Blind Assassin

Rating:
Summary: Read it for its beautiful language
Review: Margaret Atwood is an accomplished writer, and The Blind Assassin won her the Booker Prize. Kazuo Ishiguro, author of The Remains of the Day, said this recognition was overdue as she had been short-listed four times, and, indeed, one reviewer, who likes Atwood but not so much this book in particular, commented that Atwood might have gotten the Booker for Assassin in a kind of acknowledgement of her writing cumulatively. Certainly, this book has considerable grace and elegance, as well as humor and insightful observations. If Assassin is picked up solely for these aspects of the reading experience, it will have been worth it.

Here's a quick example of the humor: To set it up, this guy is living in a cheap apartment with thin walls. Next door are a couple who go at it noisily every night. "He doubts the nightly doings are her idea. Too fast, for one thing. The guy's in and out like a bank robber."

And here's a beautifully captured image of a well-heeled woman on her way to meet her lover one winter afternoon, walking through an impoverished neighborhood: "From inside the houses comes howling, barking, a rattle or slam. Female voices raised in thwarted rage, the defiant yells of children....Women hurry along, heads down, shoulders hunched, carrying brown paper bundles. Married, they must be. The word "braised" comes to mind."

It's hard to get into a meaningful discussion of the book without giving away important plot features to those who should discover them as the story unfolds. But basically, it's a memoir of an elderly Canadian woman named Iris, who relates her story partly in the present and partly in flashbacks.

Along the way, we learn that Iris was born shortly before World War I to a family who'd made a fortune making utilitarian buttons. After that war, Iris gets a little sister, Laura, who grows up idealistic, guileful, and tone deaf to society. We meet their mother, who died when the girls were young, and the family's cook, Reenie, who was a fountain of love, comfort, discipline and advice as the girls grew up. We also come to know the father, Iris's husband and his sister, a guy too old for Laura whom she idolizes, and, later in Iris's life, her daughter and granddaughter, as well as Reenie's daughter and her husband. Lots of characters, all well developed through the filter of Iris's viewpoint.

The family fortune went to pieces during the Depression, and the repercussions of that profoundly affected the way the lives here are later shaped.

Interwoven in this tale of family relations is a manuscript, The Blind Assassin, that Laura left for Iris to find immediately before Laura drove a car off a bridge to her death. (No spoiler here. You learn that in the opening lines.) The manuscript is a tale of two lovers (the man the writer of sci-fi pulp fiction), and the longing, frustration, and subtle expression of their love that only achieves the full clarity of its depth and tragedy at the story's end.

Although I first thought this book was too much in the feminist spirit of male-bashing, I came to see that Atwood is an equal-opportunity cynic. As humans are flawed, so are most people in this book. It's a credit to Atwood's skill that she has enabled readers to see the warts in Iris's personality, even when her story is told in the first person, and also that Atwood has presented her characters so fully from Iris's perspective.

Assassin has a slow period, but stick with it. It has mystery and a surprise at the end, but the surprise is not unfair to readers. There are clues that let me guess it, and made me think back over other clues that Atwood had left. All in all, Assassin is a beautifully written, although sad, commentary on the tragedy humans can't help putting in their lives. I'm giving Assassin five stars because the writing is so good, and that is a rare commodity these days.

Rating:
Summary: Blinded by Atwood
Review: Margaret Atwood's latest novel is so lush I felt that I was swimming in words. Atwood's writing style has always been lyrical as in her other novels such as The Handmaid's Tale and Alias Grace. The newest one The Blind Assassin is not only a feast for the literary senses. It's also unique in its structure.

This structure is a novel within a novel. Iris Chase Griffen narrates the main novel by telling the events which surround and cause her sister Laura Chase to write a smaller novel called "The Blind Assassin". With newspaper clippings and The Blind Assassin in excerpts, Iris tells of her and Laura's lives and their repercussions in a letter to her estranged granddaughter. Her narration which is set mainly in the first half of the twentieth century portrays the limited roles of women at that time especially well-to-do women. Supporting characters include the sisters' father Norval Chase whose downfall puts them into the hands of scheming brother and sister Richard(who becomes Iris' husband) and Winifred Griffen. World Wars I and II figure into the politics of the novel as well as the fight between communism and democracy.

I wish I could write as well as Atwood so that I can properly do her justice in this review. She just has amazing psychological insights; she delves into the subjects in a poetical way. Although her writing style may be obtuse at times, the readers should stick with it so they can have their own epiphanies while reading, that a-ha feeling readers get from great literature.

Of course, it's not perfect. The only complaint I have is that the sister's novel is not as compelling as the rest of the book. But that still doesn't detract from the fact that Margaret Atwood is one of our best modern writers.

For more of my book reviews, check out the online review site epinions

Rating:
Summary: For Avid Readers
Review: Once a teacher of literature said that writing a true [and original] tragedy was impossible after the Greek dramatists and Shakespeare. After reading Margaret Atwood's "The Blind Assassin" I am not so sure. My teacher of literature defined true tragedy as one after which you cannot live the way you lived before. Using Sylvia Plath's symbolism: good tragedy shatters the bell jar that isolates you from your environment and you have to survive that experience (experiencing the world and yourself directly, as is, and without any excuses and euphemisms) by finding something it is worth living for. The Blind Assassin shattered my isolation from the world for a moment. People always rebuild their shelter, so my shell is hardening up again, but while the novel clearly lives in me, I see the world in a different light. Or less as a blur of self-evidence.

