The Blind Assassin
Type
Book
Authors
ISBN 10
0771008635
ISBN 13
9780771008634
Category
813 Fiction
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Publication Year
2021
Publisher
Pages
536
Subject
Sisters -- Death -- Fiction. Fiction -- Authorship -- Fiction. Women novelists -- Fiction.
Tags
Abstract
A science fiction story told by two unnamed lovers who meet in a dingy backstreet room. Set in a multi-layered story of the death of a woman's sister and husband in the 1940's, with a novel-within-a novel as a background.
Description
Publisher Comments
“Ten days after the war ended, my sister Laura drove a car off a bridge.” Thus begins The Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood’s internationally acclaimed, Booker Prize-winning novel. Laura Chase’s older sister Iris, married at eighteen to a politically prominent industrialist but now poor and eighty-two, is living in Port Ticonderoga, a town dominated by her once-prosperous family before the First World War. While coping with her now unreliable body, Iris reflects on her far from exemplary life, leading up to the events surrounding her sister’s tragic death. Chief among these was the publication of “The Blind Assassin,” a novel that earned the dead Laura Chase not only notoriety, but also a devoted cult following.
Sexually explicit for its time, “The Blind Assassin” describes a risky affair in the turbulent thirties between a wealthy young woman and a left-leaning man on the run. During their secret meetings in rented rooms and seedy cafés, the lovers concoct a pulp fantasy set on the Planet Zycron. As the invented story twists and turns through love and jealousy, self-sacrifice and betrayal, so does the real one, as events in both move closer to war and catastrophe.
Told by Iris Chase Griffen, The Blind Assassin has the sweep of an epic and the intimate focus of a family drama. By turns lyrical, outrageous, compelling, and funny, this spellbinding novel is at once infused with deep humour and undercurrents of darkness. It is Margaret Atwood at her breathtaking best, and confirms her status as one of the world’s preeminent novelists.
Review
“The Blind Assassin is the kind of story so full of intrigue and desperation that you take it to bed with you simply because you can’t bear to put it down.…It’s one thing to write an accomplished novel; it’s another entirely to spin a tale so brilliantly that the reader internalizes it.” Harper’s Bazaar
Review
“Margaret Atwood is one of the greatest writers alive.…A novel of luminous prose, scalpel-precise insights and fierce characters.…[The Blind Assassin] is so assured, so elegant and so incandescently intelligent, she casts her contemporaries in the shade.” Atlanta Journal-Constitution
About the Author
Margaret Atwood was born in Ottawa in 1939, and grew up in northern Quebec and Ontario, and later in Toronto. She has lived in numerous cities in Canada, the U.S., and Europe. She is the author of more than thirty books – novels, short stories, poetry, literary criticism, social history, and books for children. Atwood’s work is acclaimed internationally and has been published around the world. Her novels include The Handmaid’s Tale and Cat's Eye – both shortlisted for the Booker Prize; The Robber Bride; Alias Grace, winner of the prestigious Giller Prize in Canada and the Premio Mondello in Italy, and a finalist for the Booker Prize, the Orange Prize, and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award; and The Blind Assassin, winner of the Booker Prize. She is the recipient of numerous honors, such as The Sunday Times Award for Literary Excellence in the U.K., the National Arts Club Medal of Honor for Literature in the U.S., Le Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France, and she was the first winner of the London Literary Prize. She has received honorary degrees from universities across Canada, and one from Oxford University in England. Margaret Atwood lives in Toronto with novelist Graeme Gibson.
“Ten days after the war ended, my sister Laura drove a car off a bridge.” Thus begins The Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood’s internationally acclaimed, Booker Prize-winning novel. Laura Chase’s older sister Iris, married at eighteen to a politically prominent industrialist but now poor and eighty-two, is living in Port Ticonderoga, a town dominated by her once-prosperous family before the First World War. While coping with her now unreliable body, Iris reflects on her far from exemplary life, leading up to the events surrounding her sister’s tragic death. Chief among these was the publication of “The Blind Assassin,” a novel that earned the dead Laura Chase not only notoriety, but also a devoted cult following.
Sexually explicit for its time, “The Blind Assassin” describes a risky affair in the turbulent thirties between a wealthy young woman and a left-leaning man on the run. During their secret meetings in rented rooms and seedy cafés, the lovers concoct a pulp fantasy set on the Planet Zycron. As the invented story twists and turns through love and jealousy, self-sacrifice and betrayal, so does the real one, as events in both move closer to war and catastrophe.
Told by Iris Chase Griffen, The Blind Assassin has the sweep of an epic and the intimate focus of a family drama. By turns lyrical, outrageous, compelling, and funny, this spellbinding novel is at once infused with deep humour and undercurrents of darkness. It is Margaret Atwood at her breathtaking best, and confirms her status as one of the world’s preeminent novelists.
