The Blind Assassin
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Narrated by:
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Lorelei King
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Written by:
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Margaret Atwood
About this listen
Man Booker Prize, Fiction, 2000
For the past 25 years, Margaret Atwood has written works of striking originality and imagination. In The Blind Assassin, she stretches the limits of her accomplishment as never before, creating a novel that is both entertaining and profoundly serious.
The novel opens with these simple resonant words: "Ten days after the war ended, my sister Laura drove a car off a bridge." They are spoken by Iris, whose terse account of her sister's death in 1945 is followed by an inquest report proclaiming the death accidental. But just as you expect 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 you 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 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, you will discover that the story Atwood is telling is not only what it seems to be - but is, in fact, much more.
©2000 O.W. Toad, Ltd (P)2014 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd.You may also enjoy...
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What the critics say
Atwood at her best.
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Beautiful, Tragic, Resonant
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One of Atwood’s best…
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One of the best books of one of the best writers of our times
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I had to work hard to keep up with Atwood's time shifts, filter which character Lorelei King was reading, and have a few long sessions to get it all straight in my head. Perhaps this is a book better read than listened to, but I persevered.
Set in places I know, and featuring characters I could relate to, the tale progresses in a staccato fashion but becomes ever more difficult to put down as the hours ticked away. I've read Attwood before, but this was not like her other works, or at least those I've read, but it was a story that I really wanted to finish, even driving an extra 15 minutes on my way into work to listen to more; not one or twice, but every day for weeks.
I don't intend to talk about the plot, or the characters, but I do wish to commend this book to people who have the time to follow it through. Believe me, the it's worth it.
Not what I was expecting...
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