My Blog

The Blind Assassin Meander: Week Four

Written by

admin

in

With all these genres mashing, it’s the meta-mystery that keeps pulling me through. I’ve started keeping a notebook with dates and events, and I get way too excited when I can do maths and say “Oh, she was 18, that means it’s 1934-ish!”

Figure 4
Figure 4: Why would the magnet look like this? I mean, really?

My favorite passage this week was the one The-First-of-Two-Equal-Susan-C’s cited in the comments:

“How I would like to have them back, those pointless afternoons — the boredom, the aimlessness, the unformed possibilities. And I do have them back, in a way; except now there won’t be much of whatever happens next.”

I suspect we all sort of have that feeling back of late, wandering in our small-ish circles. And you know, sometimes sitting on the porch, sometimes having a beverage, sometimes reading a book by Margaret Atwood.

Like others, I’m especially enjoy the way TBA folds in on itself — the references you get as you go (“kids reading sci fi and pulp noir? hey now!”) and the ones that make more sense in the rearview mirror.

My favorite of these so far came on page 157 (blue edition), when Iris snarks in response to a passage from The Rubaiyat, that “it was a lot of fuss to make about a picnic.” Which felt like a great jokey alternate title for the book, especially as we hit the crescendo this week…. (enter young Richard! enter young Winifred! who the hell is Alex Thomas?!)

Meandering tunes: Meanwhile, two more songs from the comments were added to The Blind Assassin Meander Playlist — keep ’em coming!

The road just ahead: Let’s meet up at the end of Section V on page 246 (blue edition) where “I didn’t make a wish.”

Say pally, how’s this work again? Finish on time, comment each week, and stay in the hunt for a free “I Survived The Blind Assassin Meander” magnet. Oh, and in case you were wondering: This is the post for comments on Chapters 5.6 (“Loaf givers”) through 5.12 (“The tango”).

Comments

54 responses to “The Blind Assassin Meander: Week Four”

  1. Ute Avatar
    Ute

    Fully caught up now (if only you knew HOW caught up, but as with this book: let’s keep some things secret, at least for now).
    Loved the very beginning of this week’s “to be read”-section about the Boston Cooking-School Cookbook (didn’t expect this book to exist for real, but looked it up and yes, absolute beststeller in its times) and the writer’s absolute pragmatism: “A beverage is any drink. Water is the beverage provided for Man by Nature. All beverages contain a large percentage of water…”
    And talking about pragmatism: The conversation between Laura’s father and herself right before Richard proposes – pure pragmatism!
    Let’s wait and see if next week’s theme will be “pragmatism”, too or something entirely else!

    Reply
  2. Dr. Vitz Avatar
    Dr. Vitz

    It’s interesting that the Captain tries so hard to do right by his workers but ultimately pragmatically looks to protect only his daughters. Iris seems to base her moral sentiments on situational ethics, whereas Laura seems without moral context whatsoever – classically amoral, without any malice but almost no recognition of the logic of or need for ethical standards.

    I noted the concern with hand-tinting ending with 2 pictures in which the missing sister was represented by a tinted hand. Also,there’s a real concern with the placement of hands throughout the book so far, and a lot of talk about tints throughout Laura’s relationship with Richard

    Reply
  3. Jim Compton Avatar
    Jim Compton

    I too am finally caught up. Et in Arcadia ego.

    Favorite sentence so far, back in “The Button Factory Picnic,” about Reemie’s baking:
    “Her pies had gluey, underdone fillings, and crusts that were tough but flexible, like beige kelp or huge leathery mushrooms.”
    Beige kelp!

    Yes, Iris is being pragmatic in accepting marriage to the horrible Richard on the grounds laid out by her father, but it’s not like she has much choice. She is an 18-year-old child thrown to the wolves. But it is presumably this choice that later leads Laura, in her moral absolutism and literalism, to portray Iris (again, presumably it’s her) in TBA as the compromised married rich woman, subject to well-deserved verbal abuse from her class warrior boyfriend.

    What role will Richard’s Nazi sympathies play in coming events?

