Type of bind: Hardcover
Format: Bargain Price
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 832
Printing Date: September 05, 2000
Sale Popularity Level: 1111013
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'Ten days after the war ended, my sister Laura drove a car off a bridge.' Thus begins The Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood's new novel. Laura Chase's older sister Iris, married at eighteen to a politically prominent industrialist but now poor and eighty-two, is living in Port Ticonderoga, a town dominated by their once-prosperous family before the First War. While bewailing her unreliable body and deriding those who try to help her, Iris reflects on her far from exemplary life and her perilous times, but in particular on the events surrounding her sister's tragic early death. Chief among these was the publication of The Blind Assassin, a novel which earned the dead Laura Chase a dollop of notoriety as well as a cult following: as Iris says, she herself lives 'in the long shadow cast by Laura'. Sexually explicit for its time and place, The Blind Assassin describes a risky affair in the turbulent thirties between a wealthy young woman and a left-leaning man on the run.
Amazon.com Review:
The Blind Assassin is a tale of two sisters, one of whom dies under ambiguous circumstances in the opening pages. The survivor, Iris Chase Griffen, initially seems a little cold-blooded about this death in the family. But as Margaret Atwood's most ambitious work unfolds--a tricky process, in fact, with several nested narratives and even an entire novel-within-a-novel--we're reminded of just how complicated the familial game of hide-and-seek can be: What had she been thinking of as the car sailed off the bridge, then hung suspended in the afternoon sunlight, glinting like a dragonfly, for that one instant of held breath before the plummet? Of Alex, of Richard, of bad faith, of our father and his wreckage; of God, perhaps, and her fatal, triangular bargain.
Meanwhile, Atwood immediately launches into an excerpt from Laura Chase's novel, The Blind Assassin, posthumously published in 1947. In this double-decker concoction, a wealthy woman dabbles in blue-collar passion, even as her lover regales her with a series of science-fictional parables. Complicated? You bet. But the author puts all this variegation to good use, taking expert measure of our capacity for self-delusion and complicity, not to mention desolation. Almost everybody in her sprawling narrative manages to--or prefers to--overlook what's in plain sight. And memory isn't much of a salve either, as Iris points out: 'Nothing is more difficult than to understand the dead, I've found; but nothing is more dangerous than to ignore them.' Yet Atwood never succumbs to postmodern cynicism, or modish contempt for her characters. On the contrary, she's capable of great tenderness, and as we immerse ourselves in Iris's spliced-in memoir, it's clear that this buttoned-up socialite has been anything but blind to the chaos surrounding her. --Darya Silver
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Rated by buyers 
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Throughout most of this story, Iris is a very old woman. She is nearing the end of her life, and her body is betraying her in multiple ways. She is alone, with no family who still speaks to her, and depends largely on the kindness of an old friend to help her out. How did she get to this point? Iris remembers back to the beginning, growing up with a sister who was vaguely unstable and strange, and parents who never really did a good job of parenting. She shows the reader the events that led her to where she is now.
Interspersed throughout Iris' narrative is another story, that of The Blind Assassin, a story written by Iris' sister Laura and published after her death, which seemed to be a suicide at the age of 25. The novel, which features a nameless pair of lovers and a strange science-fiction tale, was scandalous to Iris' family and fueled their estrangement from Iris. As this novel progresses, though, it becomes more obvious why it was important for Iris to publish The Blind Assassin.
Although the ending of this story and the way the two separate narratives came together was not a huge surprise to me, I still found myself unable to put this book down. It is unusual for me to read a book with parallel narratives and to find them so evenly compelling. I was just as eager to find out what happened with Iris as I was to find out what happened with the lovers in The Blind Assassin.
Iris' story was heartbreaking and realistic and unflinching in its description of how circumstances outside of her control forced her into her situation. The story of the lovers was a reprieve, a bit of hope that people could find some happiness in difficult circumstances. There was great skill evident in the balance between these two parts of this book.
Rated by buyers -
Atwood is incredible. I'm astounded by the way she continues to explore women's issues, forever teasing apart the complexities of our conditioning and our impulses. This book, which has a novel embedded within the primary story, is quite remarkable in the way two stories are interwoven--scary fantasy and fiction blended with uncanny precision and mind-boggling effect. It's the kind of book I finish and turn back to re-read the opening chapters, wanting to feel my way deeper into the multiple layers of story.
Rated by buyers -
"The Blind Assassin" is a novel that weaves together three related stories involving a prominent button manufacturing family from Port Ticonderoga, Canada. The very first story is that of Iris Chase Griffen, the granddaugther of the founder of the factory. Iris is now an "older" woman in her eighties dealing with heart trouble, and has started writing and reflecting about her life. Her memoir is the second story and is multi-generational. The focus of this story is the complex relationship between Iris and her younger sister, Laura. Laura is sensitive, religious and "not the same as other people". Iris is more "worldly", but seems to go through much of her life with blinders on, as so many things go on right in front of her that she does not seem to be aware of or notice, particularly things that concern her sister. The third story is actually a novel that Laura wrote entitled "The Blind Assassin", which is about a pair of unnamed lovers who meet and create a science fiction story together. All three narratives transition back and forth from one to the other and eventually come together at the end of the novel.
I have to admit, I was a little unsure if I would like this book when I read the back cover, as I am not a science fiction reader. But this was highly recommended to me, so I gave it a try. I'm so glad I did, as I found this book impossible to put down. The three stories easily flowed from one to the other, and worked very well together. Margaret Atwood writes beautifully and thoughtfully, and I found myself reading several passages over and over because they had such depth and insight to them. This book really has it all, it's a mystery, a family drama, a love story and a science fiction story all wrapped up in one. It is an outstanding novel, and I have put in on my top ten list of all-time favorites. Highly recommended!!!
Rated by buyers -
All I need to say is I loved this book. I haven't read any of Atwood's other books but soon will. This was a book club choice and I read it over a weekend. I loved the intricate timelines, plot and suspense of it. Great book that I have since reccomended to friends.
Rated by buyers -
Hands down, this is my favorite Margaret Atwood book. I was skeptical when confronted with the story-within-story thingy----hated, at first, to be dragged off into some other world----but it works. Beyond the structure, the prose is so good, the writing so crisp and ironic, that there is a treasure on every page.
A favorite, at the beginning, when our POV learns that her sister has committed suicide:
"I was furious with Linda for what she'd done, but also with the policeman implying that she'd done it...."
Atwood has an amazing gift for stating the obvious yet making it mean something more. Nothing she writes is ever beside the point, every page manages to inform character and let them drive the plot.
Can't reccomend this one highly enough.
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