Comments on: CanLit Challenge Book #21: The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood http://www.readerofthestack.com/canlit-challenge-book-21-the-blind-assassin-by-margaret-atwood Climbing Mount TBR, One Book at a Time Fri, 19 Aug 2011 08:23:05 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: waternixie http://www.readerofthestack.com/canlit-challenge-book-21-the-blind-assassin-by-margaret-atwood/comment-page-1#comment-18 waternixie Fri, 21 Sep 2007 17:29:47 +0000 http://www.readerofthestack.com/?p=30#comment-18 (May contain spoilers)I love this book. I got my bookcrossing screen name from it, as I'm sure a lot of people have noticed. I read it about three years ago and it was probably my favorite book of 2004. The business about Richard and Laura was a surprise to me, as was the other big surprise twist in the story. I read quickly through the "story within a story" portions, because they were so brutal and I also wanted to get back to the parts with the contemporary characters. If people give Iris a hard time for letting her husband and sister-in-law victimize her, then they are either naive about the times in which Iris lived, or the kind of life she had. Losing a parent at an early age and living the sort of sheltered way she and Laura did is not the best way to start out. Yes, they had money, but money doesn't make your problems go away, it just makes them easier to bear. In the old days, it was not uncommon for young girls to make marriages of convenience for family business reasons. If Richard had had better character, it could have worked out. This is one of the things that makes this book so good-Atwood manages to capture the mood and spirit of the time much better than a lot of writers who set novels in the past,but give the characters 21st century sensibilities and ideas. I am very grateful to find this blog. I have loved Canadian writers since I was in my teens. (May contain spoilers)I love this book. I got my bookcrossing screen name from it, as I’m sure a lot of people have noticed. I read it about three years ago and it was probably my favorite book of 2004. The business about Richard and Laura was a surprise to me, as was the other big surprise twist in the story.
I read quickly through the “story within a story” portions, because they were so brutal and I also wanted to get back to the parts with the contemporary characters.
If people give Iris a hard time for letting her husband and sister-in-law victimize her, then they are either naive about the times in which Iris lived, or the kind of life she had. Losing a parent at an early age and living the sort of sheltered way she and Laura did is not the best way to start out. Yes, they had money, but money doesn’t make your problems go away, it just makes them easier to bear. In the old days, it was not uncommon for young girls to make marriages of convenience for family business reasons. If Richard had had better character, it could have worked out.
This is one of the things that makes this book so good-Atwood manages to capture the mood and spirit of the time much better than a lot of writers who set novels in the past,but give the characters 21st century sensibilities and ideas.

I am very grateful to find this blog. I have loved Canadian writers since I was in my teens.

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