“It’s November; it’s almost bedtime”—in autumn 1919, when older Iris remembers reading her ABCs as a child, and determines that she’s never been the kind of person who could drive off a bridge.
Neither she nor her mother was that sort, but her father could have and, it seems her sister, Laura, did. Which is how the novel opens, with the car plummeting into the ravine below. With Laura’s death: “which everyone in this town believes—despite the verdict at the inquest—was so close to suicide as damn is to swearing.”
It’s a memorable opening: first Iris describing it, a 1945 newspaper article reporting it, and the preface from Laura’s 1947 novel titled The Blind Assassin (with a hand scissored at the wrist in a photograph, silently alluding to Laura’s hand placement on the steering wheel).
Straight away readers understand—this is not a linear account, but a scrapbook of narratives: assembly required.
I remember buying this book, on the day it was published —a rare hardcover purchase—and starting to read right away at home. No hesitation, and done in two days. But in rereading, I let out a big sigh after Part I: was I too tired to follow the thread through this maze?
I’d remembered it being all about Iris and, soon enough, that’s how it felt again. Iris reminds me of Nell in the linked stories from Moral Disorder and Old Babes in the Woods: both women chronicle ageing, from their increasingly orthopaedic shoes to their ever-thinning hairstyles, with sharp tongues and quick wits. The fragmented narrative is also a way of reminding readers that we are peering through memories: vivid but scattered.
MARM 2025 PLANS
Launch (November 1)
Old Babes in the Wood, “Death by Clamshell” (November 4)
The Blind Assassin Parts I-IV (November 6)
Week Two: Update and Check-In (November 8)
Old Babes in the Wood, “Freeforall” (November 11)
The Blind Assassin Parts V-VI (November 13)
Week Three: Update and Check-In (November 15)
Margaret Atwood’s 86th Birthday (November 18)
Old Babes in the Wood, “Metepsychosis” (November 18)
The Blind Assassin Parts VII-IX (November 20)
Week Four: Update and Check-In (November 22)
Old Babes in the Wood, “Airborne: A Symposium” (November 25)
The Blind Assassin Parts X-XV (November 27)
Wrap-Up (November 30)
We also wonder, how much of the narrative is the storyteller’s truth—how might other perspectives differ? We see in memory, for instance, bits of leftover dough shaped into men, that Reenie gave to young Laura who saved them in her dresser drawer “like tiny bun-faced mummies”. (The mummies in the museum, in Life before Man, also rush back to my mind.) And in Laura’s novel, this memory is transformed, so that her imagined children are given “small gods of sweetened bread” for certain celebrations.
There isn’t much of Laura’s novel yet, but we wonder: if the bread-people are real, what else is real. But also, what does it matter, what is real?
Question for anyone reading along:
“For failing to be what was expected. How could there not be grudges? Grudges held silently and unjustly, because there was nobody to blame, or nobody you could put your finger on.”
Do you hold a grudge as a reader, when the narrative isn’t chronological and linear, or do you enjoy the challenge; does having Iris for company help or hinder?
Question for anyone:
Reenie describes the fancy teas that followed Iris and Laura’s parents’ engagement: “with rolled asparagus sandwiches…and three kinds of cake—a light, a dark, and a fruit—and the tea itself in silver services, with roses on the table, white or pink or perhaps a pale yellow, but not red.”
Which cake would be on your plate? And which roses on your table?
Have you read, are you reading, would you read? I’ve kept my post spoiler-free, but feel free to mark your comment with a spoiler to reveal details if you wish!
Margaret Atwood
“Here’s a piece of literature by me, suitable for seventeen-year-olds in Alberta schools, unlike — we are told — The Handmaid’s Tale. (Sorry, kids; your Minister of Education thinks you are stupid babies.)” August 31, 2025
I didn’t get organized to read it as the readalong was going–distracted by Charlie Chan? Is that a thing?–but I started it a couple of days ago and finished it pretty quickly.
