The Blind Assassin does not purport to be a mystery novel. Though the title evokes thoughts of crime, it is a memoir interspersed with pages from a science fiction/love story with the same name by one of the characters. But toward the end, the plot turns into a mystery, and the reader is challenged to put together the pieces of a three seemingly different stories to uncover the narrator's hidden secret.
This book's strength is the plot's creative genius. Author Margaret Atwood alternates between the stories of an affair involving an outlaw and a young girl who lie in bed and invent science fiction tales, the present life of 83-year old Iris Chase Griffen, and her memories as seen through the lens of her sister's suicide. Though these plot lines are separate at first, Atwood slowly weaves them together so that every detail works to the final conclusion, and no threads are left loose.
The story begins with Iris' recollection of her sister's death in 1945 at the age of 25. Though Laura's car crash was ruled an accident, Iris does not believe that conclusion and sets up the book as an inquest and explanation of her sister's death.
Next, the reader encounters the early chapters of Laura's book, The Blind Assassin, which was published after her death. The chapters have little relation to the early parts of Iris' story and include a lover-fugitive making up tales for his girlfriend. The blind assassin is originally a character in that story.
Later, the novel switches to the present life of Iris. A ceremony where she awards a creative writing prize named in honor of her sister, gets Iris thinking about Laura's death. Iris is old, lives alone in the small Canadian town where she grew up, and speaks from a mildly cantankerous perspective. She begins her journal-slash-memoir, which is mixed in with this science fiction story.
This story begins in Iris' childhood home with a description of her grandparents and her mother. That Iris' mother died while giving birth to a sibling who died as well, was never fully explained to her - the first incarnation of the blind assassin concept. As Iris recounts her childhood, newspaper clippings and her commentary foreshadow what is to come. To save her father's button factory, she marries rich industrialist Richard Griffen, and when he dies mysteriously, his sister gets legal custody of Iris' daughter. She is left alone and miserable for the rest of her life.
The revelation of plot details before they are explained makes reading The Blind Assassin an adventure. The reader knows at the beginning that they are meant to come together, and as elements of one story slowly show up in the other, the reader delights in putting all the pieces together. The blind assassin concept is subtly symbolic, and much of the book's beauty lies in the slow pace of the author's writing and the fact that she leaves it to the reader to draw connections.
The book's 521 pages are cumbersome and the plot is difficult to get through at some points - the writing is thick with details and the relationship between the plots is still unclear. But Atwood's beautiful writing keeps the reader intrigued, as she maintains a fresh, unique, and succinct descriptive style.
The strength of the narrator's authority and the humor of her voice augment an already ingenious plot. Iris takes the reader inside her mind. She doesn't just tell the story of her life, she comments on it, and examines how time has changed her perspective.
Her narrative is full of witty gems, insights on life - commentary on the seasons and the passage of time- and observations of other's idiosyncracies. The subtlety with which she presents her thoughts make it so that the narrator is not preaching, just explaining.
Added to strong, likeable characters and creative plot with a sense of mystery is a constant commentary on the art of writing a book. Atwood is obviously writing something that is meant to be published and read, but Iris is doing the exact opposite. In fact, after Iris makes it clear that the goal of her book is to reveal her hidden secret, she says that "the only way you can write the truth is to assume that what you set down will never be read." She later teases the reader with the idea that she is writing this memoir so that she will be remembered after her impending death. This constant commentary about writing as an art causes the reader to question the motivation behind what they are reading.
The Blind Assassin is a combination of ingenious plot, creative characters and description, and subtle symbolism that makes reading an adventure. The book combines elements of a love story, science fiction, and nostalgia into a slow-paced mystery where the reader is the detective.
