The Blind Assassin: Review by Barbara

THE BLIND ASSASSIN

by: Margaret Atwood

Review written 9/26/2014 for Anstett Women's Book Club (Revised)

by: Barbara Lechner

Having read my last Margaret Atwood novel “The Robber Bridegroom” several years ago (it's one of my favorites, by the way), I have sort of forgotten that her writer's mind is very convoluted. It took me a while to settle into the layout of the story...figuring out the pieces and who was who in the various overlapping stories.

The older sister, Iris Chase, is the narrator in a story that weaves between then and now about her and her sister Laura from childhood forward...or was it backward?  Other family members and household staff are crucial to the developing story, of course.

I have to admit it was sometimes hard to be sympathetic to Iris, especially as she grew into adulthood...although I  am not sure she actually did. She was certainly a damaged soul after the loss of her mother. My favorite passage P.94... “(What fabrications they are, mothers. Scarecrows, wax dolls for us to stick pins into, crude diagrams. We deny them an existence of their own, we make them up to suit ourselves - - our own hungers, our own wishes, our own deficiencies. Now that I've been one myself, I know.)”   Iris seemed to be walking through life in a hypnotic state.  She was supposed to “take care” of her baby sister, Laura, but with a few exceptions, I don't see that she did – especially at very critical turning points. There was a terrible price to pay. That's why I think she became herself and her sister in one person.

Women's choices were limited in the 30's and 40's  and Iris was used to being controlled by two very strong women. First, Reenie, the housekeeper of her childhood; and later by her sister-in-law who was straight out of the wicked sisters in Cinderella. And her brother, Iris's husband) was no Prince Charming! The adult Iris did love another man but those trysts were pretty grim, and I found the connection to her sister and this man disturbing. Do you think Iris gave over her power as a person because it was easier to not feel anything?

I did enjoy the telling of the story and the narratives of Iris at her present old age were so honest when she talked about her body and memory giving out and the machinations she went through to get through the day without giving away how frail she really was.

/BL