The Blind Assassin

Attention all LTers: read this book.

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 other author's truly can. Push through the first 100 pages. Revel in the last 550.

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 show more 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. show less

The Blind Assassin is, quite simply, one of the best books I have ever read. It is a matryoshka doll of stories. At first, I was wondering what the stories had to do with one another, but it soon becomes obvious that they are multi-layered and interrelated.

Protagonist Iris is writing her memoir in 1999, looking back on events that took place during the 1930’s and 1940’s. News articles are inserted periodically to provide an exterior perspective. It is a story of Iris and her younger sister, Laura, who grow up in a privileged family. The patriarch experiences setbacks due to the Great Depression, and needs an infusion of cash, so he arranges a marriage between Iris and a wealthy industrialist. The sisters meet a working-class labor show more activist, who is blamed for an incendiary incident.

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! show less

Ten days after the war ended, my sister Laura drove off a bridge. The bridge was being repaired: she went right through the Danger sign. The car fell a hundred feet into the ravine, smashing through the treetops feathery with new leaves, then burst into flames and rolled down into the shallow creek at the bottom. Chunks.of the bridge fell on top of it. Nothing much was left of her but charred smithereens. I was informed of the accident by a policeman: the car was mine, and they'd traced the license. His tone was respectful: no doubt he recognized Richard's name.

An intricately-woven novel, cleverly-constructed, and rich in symbolism, masterful and sad with immense richness. Older Iris is a delight in her precise, dry wit and her refusal of sentimentality. But I was looking for something more, that tiny something we all want from our life-changing novels, and it wasn't quite there.

I'm just going to put some of my quibbles with the novel under a spoiler tag because now that I've read it, it's hard to tell how much you know beforehand might diminish the experience for you.


One star off because, as the blurb of my edition explains, it's "set against a panoramic backdrop of twentieth-century history" and history is really just the backdrop here. We almost seem to fast-forward through the wars and as show more Iris honeymoons, Mussolini's encroaching fascism is barely visible to Iris' eye. In a time of great upheaval, it's all a bit frustratingly individual and bourgeois. Granted, Iris has a lot on her mind and is on some level dealing with trauma. Yes, I'm going to go ahead and call a transactional marriage with a man who dictated your every move and had no regard for your physical wellbeing during sex, who in fact enjoyed your discomfort and pain, for what it is: traumatic.

But on another level, it also tells you something about the rich that they can be in the midst of growing fascism and it’s their own problems that matter the most. It would be wrong to say that it’s human nature. It would be more precise to say that the bourgeois sense of relating to the world has become the dominant mode of social relations, and this form of engagement is reproduced in bourgeois novels.

Anyway.

The part that I found most compelling, that of the lovers and the construction of the story of The Blind Assassin, slowly petered off and became cryptic. It started off enigmatic and as a narrative device it worked in terms of seducing the reader and pulling them in. At the start, I was wholly invested. But I wasn't satisfied with the not-much conclusion to that story. I’m not saying that cryptic is bad and the novel must answer all the questions it raises; in fact, many novels are great precisely because they don’t. But in this case, there was so much to unpack and having these storylines drift towards its end felt vague and unfulfilling. A love affair between two people of opposing economic realities－one would think their conversations would have more to it. Why wasn't anyone affected by the other's politics? And at that particular time in history!!!

The writing is brilliant, pithy and insightful when it came to giving us older Iris’ perspective. But as I raced to the end, wanting to know more, it was suddenly over, and I realised that this was all we were going to get. I was expecting more in terms of politics as well as commentary or insights on the novel-within-the-novel. The use of politics as mere backdrop for the story of Iris and Laura feels somewhat indulgent. And maybe a cop-out. At its core, it's about a person and a reckoning with the self, but a person who was thoroughly unengaged with the world she was living in. Perhaps that’s the impression we were meant to be left with.

