The Blind Assassin
THE BLIND ASSASSIN (Margaret Atwood) - Three Stars
I'm beginning to think the joke's on me.
I keep hearing from all these people about what an amazing author Margaret Atwood is; then I read her books, am partially satisfied and marginally unimpressed, and wonder what all the fuss is about.
It's not that she's BAD, it's that she's not GREAT. Perhaps my expectations were set too high.
Right, The Blind Assassin. What can I write about this book that won't give away THE BIG SECRETS (tm) at the end that pretend they are more clever than they actually are? I suppose I should use a management tactic here and treat it like a performance review: I'll point out the problems I had with the book and try to finish on a more positive note.
As this novel is a reflection, a gradual re-telling of events, the ending is supposed to cast the entire novel in a new light. As such, it's beyond my skills (read: effort) to write a review that keeps these secrets.
***SPOILERS AHEAD***
First and foremost, Atwood's stories are not dizzingly complicated: they are modest and linear, but laden down with so many bells and whistles and red herrings that they give the illusion of being complex. Her stories move from A to B, and 300 pages of the main character waxing metaphoric on points C, D, E, F and G does not change this fact. I wrote in my review of Oryx and Crake that Atwood's "symbolism is generally hackneyed and trite," and that unfortunately holds true here. She cannot play with the English language with the skill of a Nabokov or Rushdie, and there were numerous spots where metaphors felt as if they were a club being wielded by a cavewoman.
The novel-within-a-novel initially throws the reader for a loop, but once you keep the two stories separately defined in your head it becomes pretty obvious that they're both telling the same story in different fashions (or rather, two different aspects of the same plot). By page 250 or so it was pretty obvious that the novel-within-a-novel dealt with IRIS'S illicit romance with Alex Thomas and not Laura's (fashion plays a big role in the novel and is the biggest tip-off: Laura never was concerned with wearing the elaborate clothing the woman in "The Blind Assassin" is wearing during her trysts), and I also began to suspect Iris was the actual author. Then I got to sit back and trudge through 200 superfluous pages of mild tragedy and pseudo-Machiavellian themes before Atwood finally got around to confirming my expectation. The two big bombshells at the end of the story were terribly disappointing: (1) that Iris had written "The Blind Assassin" novel-within-a-novel, not Laura, was something I figured out 250 pages before it was revealed; (2) that Laura had been sleeping with/molested by Iris's husband Richard was not a total shock—as heavily foreshadowed as that plot element had been (from the teacher molesting her to her "delusions" of being pregnant), I certainly had my suspicions.
I also had problems with the denouement, when you finally discover what pushed Laura over the edge and prompted her suicide. Iris reveals her affair with Alex to Laura and informs her of his death in WWII, and a despondent Laura drives her car off a bridge. It doesn't work for me on two levels: (1) the entire novel has painted Laura as an unusually astute and precocious young woman; I find it difficult to believe she was completely unaware of her sister Iris's trysts with Alex Thomas; (2) once the novel-within-a-novel is revealed to be the story of Iris's affair with Alex, the only connection between Laura and Alex is the factory picnic from the beginning of the book; this is not to assert that Laura did not have relations with Alex, simply that any depth of feeling between the two of them is erased from the story when the truth of "The Blind Assassin" is revealed, making it more difficult (for me) to accept that his death would be a crushing enough blow to push her to suicide.
Aside from an unnecessary long-windedness and a surprise twist that I felt hamstrung part of the plot, The Blind Assassin has some good points. Despite her narrator's tendency to dally too much, Atwood is a good story-teller, and The Blind Assassin is a good story. It's paints an excellent portrait of the extremes the wealthy will go to in order to control their world. It also portrays how women were treated not as people but as possessions well into the 20th century (consider Laura's and Iris's father, the industrialist: did he really have their "best interests" at heart? Or was shipping them off more a "business" decision?). The acid-tongued narrator convincingly portrays a woman who gained her savvy and worldly knowledge far too late for it to do any good.
I'm beginning to think the joke's on me.
I keep hearing from all these people about what an amazing author Margaret Atwood is; then I read her books, am partially satisfied and marginally unimpressed, and wonder what all the fuss is about.
It's not that she's BAD, it's that she's not GREAT. Perhaps my expectations were set too high.
Right, The Blind Assassin. What can I write about this book that won't give away THE BIG SECRETS (tm) at the end that pretend they are more clever than they actually are? I suppose I should use a management tactic here and treat it like a performance review: I'll point out the problems I had with the book and try to finish on a more positive note.
As this novel is a reflection, a gradual re-telling of events, the ending is supposed to cast the entire novel in a new light. As such, it's beyond my skills (read: effort) to write a review that keeps these secrets.
