I have been an avid fan of Margaret Atwood for many years now. She's one of the five or six authors who I read everything by, so she's very special to me. I first encountered her writing during A Level English Literature, as I studied the seminal dystopian novel 'The Handmaid's Tale', and from then on I gradually tracked down her other books and read those too. 'The Blind Assassin' was the first Atwood novel that came out after I'd heard of her, so it was something of a momentous publishing event for me. It came out in 2000, but I was a poverty stricken student then, unable to justify spending money on beautiful hardbacks, so I had to wait until the autumn of 2001 to buy it in paperback in a promotional student evening at Borders in Brighton just as I was starting my PGCE. Despite the fact that teacher training is an arduous and time consuming process, I still found time to read regularly, and this book kept me on the edge of my proverbial seat during that first reading. Since then, I'd read it on another two occasions, but not since about 2006, so when I was scanning my bookshelves about a month ago for reading matter, I decided it was about time I read 'The Blind Assassin' again.
Generally speaking, there are two types of Atwood novel: those that deal with gender politics and destructive relationships ('The Edible Woman', 'Surfacing', 'Lady Oracle') and those that are more dystopic in flavour ('The Handmaid's Tale', 'Oryx and Crake', 'The Year of the Flood'). 1996's 'Alias Grace' was an interesting departure in that it examined an infamous Canadian murder case of the 1840s, and interrogated more thoroughly the relationship between history, fiction and truth, while not abandoning Atwood's interest in the female identity. I therefore see 'The Blind Assassin' as a continuation of Atwood's literary interest in Canadian history, since the majority of the novel takes place in the years immediately before and after the Second World War. The book says a great deal about how Atwood sees Canada's development as a nation and a great deal about class, gender and power also. I see 'The Blind Assassin' as Atwood's second best novel, chiefly because her earlier books dealing with women and relationships, as much as I love them, tend to come across as a little petulant and a little too obvious. Certainly, her work in the late 1970s and early 1980s can often appear like self-plagiarism (a female narrator and protagonist fights to preserve their identity in the face of a challenge from patriarchal authority), especially if one reads them in sequence. What we have with 'The Blind Assassin' is a far more subtle, meaningful and balanced examination of the position of women in Twentieth Century society, and most importantly, it gives a much truer account of how the phenomenon of love fits into all the gender politics. It helps that the writing itself is also more natural, the words of a writer who knows her craft fully. 'The Handmaid's Tale' will always be her most profundly powerful work, for me, but few books speak of the heart and from the heart like 'The Blind Assassin' does.
A beautifully memorable prologue that begins "Ten days after the war ended, my sister Laura drove a car off a bridge" establishes the novel being framed as the memoirs of Iris Griffen (neé Chase), a former heiress and society beauty, now aged and fallen from grace following a series of contrversial incidents that occurred around and immediately after the war. It becomes clear fairly early on that these memoirs are intended for the eyes of Iris' estranged niece Sabrina, though there are also many asides directed at Myra Sturgess, the daughter of the servant who brought Iris and her sister Laura up. The memoirs tell the tragic story of the Chase family, once prominent yet honest industrialists who fall on hard times come the depression, causing Iris to be married off to a business rival for an injection of capital, only for that business rival, Richard Griffen, to turn out to be a dishonest shark and a bully, with eyes not only on Iris, but also the sensitive, strange and stubborn Laura, only fifteen at the time of Iris' marriage. Interspersed with this reflective first person narrative is the eponynous novel within a novel 'The Blind Assassin', purportedly written by Laura Chase before her suicide, a modernist masterpiece telling the story of an affair between a young society woman and a sharp-tongued man on the run. Within that novel is also another story, a pulp tale told to the nameless young woman by her lover, about a blind assassin on a fictional planet full of exotic fictional elements with strange names. A further layer is added by the inclusion of historical artifacts like gossip columns, obituaries and newspaper reports which both foreshadow and shed light on the story told us by Iris.
What's wonderful about the book is the way that it takes on its themes with such sensitivity and gravitas. Iris is completely uncompromising about the way her ageing body is failing her, discussions of which inform her envy of the young and her own reminiscences of her youth. Rarely have the mechanics and terrors of old age been analysed in such a poignant yet brutal way. Canada's place in the world is put into perspective several times in the novel: in Iris' account of how the fictional town of Port Ticonderoga came to be, with the way Toronto high society is represented as a kind of desperate facsimile of London high society, in the descriptions of Iris' dastardly sister-in-law Winnifred and her flapper friends trying desperately to do whatever is "in" elsewhere in the world. Canada in the twenties, thirties and forties is shown as parochial and backwards, yet not immune to the pressures of the era. The Wall Street Crash, The Great Depression and the fear of Communism all feature prominently, and there are brief echoes of the strife that would tear Europe apart, too. Atwood weaves these enormous historical events seamlessly into Iris' narrative, showing the impact such large events can have on the individual. The position of women is of course central to the novel, with both Iris and Laura, in different ways, struggling against the lives that have been mapped out for them. Other female characters- Winnifred as the power behind Richard's throne, the bohemian artist Callie Fitzsimmons as the lover of Iris and Laura's father Norvall Chase, the indefatigable servant/surrogate mother Reenie Hinck- show the different paths a woman might take within the era, making the novel a kaleidoscope of female possibility. Ultimately though, this is the story of how Iris lost and then regained her independence, but only at a terrible, terrible cost to herself and her sister, and the aching sadness of this would turn even the hardest hearts to doughy softness, as would the overarching love story between the two protagonists of the novel-within-a-novel, a twist in the tale which is obvious very early on, but nonetheless enormously affecting. The last pages of the book are some of the saddest you will ever read.
I am so glad I re-read 'The Blind Assassin'. It's beautifully written, impeccably controlled, sheds light on an important part of twentieth century history and provides us with one of the greatest fictional love stories ever told. The lessons of the novel- seize the day, allow no regrets, protect oneself from the predations of the unscrupulous, remember those who have gone- have always stayed with me, and I think they always will. Reading Atwood is always an emotional rollercoaster, and always leaves me profoundly sad and philosophical for a long while afterwards, but such things are meant to be felt. This is a clever book and a book full of feeling. It's essential reading for everybody.
