The Blind Assassin: A Novel

by Margaret Atwood

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Book details

Title	The Blind Assassin: A Novel
Author	Margaret Atwood
Rating
Tags	aging, Booker Winner, Canada, favorite, fiction, masterpiece, novel, Ontario, own, read, read by Grandma, siblings, sisters, suicide, historical fiction, literary fiction, epistolary, fiction-in-fiction
Collections	Your library, Favorites
Your review	I've already been an Atwood admirer for a few years, but The Blind Assassin is too gorgeous to merely admire. I love it. Where it isn't exquisite, it's precise. It moves expertly between the dry, the brutally truthful, and the passionate, and brings the keenness of the author's eye to them all. Atwood describes both the elusive and the everyday with a transforming grace. All that is merely on the level of prose, of paragraph. Her narrator is human, complex, and honest. The other characters are interesting, Laura chiefly so, of course, and I appreciate the way Iris acknowledges and interrogates her own inability to do others' characters justice. I particularly appreciated the way that Atwood drew us into the book with the mystery of Laura, and then gradually made us (well, me, at any rate) fonder and fonder of Iris. A beautiful literary bait and switch. All this and a compelling plot. Really, if I try to think of something wrong with this book, the first thing that swims to mind is that it's more than a little intimidating to a young author. My consolation is that she was 61 when it was published. I still have some years to practice.
Other authors 1
Publication	Anchor (2001), Paperback, 544 pages
Publication date	2001
ISBN	0385720955 / 9780385720953
LC classification 1	PR9199.3.A8B55
Dewey	813.54
Subjects	Betrayal › Fiction Canada › Social life and customs › 20th century › Fiction Domestic fiction Fiction › Authorship › Fiction Love stories Older women › Fiction Psychological fiction Reminiscing in old age › Fiction Sisters › Death › Fiction Sisters › Fiction Widows › Fiction Women novelists › Canada › Fiction Women novelists › Fiction
Primary language eng	English
Secondary language	(blank)
Original language
Date acquired	2008-05-06
Date started	2008-09-18
Date finished	2008-09-26
Summary 1	The Blind Assassin: A Novel by Margaret Atwood (2001)
Comments	Recommended by JeannineHallGailey
BCID	XXX-
Number of copies	1
Citation	MLA, APA, Chicago/Turabian, Wikipedia citation
Data source	amazon.com

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