***SPOILERS AHEAD***
First and foremost, Atwood's stories are not dizzingly complicated: they are modest and linear, but laden down with so many bells and whistles and red herrings that they give the illusion of being complex. Her stories move from A to B, and 300 pages of the main character waxing metaphoric on points C, D, E, F and G does not change this fact. I wrote in my review of Oryx and Crake that Atwood's "symbolism is generally hackneyed and trite," and that unfortunately holds true here. She cannot play with the English language with the skill of a Nabokov or Rushdie, and there were numerous spots where metaphors felt as if they were a club being wielded by a cavewoman.
The novel-within-a-novel initially throws the reader for a loop, but once you keep the two stories separately defined in your head it becomes pretty obvious that they're both telling the same story in different fashions (or rather, two different aspects of the same plot). By page 250 or so it was pretty obvious that the novel-within-a-novel dealt with IRIS'S illicit romance with Alex Thomas and not Laura's (fashion plays a big role in the novel and is the biggest tip-off: Laura never was concerned with wearing the elaborate clothing the woman in "The Blind Assassin" is wearing during her trysts), and I also began to suspect Iris was the actual author. Then I got to sit back and trudge through 200 superfluous pages of mild tragedy and pseudo-Machiavellian themes before Atwood finally got around to confirming my expectation. The two big bombshells at the end of the story were terribly disappointing: (1) that Iris had written "The Blind Assassin" novel-within-a-novel, not Laura, was something I figured out 250 pages before it was revealed; (2) that Laura had been sleeping with/molested by Iris's husband Richard was not a total shock—as heavily foreshadowed as that plot element had been (from the teacher molesting her to her "delusions" of being pregnant), I certainly had my suspicions.
I also had problems with the denouement, when you finally discover what pushed Laura over the edge and prompted her suicide. Iris reveals her affair with Alex to Laura and informs her of his death in WWII, and a despondent Laura drives her car off a bridge. It doesn't work for me on two levels: (1) the entire novel has painted Laura as an unusually astute and precocious young woman; I find it difficult to believe she was completely unaware of her sister Iris's trysts with Alex Thomas; (2) once the novel-within-a-novel is revealed to be the story of Iris's affair with Alex, the only connection between Laura and Alex is the factory picnic from the beginning of the book; this is not to assert that Laura did not have relations with Alex, simply that any depth of feeling between the two of them is erased from the story when the truth of "The Blind Assassin" is revealed, making it more difficult (for me) to accept that his death would be a crushing enough blow to push her to suicide.
Aside from an unnecessary long-windedness and a surprise twist that I felt hamstrung part of the plot, The Blind Assassin has some good points. Despite her narrator's tendency to dally too much, Atwood is a good story-teller, and The Blind Assassin is a good story. It's paints an excellent portrait of the extremes the wealthy will go to in order to control their world. It also portrays how women were treated not as people but as possessions well into the 20th century (consider Laura's and Iris's father, the industrialist: did he really have their "best interests" at heart? Or was shipping them off more a "business" decision?). The acid-tongued narrator convincingly portrays a woman who gained her savvy and worldly knowledge far too late for it to do any good.
When you're young, you think everything you do is disposable. You move from now to now, crumpling time up in your hands, tossing it away. You're your own speeding car. You think you can get rid of things, and people too—leave them behind. You don't yet know about the habit they have, of coming back.
Time in dreams is frozen. You can never get away from where you've been.
posted by Kevin at 11:17 AM
4 Comments:
I'm glad you stepped up said Margaret Atwood is a good, but unspectacular writer. I've never been bowled over by her stuff and was wondering if it was just me, everybody else seems to drool and roll their eyes back in their heads in gaa-gaa awe. ~LA
Yay! That was a great review. I feel the same way about Atwood. I've tried several of her books, but only got through "The Handmaid's Tale," and I didn't even like that one very much.
Her prose is very dry and I quickly lose interest. "Oryx and Crake" was total hooey! I will skip "The Blind Assassin" altogether.
Do you ever think that people say they love her work just because it's the "in" thing to do? They are afraid to admit that they'd rather read James Patterson because it will mean that they're common and aren't intelligent enough to belong to the lit snob society!
translation - see my rant on published repetitive authors
cheers mate
Thanks for a great review. I just read the book yesterday and have been searching for some reviews. Most of them underline how unexpectable the ending is which I found quite strange as there really were quite many hints as to the identity of female lover (fashion, latin, keeping up appearances). My overall rating would be good/very good because of flawed characters, bitter love affair, psychology of passive/unlikeable characters (quite irritating, though - as were in Irving's Until I find you). From other Atwood books I read only The Edible Woman (too monotonous) and The Penelopiad (I appreciated quite an angry tone of that).
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