Still, it’s a novel that’s magisterial in its own way, and heartbreaking.
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I know she's one of the Most Important Living Novelists and everything, but historically I've been kind of lukewarm about Margaret Atwood's work. The Handmaid's Tale is obviously important to read, and makes a point with which I agree, but it makes it in a way that feels like being hit over the head with a shovel. The only other Atwood novel I've read - The Edible Woman - left me similarly unsatisfied. So I was especially glad that I decided to give The Blind Assassin a chance, because oh man, I loved it. It was one of those books that I cursed every morning for keeping me up until one in the morning, even when I knew I had to get up at six. And then, even while cursing it, I would try to read a few pages before setting off for work. show more

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. show less

I adored this book, but I also disliked it. It was way too long and the characters were rather flat --despite their story being told in detail -- and they were mostly unlikable. So on the one hand the book was off-putting because of its tiring and boring length and its unattractive characters, while the continuous flipping between three stories was rather annoying too. On the other hand you have Atwood's incredible prose style, her brilliant descriptions, her wit, her insightful observations that make scenes ring true. Iris is an example of my contradictory reactions, as an old lady she was intelligent and perceptive, with often terribly amusing views on modern life, whereas in her own life she remained incredibly passive, incapable of show more acting and standing up for herself till about page 600 -- at last! Still, there were so many passages in the book that were razor sharp and beautifully written that it was well worth the effort to continue to the end of this complex and incisive book. show less

This drew me in. It was clearly building to something but I could never figure it out. What would happen that would make this all make sense? I kept reading hoping to find out what would explain all these clues that had been expertly dropped along the way.

The central characters were two sisters who are heirs to a button manufacturing company which failed in the 1930s after being the mainstay of their small city in Canada. The older sister is the narrator who tells their story sometimes by recalling earlier events as she ages and sometimes as if it was happening right then. Their father struggled after losing his wife, who had come from Montreal society. After returning from WWI he is both a hero and also someone who has to deal with show more his wounds for the rest of his life. When not going off to seek feminine companionship, he often avoids everyone by isolating himself in the mansion's attic, losing himself in alcohol. He's been trying to keep everyone employed even as the demand for buttons disappears in the depression but it's not a realistic solution. The trajectory is definitely downward.

The younger sister, a few years younger than the narrator, is always considered different. She says whatever is on her mind and what she says is always something no one anticipated. She, even without asking anyone's permission, invites to diner a young labor organizer her father's companion had brought to town. After an arsonist sets fire to her father's factory the young man is sought by the police as the most likely suspect. The older sister realizes her sister is behind the young man's disappearance. She finds them in a small closet in the attic. Instead of exposing them she helps getting food to him so he can hide until it's safe to escape. The die is cast.

With the factory nonfunctional the father finally comes to grips with reality and comes up with a solution with his rival. The rival will buy the minimal assets of the family as long as the older sister (now only 19) agrees to marry him. To rescue the family she agrees. The rival, now her husband, has political plans and a domineering older sister who makes all the decisions. The narrator is whisked off to Toronto to be the trophy wife with little to say about anything in her life.

A few years later she spies the young man on the street and tracks him down. They begin a torrid affair punctuated with his entertaining her with stories he makes up on the spot. This is where the Blind Assassin enters the pictures. His stories, Atwood's other side, are science fiction/fantasy tales. The Blind Assassin is the central figure of a continuing set of stories he makes up in those brief meetings where they are together.

Now the plot thickens. We learn that the younger sister is the revered author of a younger generation who admire her outspokenness. She has driven a car off a bridge under construction. While the event is spun in to an accident, her older sister assumes it was more likely a suicide. We eventually learn the younger sister had been subjected to an abortion against her will and believes the baby was the result of an affair the young man. The older sister realizes that can't possibly be true and confronts her, leading probably to the suicide. There's more involved here but I don't want to give everything away. Eventually it all ties together, trust me.

Many times I wanted to grab the narrator and say "why?" The choices she always seem to make are at best passive. There are definitely better ways to go but she never seems to go there. Her sister always seems to know the better way but the older sister almost never listens to her. Eventually we realize the younger sister needed someone to listen to her. The older sister doesn't get the message until it's too late for the younger sister. That was difficult to take. I can understand why some avoid stories like this describing how women are often victims.

One tangential part of this story stood out for me. Atwood clearly understands the challenges faced by people as they age to the point where they can no longer do what had been easy for them. Walks get shorter, canes appear, medications need to be attended to daily, falling becomes a constant fear, driving oneself is no longer an option. As a senior all this hit home. show less