I didn’t get it in hardback, but I read not long after it was available in paperback, and like others I’d forgotten quite a lot–really only remembering the ending. I don’t remember it being difficult at all, and while it’s non-linear, I don’t think it’s an especially difficult non-linear. She uses the pastiches of newspaper reports to signpost pretty clearly where she is, and which characters are involved. If Wayne or Myra is there, it’s later in time.
Anyway, off to catch up with the rest of the posts, which I didn’t read earlier, because I thought I might reread the book, but hadn’t started. (Though that means I missed the live action–catching everything on replay…)
Your Charlie Chan project is enviable; I can see how that would have held you rapt.
It isn’t too disruptive, I agree, particularly with the dates on the “articles”; I think my initial resistance was more due to surprise for not having remembered it that way. Now that it’s less uncommon to have more fluid shifts, sometimes even without a header or signal, one might almost see this as being broadcast too clearly in comparison, depending on one’s reading taste, I suppose.
Sometimes I feel like I’m living on replay, it’s not too bad… 😉
Love the quote too.
Wish I could read along, but I will answer your question for those who are reading along because 1. I’ve read it before, and 2. it’s not the only book to challenge readers in this way. SO, my answer to “Do you hold a grudge as a reader, when the narrative isn’t chronological and linear, or do you enjoy the challenge; does having Iris for company help or hinder?” is DEFINITELY NOT. I like the challenge. What’s important to me are the ideas being expressed, the way they are expressed, and whether they make me think. And whether the character/s are interesting. TBA fulfilled all these for me.
As for cakes and roses. Not cake with fruit. I mostly like moist syrupy cakes – like an lemon almond cake. Fell in love with a prune cake once. (Oops, that’s fruit! I don’t mind cakes with prunes or dates). I also like cakes with nuts, like some German tortes. I don’t really like dense chocolate cakes as my first choice. I’m not a rose girl, so I’m leaving the roses off my table.
That’s allowed, it needn’t be a recent reading and, anyway, it wasn’t a very spoilery question this time, in case people were reading along but had fallen a bit behind. Although I don’t think I hold a grudge per se, I do sometimes file a writer as requiring a very specific kind of attention, and I obsess once someone moves into that category. Quiet! Notebook! Stickies/Flags! Michael Ondaatje was the first writer whose books made that known to me, but more recently Saunders’s commetary on the Russian writers.
Hah, I laughed with your prune cake, immediately the contradiction of including fruit. (But I maintain my opinion that it’s contradictions that make us interesting!) I’m interested in your preferring moisty syrupy cakes. An every now and then thing for me (and not something I bake well myself). Of course you are free to have whatever flowers you like, or you can sit in the fragrance-free zone (plastic flowers?), over next to Stefanie.
Just love that quote you included at the end HAHAHAH
I think I read Blind Assassin a really really long time ago, but I don’t remember anything about. That may warrant a re-read when I’m retired and have the time (ha!). I think what I like about Atwood, is her older female characters with sharp tongues. Atwood has a sharp tongue, and it keeps getting sharper, and that’s what so great about her.
You can hear her saying it, eh?!
The first three-quarters of the novel moves rather slowly and it’s a puzzle but you really have no way of solving it; then, the final quarter is about exposing what’s been ommitted or expressed with a particular plan in mind. I think it would infuriate you. For reals. Surely there’s something else you could flag for retirement!
It’s still surprising, isn’t it, seeing older women think and speak their minds. We need these role models! hee hee
Ok I appreciate you trying to save me time in my retirement – I don’t want to read something that will infuriate me! Noted haha
My book group at the time read this book – some loved it, some didn’t – mostly divided down the line of those who enjoy non-linear narratives and those who don’t. I do and remember it fondly, though none of the details have stuck.
I recall some readers feeling like the parts with her sister’s manuscript were just “stuck” onto the rest of the story, and I can see how it would feel that way if you weren’t compulsively curious, or if the simple idea of science-fiction tropes put you off straightaway.
I read this the year of publication too, and I’ve forgotten practically all of it! I should re-read.
