All of us were tremendously impressed by the writing, the story, and the history in “The Blind Assassin”. One member said that the story “grabbed her straightaway” from the opening sentence, and we all agreed that the writing was intriguing and beautiful, with inventive turns of phrases and cleverly constructed ambiguity. We readers were never sure if the narrator was reliable (and we learn later on that she has led us down the garden path in several ways), but despite switching between different ages and perspectives, Margaret Atwood always manages to make it perfectly clear where we are, and manages it elegantly and seamlessly, with no clunky constructions or other possible pitfalls a lesser author could have stumbled into. An amazing novel.
We felt that we got a good overview of the history of the 20th Century; politics, feminism, and fashion included: one member commented that she “could practically see the hemlines rising” in the descriptions of changing fashion, and that the portrayal of women’s clothing, the sister-in-law Winifred’s in particular, was deliciously detailed. (Speaking of Winifred, we thought she was a perfect beast – well, we used a stronger b-word, actually – a wonderfully hateable and horrible character!). Atwood describes the impact WW1 (and 2) had on both the soldiers and the women left behind; the helplessness of all involved, the unprepared-ness for the trauma of loss, the resulting isolation and disconnection people felt.
We loved the individual characters; beastly Winifred, the strangeness of Iris’s sister Laura, the sound aphorisms and resolute no-nonsense commentary of wonderful Reenie, who brought warmth, comic relief, and something concrete to hold on to in the midst of the emotional turmoil Iris went through. The class contempt Laura feels towards Iris's hard-headed industrialist husband is cleverly expressed in snide, aside remarks - with few words we get a complete picture. We also loved the powerful similes, and expressions like "baleful weather" expressed perfectly a dreary November or February day.
One group member commented that she did not enjoy the novel within the novel (the excerpts of Laura’s “The Blind Assassin”; technically a novel within a novel within this novel) at all, but that that fact did not hamper her enjoyment of the book one little bit – it fit the story overall.
It was impressive how all the different strands of the book pulled together perfectly in the end. We witnessed the changes in the narrator with awe – Iris develops from her initial naivety to a mature character without losing any of her unique voice, and all the ambiguous bits of information come together in a finale that is the opposite of rushed. In fact, one group member commented that as far as 50-100 pages from the end, the big revelation that turns the entire book on its head is casually, confidently, dropped into the text, and the reader is left to work out the implications in her own time; this shows a respect for the reader’s intelligence, and is a sensational feat exactly because the casual reveal so far from the end looks like the opposite of sensational.
However, some of us thought that the novel was getting repetitive and overlong, especially towards the end when Iris elaborates on her ailments and bad moods - we thought that it might have been a deliberate attempt at conveying her feelings by making the reader feel as weary and bored as the narrator, but more likely the reason was lack of rigorous editing!
Overall however, we praised the confident handling of the dramatic aspects of the story, a nonchalance that shows that, in one of our group member's words, Margaret Atwood is a "mistress of her own material", confident in the manner and pace of her narrator's revelations, and her narrator's lack of sentimentality. We all came away impressed with Ms Atwood, and eager to read more of her books - for most members this was their first Atwood book, and everyone was intent to read more. We finished the group chatting about holidays in Canada: its bitter winters, entertaining/frightening encounters with bears, wolves, and moose, and examples of some other writers the country has produced that are among our member's favourites, namely Saul Bellow and Steven Pinker. Margaret Atwood has provided us with a great group meeting all round.
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