    Reply
  4. Furiosa Avatar
    Furiosa

    I love how everything having to do with Iris’s marriage reads like the capitalist version of The Handmaid’s Tale, complete with an older woman indoctrinating Iris in how things are done. All financial transaction and nothing about what Iris as a female individual might actually want (besides nice clothes). The way the narratives keep spiraling in on themselves make me suspect Laura’s book is about her sister and not herself, even though Laura is the one who is spotted around town with Alex Thomas. Iris has already told us her horrible abusive tutor Erskine taught her how to lie and cheat and resist…

    Reply
  5. Furiosa Avatar
    Furiosa

    P.S. The glorious synthesis of cynicism and realism in this line: “People cry at weddings for the same reason they cry at happy endings: because they so desperately want to believe in something they know is not credible.” Laughed out loud.

    Reply
  6. Computilo Avatar
    Computilo

    I continue to be fascinated by Reenie’s aphorisms and her cooking skills. It’s no wonder that Reenie’s Chicken a la Providence didn’t quite “fall off the bone.” I checked my old copy of the Fannie Farmer cookbook (after it was rebranded from the Boston Cooking School name) and realized that perhaps Reenie needed just a tiny bit more detailed instruction, including into what kind of “fancy shapes” the carrots were cut.

    Chicken a la Providence

    Prepare and boil a chicken, following the recipe for Boiled Fowl [see below]. The liquor should be reduced to two cups, and used for making sauce, with two tablespoons each of butter and flour cooked together. Add to the sauce one-half cup each of cooked carrots (cut in fancy shapes) and green peas, one tablespoon of lemon juice, two egg yolks, salt, and pepper. Place the chicken on a hot platter, surround with sauce, and sprinkle the chicken and sauce with one-half tablespoon of finely chopped parsley.

    Boiled Fowl
    Dress, clean, and truss a four-pound fowl, tie in cheese-cloth, place on a trivet in a kettle, half surround with boiling water, cover, and cook slowly until tender, turning occasionally. Add salt the last hour of cooking. Serve with Egg, Oyster, or Celery Sauce. It is not desirable to stuff a boiled fowl.

    —From the 1918 printing of The Boston Cooking School Cookbook by Fannie Merritt Farmer.

    I also appreciated the image of the canapés in that section, and the cousin who was serving the canapés, thrusting them “at our guests abruptly, menacingly even, as if enacting a stick-up.” Pulp fiction at a fancy dinner.

    Reply
  7. Computilo Avatar
    Computilo

    Adding Union Maid by Woody Guthrie to the Playlist.

    Thinking that a couple of our characters would fit this profile.

    “There once was a union maid, she never was afraid
    Of goons and ginks and company finks and the deputy sheriffs who made the raid.
    She went to the union hall when a meeting it was called,
    And when the Legion boys come ’round
    She always stood her ground.

    Oh, you can’t scare me, I’m sticking to the union,
    I’m sticking to the union, I’m sticking to the union.
    Oh, you can’t scare me, I’m sticking to the union,
    I’m sticking to the union ’til the day I die.

    This union maid was wise to the tricks of company spies,
    She couldn’t be fooled by a company stool, she’d always organize the guys.
    She always got her way when she struck for better pay.
    She’d show her card to the National Guard
    And this is what she’d say

    You gals who want to be free, just take a tip from me;
    Get you a man who’s a union man and join the ladies’ auxiliary.
    Married life ain’t hard when you got a union card,
    A union man has a happy life when he’s got a union wife.”

    Reply
  8. Computilo Avatar
    Computilo

    Woody with the Almanac Singers is a good version.

    Reply
  9. Itto Ogami Avatar
    Itto Ogami

    99% of the time I wait until finishing a book to read author interviews or analyses. TBA falls into the 1%. Thoroughly enjoyed reading an interview with MA and plan to read more, and watch video interviews.

    Found this MA statement interesting. No spoiler alert required.

    “The depression years were also the “golden age” of science-fiction, fantasy and weird-tales pulp magazines, and the character Alex is modelled on the many writers who wrote for those pulps, often under multiple names. Then as now, SF is a form that allows an exploration of social structures in a more indirect and possibly more entertaining manner than does social realism.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/aug/09/blind-assassin-atwood-book-club

    And, on positive note, despite the wedding depression amidst an economic depression, Winifred Griffen Prior would be a very skilled wedding planner.