More objectively, in this novel the author continues her exploration of the retrospective life-story telling. A character examines her past and together with her we can also understand the past, and present, better. (Past events re-emerge and we have a different view of them.) What's the difference between the previous similar work, Cat's Eye, and this one? For one, The Blind Assassin is much more complex, on the other hand, the pain is more intense and the burden of the past is more immense. Margaret Atwood has by now mastered this type of fiction in such a degree that I cannot see how she could possibly carry on on this path. (But then I thought the same after Cat's Eye.) It's no wonder that this book was followed by a negative-utopistic science fiction story, Oryx and Crake.

Some practical advice: For impatient readers, it's not advisable to start the book from the beginning. (Of course you can read the newspaper article imitations to establish your expectations.) For them it's best to start from Chapter 3, with The Presentation, which could stand as a short story in itself. After this chapter you have to go back to the beginning anyway to understand the story better, but the chapter is fully comprehensible and enjoyable without the first two. Of course, avid Atwood readers do not need to apply such tricks. What is thirty-something pages of setting the scene for them? For us.

As I mentioned, The Blind Assassin is very much like, even if much more complex than, a classical tragedy. However, this does not mean that it is somber and lacks humour. Continuing the Shakespearean tradition, Margaret Atwood uses humour (situational, ironical, absurd, black, self-deprecatory) as a natural ingredient of the novel. The story turns gloomier as it unfolds, but it remains witty until the end.

Rating:
Summary: Very well done
Review: The Blind Assassin takes the "novel within a novel" idea to new heights; the elderly Iris Chase Griffen writing her record of the past, side by side with her late sister's book "The Blind Assassin", which is an account of two surreptitious lovers meeting in seedy rooms and eateries, plotting a strange science-fiction/ancient world story. As well, Iris looks at her slowed-down world of the present, in the fictional Ontario town of Port Ticonderoga. The three stories are all separate, yet slowly come together in such a skilful and subtle way. As others have pointed out here, it is also a snapshot of the first half of the 20th century, with two world wars, the Depression and the social realities of the time.

After reading a few chapters, one can already savour the good writing and the way in which the story unfolds. One reviewer in the inset referred to Atwood's "dry, avid prose". That sums it up nicely. I had never been a fan of the one or two books of hers I had read previously but this novel was very impressive. Atwood comments on the way things were and the way they are now, the social norms, the inequalities, the bitter pills swallowed.

Her depiction of the Griffens (Iris' politician/industrialist husband and his social-climbing sister) comes across as a caricature in some ways but still very believable. The elusive character Alex Thomas is portrayed vividly, although I found that it was hard to get a good focus on Laura Chase, whose controversial Blind Assassin book casts a shadow over the whole novel. It's also a minor point that Atwood rightly decries the appeasement policy in the 30's, whereas she herself is part of the same "peace at any cost" crowd in real life today. In fairness she does cut beneath the surface and show the hypocrisy of both the left and right, and goes to the heart of the matter always. In that sense she succeeds where another writer could get dogmatic.

A very good read, one of the better novels I have read in some time.

Rating:
Summary: Her Best!
Review: The Blind Assassin was the first M. Atwood book I read. I liked the book so much I ran out and bought two of her earlier books (Alias Grace and The Robber Bride), neither of which I liked at all. Read this book if you want to read a great story with terrific writing. Not to be missed.

Rating:
Summary: A Book That Almost Drowned Me
Review: The opening was simple: "Ten days after the war ended, my sister Laura drove a car off a bridge." But this is a book that almost drowned me, if not for its addictive narrative.

Many people will either love or hate this book. As one Amazon reviewer pointed out "From start to finish, the Blind Assassin keeps you guessing." But, as another reviewer complained, you're not quite sure sometimes where the story is heading.

Atwood's THE BLIND ASSASSIN is a novel worthy of the Booker Prize. An intriguing novel about rivalry, secrets, betrayals, regrets, and, ultimately, yearning for something that is not there.

Atwood is a master of creating highly memorable characters- the mysterious but charismatic Alex Thomas, the machiavellian but indecisive Richard, the social-climbing Winifred... and many, many more.

To read this masterpiece, you have to have time, and be very patient. My advise is to first read the accounts of Iris Chase, before proceeding to Laura Chase's novel (a novel within the novel) THE BLIND ASSASSIN.



Rating:
Summary: Gorgeous Journey
Review: The size of this book did intimidate me at first, along with a few of the synopses I had read: a story within a story within a story, etc. Little did I know at the time that I would finish the novel in less than a week, it was so captivating from start to finish.

I had never read Margaret Atwood before, and I picked this up when I decided to read recent recipients of the Booker Prize. Within the first 100 pages, I was recommending it to friends. Don't be off-put by the size or what you've read about the "complex" arrangment - the narrative flows easily and you will not have trouble following the various plots. The storylines all ultimately entertwine in such a way that will leave you breathless, thinking about the incredible ways that memory, fiction, non-fiction, and memoirs blend together to create a masterpiece of experience.