Book Review: The Blind Assassin (2000)

By Margaret Atwood

This shall be my first Atwood novel. Certainly, I have read about The Handmaid's Tale, and even seen the movie. Certianly, I know about the fish hook and the eye. But this is my first complete Atwood experience.

It its two inches thick, but every line is worth the time. It throws you right in the midst of our heroine's psyche, all the little things that bug her in her old age. We are introduced to many characters who played a role in her life coolly, calmly, like the way she feels about these people after so many years--indifferent. We learn of this death and that death, not knowing the significance these deaths have had on our heroine, when they happened. Yet, every question is answered by the end.

The reader can start on any page, and continue reading from there--it makes no difference which is page 1, as long as we read on, until the back cover, and return to the front, and move on until you find page 1. Structurally, the book is circular. I found myself returning to the beginning the book as i neared the end. I often have two sections of any novel going at the same time, but that may also be due to my impatience to slow reading habits.

With is postmodern narrative and feminist analogies, this novel is guaranteed to warm any literary grad student's heart. It can be read alongside "Women's Time" by Kristeva, tracing the history and development of the feminist movement, from the first wave to the second, and what shall happen to the third, if there shall be one? If i ever were to take a graduate seminar on feminist literary studies, i shall elaborate on the feminist undertones of The Blind Assassin.