I don’t have much of a sweet tooth so I’d try for cheese over cake, but I don’t mind a dark fruit cake. I love yellow roses 🙂
This year I have nagged myself silly about rereading a few books, because I always say I want to and then I read other books. I’m not sure how many, but I have so enjoyed it that I think less nagging will be required next year (but who knows LOL).
You and Bill are enjoying the dark fruit cake together so far (I bet he has brought some cheese)!
I’m not a rose person but if I had roses, it would be yellow all the way!
I don’t care much for roses, but I love a dark fruit cake. Up until a couple of years ago my mother would make me a fruit cake 6 months in advance of my birthday and post it over. A couple of times I didn’t use it until the following Christmas, 9 months later.
Oh yeh, books. It never occurs to me to think of layered stories like TBA as complicated. Iris in old age provides a frame and elements from whenever are added as required to build the narrative. The least intuitive parts are the lovers meeting because they are unnamed (a little bit of trickery, that’s not how Iris would think of them).
As a kid, I hated fruitcake, but I’ve become quite a fan: I can imagine your extra-aged cake was delightfully rummy a year later?
I wonder if it’s even possible to say whether a book actually IS complicated: reading is so much more subjective than English class suggested. Thinking about you reading Proust right now, even Atwood’s sentences are short and tidy in comparison. Yes, that’s true, although it’s only now (as I approach the halfway mark, working on next week’s chapters) that there are more of those sections, sparking more confusion or scrutiny or questions.
I said no fruit in cake, but I do make an exception for dense, dark fruit cake. It’s those sultana cakes, or apple cakes with sultanas, or strudel (not really cake), that I can cope with.
I read this so long ago, back when it was published, and my memories are so murky. Maybe next November I will reread it if not before! As for narratives, I don’t require them to be chronological or linear and am rather more excited when they aren’t! And cake, if the dark is chocolate, it’s on my plate, otherwise fruit. And roses, whichever one doesn’t have a strong scent that sets off my allergies 🙂
I’ve had it in my stack a couple times; I think I even started to reread when Rebecca and Laila were reading it a few years ago, and I considered it last year, too, but perhaps the sheer heft of it kept it to the bottom of the stack. Y’know…you have to make a real point of rereading and, then, if it’s a long one, it’s another Thing altogether: I get it. I’m sure there is a gorgeously GE-ed blue rose that wouldn’t smell a bit. Teehee
I struggled with a reread a few years back, having also found it utterly captivating on a first read. But I’d still call it one of her best novels. We discussed The Penelopiad last night at book club and people asked me which of her books I’d recommend (I’ve now read 30! which is still less than half?!); I said this and Surfacing.
The hitch for me, I think, was that I had mis-remembered it (as simply being Iris’s story): my own expectations get in my own way a lot. heh Cuz with Part V, I’m ambling along nicely. Your suggestions seem solid: I struggle with that question! 30 is a lot! Any novels left?
Thanks for leaving out the spoilers, because I really do want to revisit this. I remember loving it, but fortunately have forgotten a lot of details…
I’m a little shocked by how much I have either forgotten or that I overlooked. (I have yet to go through my files to see if I can find my original notes…if there were any.)
This is more of a just say “hey,” as I’m far too disorganized to participate in a Read-along, even one centered on one of my very favorite authors! Like you, I read this shortly after publication (also like you, it was a very rare hardback purchase!). I really loved it — so well-written, so twisty, so intriguing. I’ll take the liberty of answering at least one of your questions: I’d opt for the light cake and the yellow roses! As for the other, regarding narrative structure — with a writer as talented as Atwood, I’m fine with non-linear, it makes the story fun. Lesser writers, however, need to careful before they try similar techniques!
So nice to hear from you, Janakay, and I can relate to a disorganised stack, so I do understand. Wasn’t it such an Event to have a new book from her? It felt like no other literary release, post-Handmaid’s. I could count on one hand the authors I bought in hardcover back then. No fruit cake for you, then: noted! heheh Fortunately there’s a tray of every cake magically available in the comments here. And you raise a good point, it’s not necessarily a technique which is problematic; rather, any technique, employed sloppily (or without the necessary experience) can be problematic for readers.