The Blind Assassin
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 First edition cover |
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| Author | Margaret Atwood |
|---|---|
| Country | Canada |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Historical fiction |
| Publisher | McClelland and Stewart |
| Released | September 2, 2000 |
| Media type | Print (paperback and hardback), audio-CD |
| Pages | 536pp |
| ISBN | ISBN 0771008635 |
The Blind Assassin is an award winning and bestselling novel by the Canadian author Margaret Atwood. It was first published by McClelland and Stewart in 2000. Set in Canada, it is narrated from the present day, referring back to events that span the twentieth century.
The book won the Booker Prize in 2000 and the Hammett Prize in 2001. It was also nominated for Governor General's Award in 2000, Orange Prize for Fiction, and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 2002. [1] Time Magazine named it the best fiction novel of 2000 and included it in All-TIME 100 Greatest Novels.
Contents |
[edit] Plot summary
The novel centres around the protagonist, Iris Chase, and her sister Laura, who committed suicide immediately after the Second World War. Iris, now an old woman, recalls the events and relationships of her childhood, youth and middle age, as well as her unhappy marriage to Richard Griffen, a rival of her industrialist father. Interwoven into the novel is a story within a story, a roman à clef attributed to Laura and published by Iris about Alex Thomas, a politically radical author of pulp science fiction who has an ambiguous relationship with the sisters. That novel itself contains a story within a story, the eponymous Blind Assassin, a science fiction story told by Alex's fictional counterpart to that novel's protagonist.
The novel takes the form of a gradual revelation, illuminating both Iris' youth and her old age before coming to the pivotal events of her and Laura's lives around the time of the Second World War. As the novel unfolds, and the novel-within-a-novel becomes ever more obviously inspired by real events, it becomes clear that Laura's novel isn't what it seems; it is eventually revealed that Iris herself, not Laura, was the novel-within-a-novel's author.
[edit] Quotations
You want the truth, of course. You want me to put two and two together. But two and two doesn't necessarily get you the truth... The living bird is not its labeled bones. (395)
In this daydream, Winifred and her friends, wreaths of money on their heads, are gathered around Sabrina's frilly white bed while she sleeps, discussing what they will bestow upon her. She's already been given the engraved silver cup from Birks, the nursery wallpaper with a frieze of domesticated bears, the starter pearls for her single-strand pearl necklace, and all the other golden gifts, perfectly comme il fault, that will turn to coal when the sun rises. Now they're planning the orthodontist and the tennis lessons and the piano lessons and the dancing lessons and the exclusive summer camp. What hope has she got? (439)
I wonder which is preferable, to walk around all your life swollen up with your own secrets until you burst from the pressure of them, or to have them sucked out of you, every paragraph, every sentence, every word of them, so at the end you're depleted of all that was once as precious to you as hoarded gold, as close to you as your skin - everything that was of the deepest importance to you, everything that made you cringe and wish to conceal, everything that belonged to you alone - and must spend the rest of your days like an empty sack flapping in the wind, an empty sack branded with a bright fluorescent label so that everyone will know what sort of secrets used to be inside you? (448)
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[edit] References
| Preceded by Disgrace |
Man Booker Prize recipient 2000 |
Succeeded by True History of the Kelly Gang |