    Another positive note. Loving the virtual book club and reader comments. Yay Cec!

    Reply
  10. xian Avatar
    xian

    dropping a marker here so I don’t get left behind, y’all/

    Reply
  11. blue_f Avatar
    blue_f

    Catching up with you all, but too tired to comment tonight. Will come back for some additional notes tomorrow. 🙂

    Reply
  12. So-Called Bill Avatar
    So-Called Bill

    Feeling now like the sci-fi was just a trick to pull me in to this social-historical novel, not that I’m complaining.

    Reply
  13. Alyssa Avatar
    Alyssa

    As with our last book, I’m seeing some parallels between the story and our present day. I’m glad to be making courses rather than buttons, for example. We’re starting to see some loose ends tie together but I’m curious to find out where the story will take us next.

    Reply
  14. Clort Avatar
    Clort

    I liked the description of the meal after their wedding afternoon, where she forgoes the steak and has only the salad that “tasted like pale-green water. It tasted like frost.” Which captures perfectly the coldness of her marriage and of her experience of everything related to her marriage. Also liked when, speaking of her young self, she says “I am her outcome, the result of the life she once lived headlong; whereas she, if she can , if she can be said to exist at all, is composed only of what I remember….But even if she knew enough to look, she can’t see me at all.” (Slight edge of creepiness)

    Reply
  15. Mike M Avatar
    Mike M

    I love the way Atwood makes things so vivid and creates the distinct voices of the characters. Even the descriptions of the Gatsby-esque excess are enjoyable to picture — and sneer at with Iris.

    Also, thank you Furiosa for “capitalist version of The Handmaid’s Tale”! 🙂

    Reply
  16. Willem Avatar
    Willem

    Ugh, poor Iris. The Imperial Room killed me.

    Reply
  17. The other Susan C Avatar
    The other Susan C

    I was intrigued by the “loaf-givers.” It looks like “loaf-givers” is an term that later became “lady.” It meant women of rank who gave bread to the retainers after the people of rank had eaten. The Queen of Sheba might have been one. But who is the loaf giver here? Is anyone?

    Reply
  18. Peaseblossom Avatar
    Peaseblossom

    I, like many of us, enjoyed the description of cookery. “Cookery means the knowledge of Medea and of Circe and of Helen and of the Queen of Sheba. It means the knowledge of all herbs and fruits and balms and spices, and all that is healing and sweet in the fields and groves and savory in meats. It means carefulness and inventiveness and willingness and readiness of appliances. It means the economy of your grandmothers and the science of the modern chemist”….Perhaps this is why I’m obsessed with Gordon Ramsey and chuckle when Alton Brown explains polyphenols during “Good Eats.” “I wondered where Mr. Ruskin got his peculiar ideas, about ladies and cookery both.” I can hear the voice of a snarky millennial questioning, “Had anyone ever taken this sort of thing seriously?”

    Reply
  19. Lydia_S Avatar
    Lydia_S

    I am sorry for this pragmatical Iris. I also started to listen to interviews with MA – I already had after reading some other books of her. This week I turned to listen to the audio book for some pages and remembered MA talking about how important the rhythm and pacing of her writing is for her. So I first read and then listened to the “loaf-givers” (out of curiosity) and now I am tempted to continue doing so. I wonder, by the way, what this two copies of the picnic photograph will be good for. I like this connection of both variations by the tinted hands.

    Reply
  20. Dr. Vitz Avatar
    Dr. Vitz

    Want to sidetrack a moment to say my White Noise Meander magnet arrived yesterday – Looks good!

    Reply
  21. Susan C Avatar
    Susan C

    I’m behind. But I did just read the section about hand-tinted photographs, of which I have quite a collection acquired at flea markets and estate sales. I don’t know how to share one here, but I do recommend searching for hand-tinted photos in google images–there is a quite a feast.
    I too received my magnet and it is quite an apt representation of our collective accomplishment. Thanks, Cecil!

