clippings, and finally, from her own narration.
Irony, symbolism, and most of all, a story line that reveals the truth of human nature in more ways than one (read the daily headlines and ask, who are the people behind these pieces of news? What would they have to say about these facts?)are all reasons I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book--because it reminded me that we can never really know anyone's truth unless they choose to reveal it to us.
The Blind Assassin is one of those few books that I would call truly "unforgettable".
The majority of the book is told from the perspective of Iris Chase, an elderly woman reflecting and writing about her life and her family. With her thoughts, the
Though the technical writing in this book was superb, the frequent changes of perspective made the pacing feel off and the characters less sympathetic. The first three-fourths of the book is an extremely slow read that sags with the weight of too many metaphors. Many of the metaphors were quite good, clever even, as they should be. But when there is a metaphor or simile in every other paragraph, they become unwelcome. So much filler designed to increase word count. The last quarter of the book finally picked up the pace and delivered a moving end to the story.
Ultimately, I found myself thinking through most of the book that the science-fiction story told by a character within Laura Chase’s novel was better than the novel written by Laura Chase or Iris Chase. Perhaps this was Margaret Atwood’s intent, perhaps not.
It is the story of a woman growing up in a monied family in Canada that is
The tale is told by the narrator as an old woman. We see the entries of her memoirs as she writes them, alternating these memories of her own past life and that of her long lost younger sister with descriptions of her "current" life as an aging, dying woman bereft of almost everything but her memories. Also interspersed are chapters from "The Blind Assassin," a novel-within-a-novel that reveals even more about the story we're reading.
This multi-faceted, multi-tiered narrative is handled marvelously. The story is sometimes tough to read, as the narrator's live is rarely easy or pleasant, despite (or because of, more accurately) her socal position. But the characters are believable and the story rings true.
For the non-collegiate reader, The Blind Assassin has a lot to offer too. It’s got a little romance, a bit of a Gothic tendency and a sci-fi tale all woven into one. It’s not surprising that The Blind Assassin is so widely read and the recipient of prestigious awards.
For this reader, I enjoyed the book’s story-within-the story style. The majority of the story is written from Iris’s perspective – a woman born of privilege whose loveless marriage and complicated relationship with her father and sister lead her into the arms of a lover. The second story is a fictional book “written” by Iris’s sister, Laura. It features a nameless man and woman as they sneak around to hide their affair. Their time together was spent making love and creating a story about a far-away race of aliens. To be honest, I could have done without the sci-fi element. I wonder why it was even included except to show some symbolism. Writers of less ability than Atwood would not have been able to pull it off, but to her credit, she did.
Overall, I enjoyed The Blind Assassin. It definitely piqued my interest in Margaret Atwood’s other works. Based on this book, I can see why she has earned such literary praise and is the favorite writer of many avid readers. I just wonder if Atwood, at the top of her game, produced The Blind Assassin robotically – its literary conventions are almost too perfect; the story, predictable; and the ending, done before. Perhaps that’s the magic of the whole thing – and a grand show of force from a writer who can do it all.
The architecture of the novel is a shambles, or, more positively viewed, a sprawling puzzle. It takes more than half of the text to finally discover some structure. There is a parody of a science fiction story woven into this, told by the ‘revolutionary’ and illicit lover of main character Iris, so commonplace that it defies description. Perhaps the fractured structure is an analogy of the attempts of Iris trying to bring some order into her memories.
On the positive side there is the easily flowing language and the (as always) surprisingly well-chosen metaphors (without which the novel would be unreadable) showing great insight and quite a lot of fine seasonal descriptions too.
Undoubtedly Atwood can write very well, but with this overload of ineptitude and impotence in the characters, it’s hardly a rewarding read. Probably she tries to be ‘honest’ about them, but too much is too much, no matter how noble the motives.
I wrote in my review of "The Year of The Flood" that I don't think Margaret Atwood is capable of writing a bad book, and that holds true; I was never bored or frustrated with "The Blind Assassin," but never particularly engaged by it either. Iris' modern-day observations about the world around her are about as interesting as you'd expect an old woman's grumbling to be. Her recollections of the past, which comprise the bulk of the novel, are far more interesting - but, as I said above, never amazingly so. The story-within-a-story told to her by an anonymous lover, the pulp fantasy story of the blind assassin, is also interesting despite being an obvious allegorical diversion. Fortunately, throughout the book, Atwood's word-to-word quality of prose never drops below the level of "quite good" and is often considerably higher.
As always with Atwood, this is a book about feminism, and about the relationship men have with women. As with "The Year of the Flood" and "The Handmaid's Tale" - and perhaps all of Atwood's work, even a book like "Oryx & Crake," which features damaged but fundamentally goodhearted and well-intentioned men - this relationship is one of control. Iris is controlled at first by her father, and then by her husband in a loveless arranged marriage. She has very little control over her own fate, socially or legally, until she manages to seize some in the final chapters. Even then it is a pyrrhic victory. Iris' life, a realistic portrayal of how women lived until the last forty or fifty years, reminds one of what it was like to be a child, with no autonomy or independence.
And yet, for all this noble feminism, "The Blind Assassin" is fundamentally a romance no different from a Mills & Boone paperback. A dark, handsome young revolutionary comes into the sisters' lives. They both become besotted with him. One becomes his lover, swept off her feet, hopelessly in love despite his fugitive status, his cynical attitude, his radical political views. He's the dashing stranger your father forbids you to see, hard drinker and hard smoker, well-read and just a little wild... ooh, if only someone could tame him!
