The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood

The Blind Assassin opens with these simple, resonant words: "Ten days after the war ended, my sister Laura drove a car off a bridge." 

They are spoken by Iris, whose terse account of her sister's death in 1945 is followed by an inquest report proclaiming the death accidental. But just as the reader expects to settle into Laura's story, Atwood introduces a novel-within-a-novel. Entitled The Blind Assassin, it is a science fiction story told by two unnamed lovers who meet in dingy backstreet rooms. When we return to Iris, it is through a 1947 newspaper article announcing the discovery of a sailboat carrying the dead body of her husband, a distinguished industrialist. 

Brilliantly weaving together such seemingly disparate elements, Atwood creates a world of astonishing vision and unforgettable impact.

As you may remember, I'm on a bit of a Margaret Atwood kick. I'm determined to read way more of her books as she's absolutely brilliant and it was a shame I never read her before earlier this year. I've read two now and Blind Assassin was next on my list.

I was blown away by The Blind Assassin. Atwood manages to interweave three very different narrative styles: newspaper clippings, a novel within the novel and the unedited and private memoirs of an elderly woman to create one captivating story that never quite reveals where it's going until the ultimate last page.

The story follows the Chase sisters: born into money in a well-to-do family just before the Great Depression, the sisters grow up with each other. Iris, the older sister, is our narrator from the future, as she contemplates her life and the choices that have been made to bring her where she is today.

Laura, the younger, is posthumously famous for a book that had written before her death, a book that changed a lot of things (and that we get to read as the novel within the novel.)

The best part of Blind Assassin is how the plot weaves and sinks in on itself. Things that you think you know for sure within the first few pages become utterly disproven by the last few. Things are mentioned more than once, giving new connections to previous events and new ways of reading the text. Iris isn't always letting on about everything.

The book is beautifully written, the prose absolutely gorgeous. One of my favorite bits is while Iris is on her honeymoon in Paris and sees a bidet for the first time. After her husband explains what it is to her, she thinks, '…They do understand something the others don't, the French. They understand the anxiety of the body. At least they admit it exists.'  Later, when she is comforted by a French waiter she remarks on his understanding, 'The French are connoisseurs of sadness, they know all the kinds. That is why they have bidets.' Just a little part that stuck with me and really shows the depth and the beauty of language of this book.

It won the Booker. It's ridiculously readable. If you have some time, pick it up. It's lovely and mysterious.

The Edible Woman - Margaret Atwood

Ever since her engagement, the strangest thing has been happening to Marian McAlpin: she can't eat. First meat. Then eggs, vegetables, cake, pumpkin seeds--everything! Worse yet, she has the crazy feeling that she's being eaten. Marian ought to feel consumed with passion, but she really just feels...consumed. A brilliant and powerful work rich in irony and metaphor, The Edible Woman is an unforgettable masterpiece by a true master of contemporary literary fiction.

I've decided to read more Atwood novels as I thought The Handmaid's Tale was a revelation. I completely unintentionally decided to read The Edible Woman next, not knowing that it was the first novel she had written. Surprise!

I really enjoyed The Edible Woman, even if it was a bit vague at times. I thought the heroine, Marian, was quiet relatable, even if there were a few moments where I didn't quite follow her thinking and she did inhabit a completely different era than me. She seemed like a normal woman in her early twenties and I could understand a lot of her decisions. That makes for a good main character for me.

I especially enjoyed the side plot of her roommate trying to seduce a man so that she could have a child. It's easy to forget how hard single women had it back in the sixties and the idea of having to seduce a man just so you could have a child, even if you wanted to raise it by yourself, seems ridiculous to modern audiences. The best part of the whole charade, however, is when the man she tricked finds out about it and starts yelling at her for using him for his body. This gender reversal makes a real impact and I thought was really well done.

Perhaps the most impressive part of The Edible Woman is that it was written in 1965 when Atwood was 24. She didn't get it published until 1969 and it ended up getting swept up in the feminism movement of the early seventies. To know that it was written so much before that and predated a lot of feminist ideas is really interesting, though. I like that Atwood wrote this without a ton of buzzwords in her head, that this came out of real experience of being a single girl in the mid-sixties. It makes it feel more real.

This book was very interesting, entertaining and just well written. If you're a fan of Margaret Atwood, I would recommend it.

The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood

The Handmaid's Tale is one of those books that you always think you should have read but for some reason have never gotten around to. I bought myself a copy months ago so that I would finally read it but only got along to it now that I'm trying to read my entire collection of books so that I can give them away. Once I settle down again, though, I will have to get myself another copy because I absolutely loved it.

The Handmaid's Tale is set in a dystopian America that has recently undergone a major revolution. A fundamentalist theocracy has taken over and civilization has changed so as to be nigh unrecognizable. Taking their rules from a few passages in the Old Testament, the roles of men and women have been completely changed, a strange caste system having formed.

The heroine, known as Offred (for of Fred), is a handmaid for a Commander. Going off of an old Biblical precedent, households that are having problems with conceiving, are given a handmaid (if they're well off enough), a woman proven fertile that basically just serves as the womb of the family. She is not to be looked at, does nothing else but keeps herself comfortable, and once a month has to complete a ceremony with the Commander and the Wife in hopes of conceiving a child.

The novel is told completely through Offred's thoughts and memories. She tends to zone out and jump back in forth through time as she remembers the years before the new regime, her training to become a Handmaid once everything had changed and her present situation. 

It's strange but The Handmaid's Tale is one of those books that doesn't really need a plot. The world building and exploration of social mores is more than enough to fill all the pages. I found, as I was reading, that I had no idea where the plot was headed because I didn't really know what the plot was, other than Offred's life and I was completely fine with that. The world of The Handmaid's Tale just completely sucks you in and you find that hours have passed while you've read and you hadn't even noticed.

Another thing I loved about the book is the framing device. Well, you don't really know there's a framing device until the end of the novel. There is a wonderfully meta epilogue that is told as keynotes from an academic conference years in the future, post-Handmaid, discussing Handmaid as a historical text. As someone who just finished her Masters in English, this was completely up my alley. I loved what this allowed Atwood to do with the story and the insinuations she could make without messing up the extremely personal first person narrative that was the novel. It was absolutely brilliant.

I can't believe this is the first Atwood I've read. I've been meaning to read her forever and if this is any indication of how great an author she is, I'm jumping in feet first. I absolutely adored Handmaid's Tale and could not recommend it highly enough. Please, please read.