“The Blind Assassin” by Margaret Atwood
Reading time: 5 minutes
The aim of this short article is to encourage the reading of this book and not to replace it. If you decide to purchase it through our affiliate link, we’ll get a few pence in our bank account and you’ll get a big thank you!
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The book oversimplified
The Blind Assassin is a story, within a story, within a story. It’s a poignant family drama with no happy ending, just a painful yet poetic conclusion, not unlike life can be sometimes.
Quotes
“There's nothing like a shovelful of dirt to encourage literacy.”
“Some of the best things are done by those with nowhere to turn, by those who don't have time, by those who truly understand the word helpless.”
“But there was a tomorrow, there was nothing but a tomorrow. It was yesterday that had vanished.”
A review through takeaways
I didn’t expect to like The Blind Assassin so much. I thought you couldn’t top The Handmaid’s Tale, but Margaret Atwood enjoys surprising me. If you like reading, read it. Let me be clearer: if you know how to read, read it.
At a first glance, the book might appear just like a collage of stories tied together by a common theme; but it’s not. It’s one long journey in which you walk the steps of an old lady, a captain of industry, a war veteran, a rebel, a lover, a desperately rich prisoner, a desperately poor free woman, and everything in between.
Learning to write from Margaret Atwood is like learning to paint from Picasso or learning architecture from Antoni Gaudi. Pick a book, pick a page, pick a sentence, study. Aim at copying her and you’ll fall short, probably in a place where your own voice can truthfully resonate.
What follows is my personal choice of seven takeaways, specific to this book, that I think are the most universal. But please, by all means, once you’ve read it, add more.
1. The filter of the first person
When you write in the first person, you can’t skip a single word. Before you even start, you must think about the character in charge of the narration and make it unique. Remember this when you’ll be writing your own memoir. Don’t be vague, or general, or unremarkable. First-person is like a tattoo. Once you reach uniqueness, pay attention to every single detail in your story. Everything, even the most forgetful glimpses or comments, should be as distinctive as it gets.
The protagonist’s point of view (Iris Chase Griffen) is a masterpiece of literary skill. Her doctor is talking about progress? She immediately says: “progress towards what?” She’s looking at an old statue? To her, granite is as tired as she is, blurred, but maybe it’s not the statue, maybe it’s her sight. And now yours too.
2. Choose the right format
The format you choose is not just some makeup you stick to your structure to brighten up a dull plot. It has consequences. If you decide to write an epistolary novel, remember who writes those letters and who is supposed to read them. Respect the characters while you travel from plot point to plot point. A piece of newspaper doesn’t marry very well with a flow of consciousness, for example, and dialogue should be handled with extreme care. In The Blind Assassin, every format has a specific function:
Old news set the story in the real, historical world.
Iris recollection of memories builds up emotional charge for the marvellous ending.
The novel within the novel works as a decoy until it reveals itself as the real Iris; the one that has to remain hidden even from her granddaughter.
The story within the novel within the novel subtly sets the distance from the real world.
3. Reenie
Sometimes, you might want the reader to pick up something from a page that the narrator (or a character) can’t understand, even if only momentarily. There are many techniques you can use to accomplish that, but an effective one, the one used in the book, is to let a character explain things in idioms. Children don’t understand the ‘adult’ language, and foreigners don’t understand the finesse of sarcasm or dialect. Use language as a weapon. Always.
4. Make your climax emotionally inevitable
Even if the cause-effect chain of events is not as obvious as a fire creating ashes, be sure to make your climax emotionally inevitable. In the book, Laura drives off a bridge, killing herself while her novel is still not published. Richard, Iris’ husband, dies only two years after that. None of this would have happened without the novel, without the button factory, without the ‘kitten,’ without Mr Erskine, without the communists. I know, it makes no sense if you haven’t read it; so please do.
5. Say everything by saying nothing
Spoiler alert!
Most of the key information needed to follow the plot are never explicitly said; only hinted at. Sometimes, you can say everything by saying nothing. A rape scene doesn’t have to be slapped in your face. Not always. It can carry the same power, or even more, if secluded within a dirty bed sheet or in a silent confession.
Say things by letting them out. Describe events by the ripple they produce on the rest of the world. That’s the key to marvel and elegance.
6. Time is relative
You don’t need to respect chronological order, but you don’t have to disrespect it either. In The Blind Assassin, at a certain point, the reader needs to know why Myra is Iris’ caregiver and not her own daughter, and why her granddaughter won’t visit her, but she’s been telling the story of her family very much season by season and these explanations are supposed to become clear after the actual conclusion of the plot. What’s the solution to this pickle?
Skip a bit. Tell the reader what they need to know exactly when they need to know it. Who cares? The story’s beautiful; it’s moving, it works. Don’t bother with time. Time is relative anyway.
7. The ignorant point of view is often the most interesting
In any story, the writer has to withhold some information from the reader in order to reveal them just at the right time and, again, you can do it in many ways. When adopting a strong point of view, such as an internal first-person, withholding any piece of information known to the narrator can be quite tricky. So, why not make the narrator themselves unaware of whatever you want to hide from the reader? This works well and pushes you as a writer to find subtle methods of foreshadowing, almost as if every story can be reduced to a riddle or an investigation.
Thank you, Margaret.
Alla prossima!
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