The Blind Assassin in Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge

Aug 22, 2007 Jessica Haider rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, 1001-books, booker-prize-winner

(review written in 2001)
I greatly enjoyed this book. I loved the way it featured several different writing styles: the novel within a novel, the newspaper/magazine articles, and Iris' narrative. The book included several hints of what was really going on without ever truly coming out and directly saying it until the end. I hated having to put it down. This is the best book that I have read in a while!! ...more

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Mar 04, 2012 Christina rated it really liked it

The main reason I gave this book four stars is because I have concluded that I was not supposed to find the narrator entirely sympathetic. If I were positive that I was supposed to find her a tragic, interesting figure I would probably have given it two. On the other hand, I became suspicious about halfway through that the author didn't want me to really like her, which was good because I thought she was dull, privileged, self-important and overly-sorry for herself. That said, this book really f The main reason I gave this book four stars is because I have concluded that I was not supposed to find the narrator entirely sympathetic. If I were positive that I was supposed to find her a tragic, interesting figure I would probably have given it two. On the other hand, I became suspicious about halfway through that the author didn't want me to really like her, which was good because I thought she was dull, privileged, self-important and overly-sorry for herself. That said, this book really frustrated me.
Atwood writes so damn well, I couldn't put it down. "I'll finish it later," I said to myself. "Well, one more chapter." Looking up half an hour later, "Okay, just ONE more chapter." Granted, towards the end it was more a case of "get the stupid revelations over already," but I would have kept going even without knowing that totally unshocking revelations were coming my way. She writes. So. Well. I just wish her lead characters weren't such passive women.
Iris was a cypher to me. Not old Iris - old Iris was a snob who felt dreadfully sorry for herself and blamed everyone else for, well, everything. Neglectful young people, I couldn't possibly have done anything to drive them away - all right, I did, but they should still come back and forgive me! How dare these people who take care of me treat me like I'm old, I may depend on them but I can still scorn them! Look at all these changes where the things I knew used to be, I don't like it (even though, as we see through flashbacks, she didn't have any particular reason to be attached to those landmarks and houses. Why was she so nostalgic for things she hated? And it's not that she'd forgotten she hated them, because she was currently writing down exactly how awful they were). But young Iris, who did, granted, have reasons to mentally check out of her horrible life, was so very vague to me. I couldn't figure out how she spent her time, from childhood on. It bothered me that she had so few interests in anything. Old Iris drove me bonkers, but at least she had a personality. The only moment of hesitation I had in instantly concluding that (view spoiler)
Laura had her moments, and I would have been much more interested in a novel from her perspective. Her unique way of looking at things would have made for an interesting narration, and she couldn't have been a more unreliable narrator than "poor me poor me" Iris. Horrible, horrible things happened to Iris, but it's really hard to feel sorry for her. She does such a good job feeling sorry for herself. There was something Hedda Gabler-esque about her, and in fact this also made me think of "The House at Riverton" - similar in plot, but MUCH better written.
I'll admit that this novel did touch on one of my pet peeves in that it contained (view spoiler). That's a plot I have no patience with, no matter how it's played, I think because the "worthiness" issue always shows up in these things. What the hey.
Addictive, yes, frustrating, yes, better-written than almost anything else I've read this year, definitely. I wonder if I'll ever actually LIKE anything Margaret Atwood writes, but I have to admit she is one hell of a writer. ...more

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