    Reply
  22. Jeff G Avatar
    Jeff G

    Great section again, but, ugh poor Iris. That she is able to infuse her own depressing tale with such a degree of wit is a masterly touch by Atwood and maybe speaks to how she has survived for so long, but I guess we’ll see.

    Two things I did not expect to get from this reading were:
    1) Fashion tips: “Their clothes looked as if they’d covered themselves in glue, then rolled around in hundred-dollar bill.” Keeping that in mind for when I finally hit it big.

    2) Bedroom advice: “Sex may go nicely with many things, but vomit isn’t one of them.” I’ve been married for 34 years and am just learning this NOW??

    Reply
  23. Susannah Avatar
    Susannah

    I felt a lot of sympathy for both Iris and Laura before Iris’s wedding. It’s such hard thing she’s doing, and she doesn’t really have a choice after what her father said to her. The way Winnifred is taking control of so much of her life can be painful to read and I’m interested to learn more about their eventual confrontation. I also found the picnic photos Laura made for herself and Iris with the other person cut out chilling.

    Reply
  24. Josh Avatar
    Josh

    Totally agree, and yet I am enjoying the interplay between the way each of the girls balance each other, practically and spiritually. Iris’s pragmatism in everything and Laura’s altruistic faith in people and things. I found it to be weirdly out of character, yet hopeful, those bizarre pictures. Everybody gets most of what they want out of them — Iris just realizes it’s her dream wholly. Laura seems destined to never realize that her dreams and hope are purely her own, not those others.

    Reply
  25. Josh Avatar
    Josh

    duht-duh-da…On a voyage toward an economically stable Germany!

    Reply
  26. Josh Avatar
    Josh

    I like the primer book Alex left behind in the attic and the word-list it contained. I hope that some of these jewels are crowned in TBA narrative!

    Reply
  27. Josh Avatar
    Josh

    astute. I’m finding the tedium and melodrama a bit taxing, yet weirdly engaging. The sentences drag me into it—such bland lives described in such interesting terms.

    Reply
  28. Josh Avatar
    Josh

    Good stuff, Alyssa! Always love to think about the contrasts: past/present; high-buttons/low-buttons; debutantes/tramps 🙂

    Reply
  29. Josh Avatar
    Josh

    Iris is very aware that she is walking the plank, dutifully. Over time, I’ve allowed myself to be more forgiving of these characters. A younger me would have dashed the book against the wall and left it there for the rats. I guess I finally learned that was a bit too impetuous a way to go.

    Reply
  30. Josh Avatar
    Josh

    Still, one can’t really go wrong with a Waldorf! 😉

    Reply
  31. Josh Avatar
    Josh

    To me it felt like the photographs were Laura’s way of trying to take care of Iris for once, awkwardly as one would expect, but a human gesture contrasted against the innocent, self-absorbed selfishness of Laura’s usual description.

    Reply
  32. Josh Avatar
    Josh

    I am very happy to have eaten nearly an entire bunch of radishes during the reading of this meander phase. It seems appropriate to me; crunchy-funk.

    Reply
  33. Bob Myren Avatar
    Bob Myren

    I looooved the description of Reenie’s pies as well!

    Reply
  34. bob myren Avatar
    bob myren

    “[Winifred had] given me some cold cream and some cotton gloves – I was to put the cream on, then the gloves over it. This treatment was supposed to make your hands feel all white and soft – the texture of uncooked bacon fat.”

    Gross. That’s going to stick with me forever.

    Reply
  35. Jennifer E Avatar
    Jennifer E

    Such an interesting section, seems like Iris was never given a chance for anything else in life except to be “sold off” to the highest bidder. I do wonder about Winifred, what’s her true relationship with her brother. I like the way Atwood has shown the development of both Iris and Laura from small girls to adolescents who have become independent in their own ways. Am also wondering if Alex is the tale teller of the Sci Fi part of the story…

    Reply
  36. Cecil Vortex Avatar
    Cecil Vortex

    Spotify gave me Woody or the Almanac singers — I was forced to choose!

    Reply
  37. Cecil Vortex Avatar
    Cecil Vortex

    Nice! All credit to Meanderers e and Barbara for the magnet design and the “we actually shipped them out this time”-ness of it all, respectfully. 🙂

    Reply
  38. Cecil Vortex Avatar
    Cecil Vortex

    🙂 !

