[Book] The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood: Review at 10% progress

[Book] The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood: Review at 10% progress

Title: The Blind Assassin

Author: Margaret Atwood

This is the book I am reading now. It's thick. I've read about 10%. I am reading the text and listening to the audiobook simultaneously. The characters and structure are kind of complex, so I am making some notes before it's getting too messy. 

1. Characters

- Laura Chase

This the name you will encounter the first in the book. She is the sister of the narrator and she died by accident which most of people believe was a suicide. She was 25 when she died and her obituary was on May 26, 1945. And she is the author of the novel, The Blind Assassin, which was published later by her sister.

- Iris (Chase) Griffen

The narrator, the sister of Laura. Wife of Richard Griffen. She's the one telling the story to readers.

- Richard Griffen

Iris's husband. Died at the age of 47, June 4, 1947. Industrialist. Brother of Winifred. Father of Aimee. 

- Winifred (Griffen) Prior

Richard's sister. She's taking care of Sabrina, the great-niece. Died at the age of 92, February 19, 1998.

- Aimee Griffen

Daughter of Iris and Richard. Mother of Sabrina. She died 38 years old, and her obituary was published on August 25, 1975. Niece of Laura Chase.

- Sabrina Griffen

Daughter of Aimee, granddaughter of Iris and Richard, and great-niece of Winifred. She was travelling in India at the moment of her great-aunt's death.

- Reenie Griffen (?)

She seems to be a sister of Laura and Iris judging by the sentences below:

What I remembered then was Reenie, from when we were little. It was Reenie who'd done the bandaging, of scrapes and cuts and minor injuries: Mother might be resting, or doing good deeds elsewhere, but Reenie was always there. She'd scoop us up and sit us on the white enamel kitchen table, alongside the pie dough she was rolling out or the chicken she was cutting up or the fish she was gutting, and give us a lump of brown sugar to get us to close our mouths. Tell me where it hurts, she'd say. Stop howling. Just calm down and show me where.

- page 2

 

- Myra Sturgess

Vice-president at the Colonel Henry Parkman High School where the Laura Chase Prize was presented. She seems to have shared the childhood with Iris at the same school. She was the girlfriend of Walter.

He'd have been the kind of youth to drive with one elbow out the window, a hand on his girlfriend's knee. Astounding to reflect that this girlfriend was in fact Myra.

- page 36

- Walter

The large man who came to pick up Iris on the day of prize presentation. 

I should have married someone like Walter. Good with his hands.

No: I shouldn't have married anyone. That would have saved a lot of trouble.

- page 36

I quickly drew a character relation map before it gets too complicated.

2. Scenes

There are three scenes: The one narrated by Iris, the one in the novel, and the descriptions in newspapers.

Iris is the narrator. We see the story through her eyes as her name indicates. 

The scene in the novel is another story. There are a man and a woman. They might be lovers but they don't seem live together. The man tells a story to the woman. A strange and cruel story in another universe. The title of the novel is the Blind Assassin.

The newspapers describe the situations of the characters such as their death. 

3. My opinion

I'm struggling a lot. It's not an easy reading book. I had to read the first few chapters again and again. Yet I still don't know who is blind and who is the assassin. So, it's hard. I hope it is worth struggling. 

4. My tweet

the ceremonies we perform to make ourselves look sane and acceptable to other people. #TheBlindAssassin #BookQuotes pic.twitter.com/VbEzkJnccJ

— 용섭 (@gguro) 2017년 9월 15일

16 September 2017

gguro

My other book reviews:

[Book] 1. Me Before You, 2. Hope Farm, 3. The Little Paris Bookshop - Reviews

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[Book] The Rosie project (by Graeme Simsion): Extraordinary love story

[Book] Before I go to sleep (by S.J. Watson): New beginning everyday

[Book] The adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson: What is identity?