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Summary: Story to the 3rd Power
Review: This book might have been aply named "Subsumption" because of its form: it is layered story. Beginning at the bottom: imagined early civilizations from another planet appear with the expected conniving, slaughter, sacrifices of young boys and girls, only to find themselves joining with barbarian forces to defend against invaders from another planet. Who tells this story? A young man who sympathizes with the communists in turbulent times, the male lover of a couple who meet secretly one day here, the next day there, the third day somewhere else, and on it goes. But pull back further (it requires no effort) and you see that it is one of two sisters who commands the entire story and its flow, and it is the relationship of these sisters from life to death during the Depression years and through WW II that this Atwood novel is truly about. It is about them and basically three men who were influential in their lives: their father, the on-the-run red sympathizer, and a wealthy Canadian industrialist who was too quick with approval for the Germans. "The Blind Assassin" is not only the title of the book for sale; it is likewise the title of the novel within, but together they invite speculation as to the symbolic meaning: who or what is the real blind assassin? The layers must come together and be artfully explained, and so they are, wonderfully so. Nevertheless, when the author of the sci-fi stuff asks himself why he writes such ["garbage,"] with some relevance this reader wondered, not so much why it was there at all, but questioned the reason for so much of it. It was tedious. So, too, were the trysts.
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Summary: The Blind Assassin
Review: When I read The Blind Assassin, I had never before read any of Margaret Atwood's novels. Consequently, I was not sure what to expect. However, Atwood's intricate style and carefully planned plot soon stunned me. Her masterful intertwining of the past, the present, and the novel within the novel was flawless, as was her character development. Rarely has a story touched me to the extent that this one has.
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Summary: A Tale of Two Sisters
Review: "The Blind Assassin" is the story of the young, beautiful, and overly-protected Chase sisters, Iris and Laura, and how they grew up and became young women in Canada in the years leading up to the second world war.In the pages of her old woman's diary at the beginning of the new century, the surviving Chase sister, Iris, tells of the girls' childhood and early womanhood and about how they met the dashing young man who would prove both the sisters' muse and litmus. The novel intersperses chapters from Iris's memoir and chapters from a cult science fiction novel called The Blind Assassin, presumably written by Laura Chase, and published posthumously in 1945 after she drove her car off a bridge. The novel inside the novel tells of a secret love affair between a nameless man and woman, and about the science fiction story that they weave together span the spaces between their assignations. The illicit relationship is not a pretty one (she's well-to-do, he's not, and is not always nice disparity), but it has the sense of immediacy about it, that like life, or creativity, strikes you as both necessary and real. This is the first novel I've read by Margaret Atwood, so I can't compare it to any of her other work. What I can do is compare it to the rest of books I've ever read, and to the criteria for discerning good writing that I've developed over that period of time, and say that The Blind Assassin is an excellent, well-written, captivating novel. If you're looking for something rich and thick to sink your summer reading teeth into, I recommend this one highly.
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Summary: jumping around too much for this male reader.....
Review: Definately only a "chick book", at the very best. This Atwood effort jumps from one era to another to another, from reality to sci-fi, from back to front, from present to future..from un-named aliens to a 6 yr old girl to a teen ager to a dowager and then back again....with 65 year old news clips thrown in about "society events" in Canada every 15 pages or so that made no sense....very ragged at best...surely don't know what was on her mind by writing in this style...she kept losing me from chapter to chapter...this book is a bore, and took me a month to read....ugh!
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Summary: Beautiful
Review: I picked up this book because of it's title. "The Blind Assassin" has a romantic ring to it. When I finished the book, I was only 14 and yet I could relate to everything Iris had just said. My favorite part of the book were the stories of the blind assassin. I felt these were reflections of reality and all that was going on around Iris. I also liked how the story moved around different time periods, so that the entire story was revealed. This book moved me in a way that when I finished I wanted more to read.The ending is kind of obvious, but none the less a wonderful book worth reading.