    Reply
  39. Kat Avatar
    Kat

    Checking in…

    Reply
  40. Neil Avatar
    Neil

    The tango chapter was a great ending to part V and this week’s meander. Iris finally gets to leave Port Ticonderoga (granted, not by means of her own choosing), but there will be no grand adventures if she can help it. “So this is marriage,” she thinks the day after her wedding while having dinner with Richard’s friends in New York; “So this is the ocean,” she thinks soon after as she and Richard sail for Europe. Resignation follows close on the heels of disappointment for our friend Iris.

    Reply
  41. Barbara B Avatar
    Barbara B

    [Glancing at edge of table] Sorry for the tardy post, dearest chums, but I had a bit of headache. Caught up now, just a tad sea sick, and ready for some Drama.

    Reply
  42. Computilo Avatar
    Computilo

    You can never go wrong with Woody!

    Reply
  43. Maggie Avatar
    Maggie

    Meandering, perhaps lost. Far behind but still believing I will catch up. I am reading about her book for work related to money and possessions in the world and it got me thinking about the money in this book and our friend the button maker; so much energy goes in to acquiring and then so much energy goes into pretending that we are removed from the messiness of acquisition – if we don’t want to be sullied by the reality of acquiring perhaps we need to rethink how we engage with the having…

    Reply
  44. Amanda Avatar
    Amanda

    Hahaha

    Reply
  45. Amanda Avatar
    Amanda

    “I […] threw my bouquet towards Laura […] — some Griffen cousin or other — grabbed it and made off it with it greedily, as if it were food.” This line made me think of the plot of many a 19th-century novel (House of Mirth – my god, what a good book; Daniel Deronda – also amazing, though, to be candid, it’s about 800 pages, and I only ever managed the first half) wherein a young woman comes from a family of some reputation or wealth that has fallen on their luck, and she must choose between personal liberty and happiness and a marriage that will provide social and financial protection. In these novels there’s always the added pressure of the female protagonist aging as if she were a commercial good depreciating in value. Through this lens, that bouquet is food, or the promise of it – for it’s own price.

    Of course, the young Iris seemed to at least understand the economic arrangement that she was making, but this line, oh wow: “I was breathing the high bleak air of disillusionment, or thought I was.” This line feels like a switchback, like thinking you’ve come to top of a cliff, when in fact you suddenly see that you’ve only scaled a small portion of the height you’ll fall from.

    Like Neil, the line, “so this is the ocean” stood out to me as well, indicating Iris’s numbness and disillusionment, and cinching my song nomination for the week: Peggy Lee’s “Is That All There is?”

    Reply
  46. e Avatar
    e

    this is my pre-midnight placeholder as i’m running behind. see you on the next thread.

    Reply
  47. xian Avatar
    xian

    forgive if as i race to catch up if i repeat others unwittingly but cecil’s riff on “…a passage from The Rubaiyat, that ‘it was a lot of fuss to make about a picnic.’ Which felt like a great jokey alternate title for the book, especially as we hit the crescendo this week…” brings to mind Seurat and Sunday in the Park with George and Sondheim.

    Reply
  48. Clort Avatar
    Clort

    Please excuse that redundant and duplicative “if she can” !

    Reply
  49. KT Avatar
    KT

    Loved that fashion comment as well.

    Wait, it’s Monday already?!? I may have meandered off….

    Reply
  50. Realzorro Avatar
    Realzorro

    I wuz here but not reading the comments til I catches up

    Reply
  51. Alex Avatar
    Alex

    Oof. I got behind but I’m catching up. Still enjoying the book!

    Reply
  52. Willem Avatar
    Willem

    Ha! I already hate that Winifred and look forward to her (hopefully) getting her comeuppance!

    Reply
  53. Susan C Avatar
    Susan C

    Cue Christina singing, “Is That All There Is?”

    Reply
  54. Christian Crumlish Avatar
    Christian Crumlish

    interesting insight…. i wouldn’t be surprised if Richard had “fiddled with” Winifred (who never marries)

    Reply

Leave a Reply to Susan C Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

More posts