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The Blind Assassin

Margaret Atwood

Start date: June 15, 2015

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ATWOOD-BLIND ASSASSIN

Blind Assassin thread 4: Part XI - End & Large SPOILERS
By Traveller · 122 posts · 33 views

last updated Nov 06, 2015 03:11PM

Blind Assassin thread 3: Parts VI - X
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last updated Aug 07, 2015 01:42AM

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Mar 22, 2015 Ted rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: postmodern-lit, lit-canadian, historical-fiction, reviews-most-liked

4 1/2 stars

I can’t give the book 5 stars, because I know I will never read it again. The story is its own spoiler. But until it’s done, it’s a dark, almost gothic page turner.

I usually start my reviews with something about the author, but unusually for me I’ve already read three books by this author (the dystopian Maddaddam Trilogy). Can you blame me for thinking that everyone must know this author, if I’ve read four novels by her? Of course you can’t.

First off, this novel is in no way a science ...more

81 likes · Like · see review

Jun 21, 2015 Paul rated it really liked it

Shelves: summer-of-women

4.5 stars
The words Booker Prize winner don’t always fill me with confidence and I haven’t read any Attwood for some years; but I thought it was about time I tried. This one is quite hefty at over 600 pages. The narrative is complex and has a number of strands; a bit like those wooden dolls from Russia that fit inside one another. I disagree with the reviews that say it is badly written and too long. It reads very easily and keeps the attention and I’m always a sucker for good historical novels. 4.5 stars
The words Booker Prize winner don’t always fill me with confidence and I haven’t read any Attwood for some years; but I thought it was about time I tried. This one is quite hefty at over 600 pages. The narrative is complex and has a number of strands; a bit like those wooden dolls from Russia that fit inside one another. I disagree with the reviews that say it is badly written and too long. It reads very easily and keeps the attention and I’m always a sucker for good historical novels.
The plots revolve around sisters Iris and Laura Chase and their family history during the first half of the twentieth century. The backdrop is Iris in old age looking back on her life and back to her sister Laura’s suicide just after the end of the Second World War. There is a novel within the novel, the story of a love affair; but who is having an affair with whom? There is a science fiction novel verbally told.
Iris relates her present life in old age and tells the Chase family history. A privileged childhood until the depression and the collapse of her father’s business. An arranged marriage to a cold and brutal man to save the family and the machinations of his sister. There are twists and mysteries before it is all played out.
Attwood covers the joys and cruelties of childhood, the turbulence of adolescence, the perils of the status of women in marriage, the playing out of dramas within the space created by family, revenge and much more. It is a real saga type tale, beneath it all it’s a good story told by a good storyteller. It is, of course, a story about storytelling. The heroic characters, although flawed are suitably heroic (not in an all-action sort of way) and the villains truly villainous. Loose ends are tied up beautifully.
This being Attwood, there is of course more going on. The use of power and its outworkings; both of the primary male characters, Richard and Alex are abusive. The capitalist and the socialist. There is an endless war of all against all and the balance of power shifts and moves. Elaine Showalter points out that the family nature of the saga over a couple of generations enables one to track the way women are treated over time and in the context of family. Iris is the survivor and puts it all together to pass onto her granddaughter, who isn’t known to her but who will inherit the saga.
...more

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May 25, 2015 Jan Rice rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: detective-mystery-crime, fiction, morality-justice

I read this book previously in the early 2000s via an audio version and proceeded to forget it. Doubtless it's not the only book I've forgotten, but this time it happened without the excuse of multiple intervening decades. And not every forgotten book emits a "reread me" compulsion as this one did, faint and intermittent though it may have been. Is this why I ultimately acquiesced?

The culprit may be that enticing cover picture on the oversized paperback I picked up sometime later from the Daeda ...more

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Jul 31, 2012 Chinook rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 1-kindle, canada, ww2, signed-by-author, feminism

I highlighted a lot of stuff I wanted to comment on in my Kindle. It's at home, but since we moved I don't have internet there. Hopefully I'll remember to come back and add more to this.

In the meantime, I loved this book. I loved that it had me thinking several things about who wrote the alternate stories or even who was with whom at various points in the story. I liked the fantasy bit well enough, but I loved the stories of Laura and Iris. I wish I'd read this sooner - I've had it since I lived ...more

5 likes · Like · see review

Jun 15, 2015 Magdelanye rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

not sure why I got so involved with this book that as I drew close to the end and things fell into place as to what was really going on, I felt sucker punched, so queasy I climbed back in bed without dinner to read the last 20 pages
will write a review when I've gathered my wits..... ...more

2 likes · Like · see review