The contradiction at the heart of "The Blind Assassin" is either some kind of profound statement about love, or evidence that even the mosst uptight feminists still secretly want a handsome young man to cradle them in his burly arms and make passionate love to them. Perhaps, once you take away the style and the literary merit and the ability to string a sentence together, Margaret Atwood and Stephanie Meyers aren't so different after all!
This is a lengthy book (some 600 odd pages), and 300 pages in I still wasn't sure if I was hooked. I enjoy a slow burn if the writing's great, and there can be no denying Atwood's skills in that department, but there's slow and then there's slow. In many early sections of the book it felt as if there was no build up to anything, and as I don't enjoy reading sci-fi I didn't enjoy the 'Blind Assassin' sections that much where a sci-fi story is unfolded.
It is a very clever book, though - Atwood uses numerous literary tools to weave a unique and complex plot.
3.5 stars for me, I think, but I can appreciate why for others this is 5 star material. Personally, I preferred Alias Grace.
Genre fiction is often decried as being “formulaic”. And Blind Assassin isn’t? The little motherless mites with the faithful maid and the distant father; the doomed sibling; the nasty upper-class husband vs the lower-class lover; the hollow proprieties of an older time; the tackiness of modern life, etc.
Of course, Atwood has a gimmick that apparently dazzled the critics. You’ve heard of the story-within-a-story, and you’ve heard of the alternating narratives – well this baby has TWO stories-within-stories as alternating narratives!!! But, wait! There’s more – a third narrative consisting mostly of newspapers clippings that parallels one of the narratives!!! Wow, how could you dare to ask for an interesting plot or well-developed characters?! These kind of narrative tricks are marvelous if they create an effect that can’t be handled in a straightforward narrative, but otherwise it’s like the competition to write the longest sentence in English: sure it takes some cleverness to think up an additional clause that hasn’t been used, but is the result worth reading? In my opinion, a novel is either an involving narrative that creates a world that’s completely real as long as one is reading – or the author should do nonfiction. The book could have been vastly improved by eliminating about 190 of the first 200 pages. The narrative, which is supposed to be a memoir, contains entirely too much detail; it reminds me of a total stranger latching onto someone in a public place to drone on about themselves. Worse, all the detail is lavished upon insignificant things like ambient dog feces or styrofoam cups.
The engine of much of the plot is the strong feelings that Alex Thomas inspires in the Chase sisters, but he’s a such a shadowy figure that I can’t imagine what they see in him nor do I have any feeling for him (or any other character). We know that he was a war orphan raised by a Presbyterian minister, he’s a leftist of some sort, he writes science-fiction short stories, he fought in the Spanish Civil War and died in World War II. What little we experience of his personality, which is recounted by a sexual partner (lover would be too euphemistic and sentimental), seems pretty abrasive and obnoxious.
I can’t imagine that Iris’ memoir would have much effect on her long-estranged granddaughter, assuming Sabrina had the patience to plow through it: Sabrina and her mother rank well below bathroom grafitti in importance. Atwood attempts to pour on the pathos in the last couple of pages, but since Iris doesn’t appear to have noticed her daughter between her birth and the age of eight, bathos is more like it.
It's also rare, in fact unheard of, for me to want to reread a book straight after finishing it, especially one so weighty. I reread the last 6 or so chapters several times, and even now, when I've started reading another novel, I'm revisiting the first chapters of The Blind Assassin, reading a few pages each night. I don't want to put it down.
Update in early 2013: Indeed, I ended up reading the entire book two times back to back. If it weren't for all the other books in the universe I want to read I'd probably keep rereading it for all eternity and not be sorry.
Protagonist Iris is writing her memoir in
A science fiction story, told by a man to his lover, is interwoven into the memoir, along with a narrative of what is going on in Iris’s life in the present. The narrative requires the reader’s active engagement, constantly thinking and evaluating, fitting the puzzle pieces together, until the full picture emerges at the end.
Though a structural device is employed, there are multiple strong storylines supporting it. Atwood does not just add an artificial structure for its own sake. As the story progresses, various clues are revealed. The reader’s interpretation of these clues changes the meaning of events that came before. It is Margaret Atwood at her finest. Just brilliant!
There is little left to say about Atwood. This is a spectacular example of her total control of structure, tone, incomplete information, and flat-out beautiful sentences. Worth it for the eyes like snake-filled pits.
I found nothing likeable about any of the characters; I think this was quite important, in that most of them seemed to be in need of forgiving for something, but there was something inherently interesting about many of them, and Atwood makes the story, the unfolding mystery, do double-time in making up for any absence of character to root for. The reader isn’t going to put the book down just because we might not care about Iris or her relationship with her seemingly-fey sister, Laura – we still want to know what happened to Laura, which of the sisters is the author of The Blind Assassin, what happened to the young man at the picnic, why Iris is eventually estranged from her family, how things fit.
An example of Atwood on powerful storytelling-form; given my antipathy towards relationship angst, family sagas and these characters in particular, the fact that I couldn’t stop reading it, to find out, suggests that someone who does enjoy these particular literary themes would probably consider it a masterpiece. Personally, I’m glad it’s over and I can move on to something less monumentally depressing, but I’m also quite pleased to have this facet of Atwood’s writing career under my reading belt – until now I’d read The Handmaid’s Tale and Oryx and Crake, and this is another example of her unpredictability, a thing-unlike-the-others. I think the author is worth continuing to read for that experience alone.
Iris's philosophy of living her life as a duty is brilliantly contrasted with Laura's uncanny observations of life's purpose and God. The narrative conceals as it exposes, and the reader is kept guessing until the very end.