Review
“The Blind Assassin is the kind of story so full of intrigue and desperation that you take it to bed with you simply because you can’t bear to put it down.…It’s one thing to write an accomplished novel; it’s another entirely to spin a tale so brilliantly that the reader internalizes it.” Harper’s Bazaar
Review
“Margaret Atwood is one of the greatest writers alive.…A novel of luminous prose, scalpel-precise insights and fierce characters.…[The Blind Assassin] is so assured, so elegant and so incandescently intelligent, she casts her contemporaries in the shade.” Atlanta Journal-Constitution
About the Author
Margaret Atwood was born in Ottawa in 1939, and grew up in northern Quebec and Ontario, and later in Toronto. She has lived in numerous cities in Canada, the U.S., and Europe. She is the author of more than thirty books – novels, short stories, poetry, literary criticism, social history, and books for children. Atwood’s work is acclaimed internationally and has been published around the world. Her novels include The Handmaid’s Tale and Cat's Eye – both shortlisted for the Booker Prize; The Robber Bride; Alias Grace, winner of the prestigious Giller Prize in Canada and the Premio Mondello in Italy, and a finalist for the Booker Prize, the Orange Prize, and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award; and The Blind Assassin, winner of the Booker Prize. She is the recipient of numerous honors, such as The Sunday Times Award for Literary Excellence in the U.K., the National Arts Club Medal of Honor for Literature in the U.S., Le Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France, and she was the first winner of the London Literary Prize. She has received honorary degrees from universities across Canada, and one from Oxford University in England. Margaret Atwood lives in Toronto with novelist Graeme Gibson.
Biblio Notes
Genre/Form: Psychological fiction
Domestic fiction
Science fiction
Novels
Fiction
Material Type: Fiction, Internet resource
Document Type: Book, Internet Resource
All Authors / Contributors: Margaret Atwood
ISBN: 0385475721 9780385475723 9780385720953 0385720955 0965034909 9780965034906
OCLC Number: 43287739
Notes: Margaret Atwood takes the art of storytelling to new heights in a dazzling novel that unfolds layer by astonishing layer and concludes in a brilliant and wonderfully satisfying twist. For the past twenty-five years, Margaret Atwood has written works of striking originality and imagination. In The Blind Assassin, she stretches the limits of her accomplishments as never before, creating a novel that is entertaining and profoundly serious. The novel opens with these simple, resonant words: "Ten days after the war ended, my sister drove a car off the bridge." They are spoken by Iris, whose terse account of her sister Laura'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. Told in a style that magnificently captures the colloquialisms and clichés of the 1930s and 1940s, The Blind Assassin is a richly layered and uniquely rewarding experience. The novel has many threads and a series of events that follow one another at a breathtaking pace. As everything comes together, readers will discover that the story Atwood is telling is not only what it seems to be--but, in fact, much more. The Blind Assassin proves once again that Atwood is one of the most talented, daring, and exciting writers of our time. Like The Handmaid's Tale, it is destined to become a classic.
Awards: Man Book Prize, 2000
Description: 521 pages ; 24 cm
Responsibility: Margaret Atwood.
Domestic fiction
Science fiction
Novels
Fiction
Material Type: Fiction, Internet resource
Document Type: Book, Internet Resource
All Authors / Contributors: Margaret Atwood
ISBN: 0385475721 9780385475723 9780385720953 0385720955 0965034909 9780965034906
OCLC Number: 43287739
Notes: Margaret Atwood takes the art of storytelling to new heights in a dazzling novel that unfolds layer by astonishing layer and concludes in a brilliant and wonderfully satisfying twist. For the past twenty-five years, Margaret Atwood has written works of striking originality and imagination. In The Blind Assassin, she stretches the limits of her accomplishments as never before, creating a novel that is entertaining and profoundly serious. The novel opens with these simple, resonant words: "Ten days after the war ended, my sister drove a car off the bridge." They are spoken by Iris, whose terse account of her sister Laura'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. Told in a style that magnificently captures the colloquialisms and clichés of the 1930s and 1940s, The Blind Assassin is a richly layered and uniquely rewarding experience. The novel has many threads and a series of events that follow one another at a breathtaking pace. As everything comes together, readers will discover that the story Atwood is telling is not only what it seems to be--but, in fact, much more. The Blind Assassin proves once again that Atwood is one of the most talented, daring, and exciting writers of our time. Like The Handmaid's Tale, it is destined to become a classic.
Awards: Man Book Prize, 2000
Description: 521 pages ; 24 cm
Responsibility: Margaret Atwood.
Number of Copies
1