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Summary: Good, But Not Atwood's Best
Review: I love Margaret Atwood (except for the occasional clunker she's come out with - a/k/a "Life Before Man", "Surfacing" and "Bodily Harm") and was very much looking forward to her latest. And, up until the last chapter or so, she did not disappoint. I was mesmerized (I even willingly read the story-within-a-story, and I loathe science fiction tales of any type) Unfortunately, though, it seems as though Atwood was writing on a deadline, or perhaps had run out of ideas. Certainly, toward the end, the story became a bit muddled and, surprisingly, left many plot holes:... Additionally, the language, which up to the book's climax, had been of sterling Atwood quality ("... can never stop howling") somehow becomes short and stilted. "We were lovers, you see, in secret..." When I got to that line, I had a very difficult time equating it with any other dialogue in the book. It was too blunt, too sharp and failed to blend well with the rest of the writing (I thought of several other ways in which the author could have played that scene... definitely in a much gentler manner more in keeping with her prose) And finally, the narrator's obsession with death and "being a skull", etc. was just a bit too much after a while. Yes, we know she has health problems, we know she's elderly... but does the reader have to be beaten over the head with such blatant morbidity? All in all, I felt a great deal of what was otherwise a wonderful story fell through the cracks and that much space was wasted on Alex's sci-fi tale (yes, I saw the correlations between the characters and the story; however, I felt that the Xenon story could easily have been cut by two-thirds and still have made a point). In fact, it seemed as though the story-within-a-story was given precedence, and the rest just kind of fell in chunks around it. Overall, I'm glad I read this book and certainly don't begrudge the bookstore its sticker price. However, when compared to such greats as "Lady Oracle", "Cat's Eye" and "The Robber Bride", this was a definite disappointment. I have come to expect a great deal from a Margaret Atwood tale, and this failed to live up to her reputation.
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Summary: I am new at this
Review: Hearing books is new to me. This is my second experience and I find this rendering very good. The book itself is worh a read, but the narrator seems to make it a lot more fun.
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Summary: Try 3 other novels
Review: A story within a story within a story. The novelist writting about a woman writting about a novelist (her sister) and we get the sister's novel to boot and guess what? _That_ novel is about an author. My, my.
The idea is hardly new, but Atwood brings it off very well. The problem is that none of the stories going simultaneously in this lengthly novel are all that interesting. It's just a tad preachy and I find Margaret's stretching to put at least one pithy, quotable phrase on each page a bit tiresome. Though she has a humorus streak throughout this. Half way through you know what's coming, no fault in and of itself, but getting to the end is not rewarding. I'll wait for the film. THAT could be something!
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Summary: A wonderful, engrossing story
Review: This was my first Margaret Atwood book, and I loved it. I loved how the tale twisted and just when you thought you knew something, you discovered you didn't. I loved that it was three stories in one. The "science fiction" tale so many others failed to comprehend was brilliant. It was a parable applicable to the main characters. The love of the blind assassin for the maiden who was to be sacrificed....the maiden who really WAS sacrificed to save her father's company. The description of the sci-fi society and its parallels to the one in which the Chase sisters lived. It was more than just a sci-fi story, it was insight into the mindset of the man telling it and the mindset of the woman he told it to. I read this book non-stop in two days and when I finished it, I was up half the night re-reading most of it. No, it doesn't spell every plot line out to you in black and white, but it does offer a challenge to the thinking reader, and that is what made it so interesting and provoking. The ending was clear...it became evident in the end who the mystery man and woman were, and I found the ending satisfying. I would recommend this book to anybody who loves a good story ...or two ...or three, and especially anyone who likes a plot that isn't spelled out in the first chapter.
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Summary: A rich pleasure
Review: The Blind Assassin deserved the Booker Price and every other accolade it got. It's a beautifully told, heartbreaking story; populated with convincing characters, set against a rich and well-researched backdrop. Add to that story-technique finesse: The narration consists of flashbacks, newspaper articles and stories within stories within stories. A lesser writer would have lost her audience (and herself), but Ms Atwood can not only pull it off, but make it an enjoyable, gripping read. Five stars!
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