The Blind Assassin
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The Blind Assassin
Margaret Atwood
Literature
Jun 6, 2020
I asked a friend if she had ever read something that made her wish she were friends with the author – I felt this way about The Blind Assassin. She responded: “Yes. But when I read that novel, my reaction was that I wish I had written it.” I realized that this is actually what I wanted, too. It opens with a bang: Ten Days after the war ended, my sister Laura drove a car off a bridge. There are two narratives. The Blind Assassin refers to the story shared between unnamed lovers in various tawdry rooms. He’s on the run and she’s married. There’s a class difference. He’s not nice to her, but he does spin a tale. Most of the novel, however, is the first-person narrative of Iris, daughter of a Canadian factory owner, and older sister to Laura, a famed novelist who died young. In the Depression the business fails and Iris is unhappily married off in her late teens to successful industrialist Richard Griffen. Shortly thereafter, Laura moves in. Neither girl enjoys Winifred, the bossy omnipresent society sister-in-law. Layers of mysterious tragedies stack up over the years. It isn’t until the very end that it all makes shocking but thrilling sense. Atwood has an exquisite specificity of place, time, mood and period mores. I am a sucker for good descriptions of nature – there are many. The book has far too many post-its stuck in it for me to refer to everything that struck me. Welcome Button Factory Visitors, says the sign in old-style circus type; and, in smaller lettering: Overnight Parking Prohibited. And under that, in scrawled, enraged black marker: You are not Fucking God and the Earth is not Your Fucking Driveway. The authentic local touch. This morning the tornado warnings were out, on the weather channel, and by mid-afternoon the sky had turned a baleful shade of green and the branches of the trees had begun to thrash around as if some huge, enraged animal was fighting its way through. To pronounce the name of the dead is to make them live again, said the ancient Egyptians: not always what one might wish. Outside the window, in the darkened yard, there’s snow. That kissing sound against the glass. It will melt off because it’s only November, but it’s a foretaste. I don’t know why I find it so exciting. I know what’s coming: slush, darkness, flu, black ice, wind, salt stains on boots. But still there’s a sense of anticipation: you tense for the combat. Winter is something you can go out into, confront, then foil by retreating back indoors. Still, I wish this house had a fireplace. You don’t teach boys to be charming. It makes people think they are devious. Sex may go nicely with many things, but vomit isn’t one of them. But her mind can’t hold him, she can’t fix the memory of what he looks like. It’s as if a breeze blows over the water and he’s dispersed, into broken colours, into ripples; then he reforms elsewhere, past the next pillar, taking on his familiar body. Around him is a shimmering. The shimmering is his absence, but appears to her as light. It’s the simple daily light by which everything around her is illuminated. Every morning and night, every glove and shoe, every chair and plate. Those who leave such evidence can scarcely complain if strangers come along afterwards and poke their noses into every single thing that would once have been none of their business. And not only strangers: lovers, friends, relations. We’re voyeurs, all of us. Why should we assume that anything in the past is ours for the taking, simply because we’ve found it? We’re all grave robbers, once we open the doors locked by others. My cool aunt ran a bookstore and introduced me to Atwood – Cat’s Eye and Bluebeard’s Egg. Every year at Christmas, she would send us each a book and my holiday tradition was that I would read all Christmas Day. So, I think of Auntie Betty, beloved and long dead. Atwood is a wise and funny older woman, a treasure. Iris’ retrospective bad dreams broke my heart, as did her musings about the loss of home and the passage of an era. I loved this book. I will miss her company.
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Apr 15, 2021
Yes, I wish I had written this one. Clever, engrossing, and with a twisty plot. The authorial perspective can lead you into some odd suppositions!
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Great
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