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The Blind Assassin Meander: Week Seven

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The line between stories is starting to blur. Two ocean voyages side by side. A sci fi that talks like a brutal noir. Secret encounters within secret encounters.

Also, I’ve also started playing TBA bingo. Jeff G. mentioned in last week’s comments how the words on Alex’s notebook are starting to show up in the novel in a novel (see 219 in the blue edition) — and the surprisingly vulnerable Lizard Men kept that pattern going in this week’s section with xenor, ulinth, fulgor, hortz and of course the rare iridis….

And through it all Coleridge, weather, blood, water, Coleridge, weather, blood, water, making me want to set it to music, hence my tango addition this week to the ever-growing playlist.

Whence to hither? Three more weeks, Meanderers, and we’ve made it to magnet! For this next stretch, let’s meet up at the end of page 402 (Blue) where “the next thrilling episode never appears.”

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 8.5 (“The Blind Assassin: The Top Hat Grill”) through 10.1 (“Lizard Men of Xenor”).

Comments

37 responses to “The Blind Assassin Meander: Week Seven”

  1. xian Avatar
    xian

    dropping my pin as i try to stay in earshot

    Reply
  2. Susannah Avatar
    Susannah

    I don’t have a lot to say this week. I’m still enjoying the book and I’m excited to finish it.

    Reply
  3. Computilo Avatar
    Computilo

    I’ve been reflecting about Avilion during this batch of reading, especially the importance of houses as characters. As a character, Avilion doesn’t disappoint. In the section “The Man with his head on fire,” when the family returns to Avilion following their trip on the Queen Mary, “the house itself appeared to have dwindled in size; the furniture was covered with dust cloths, or what was left of the furniture–some of the bulkier, darker pieces had been removed, on Richard’s orders, I suppose.” And then, “Avilion had once had an air of stability that amounted to intransigence–a large dumpy boulder plunked down in the middle of the stream of time, refusing to be moved for anybody–but now it was dog-eared, apologetic, as if it were about to collapse in on itself. It no longer had the courage of its own pretensions.” Later, in the Water Nixie section, “Avilion seemed to drain her (Winifred’s) energy. It was reassuring to know that something could.” Personification or anthropomorphism? “Personification is an act of giving human characteristics to animals or objects to create imagery, while anthropomorphism aims to make an animal or object behave and appear like it is a human being.” A little bit of both, I think…

    And now, for the playlist: “Hotel California.” Iris never really could leave Avilion.

    Reply
  4. Furiosa Avatar
    Furiosa

    Iris’s account of her trip to the doctor at the beginning of “The ashtray” made me laugh out loud in a manner that Grandmother Adelia would have found completely unacceptable.

    Reply
  5. Itto Ogami Avatar
    Itto Ogami

    Love the writing.

    “Today I had something different for breakfast. Some new kind of cereal flake, brought over by Myra to pep me up: she’s a sucker for the writing on the backs of packages. These flakes, it says in candid lettering the colours of lollipops, of fleecy cotton jogging suits, are not made from corrupt, overly commercial corn and wheat, but from little-known grains with hard-to-pronounce names – archaic, mystical. The seeds of them have been rediscovered in pre-Columbian tombs and in Egyptian pyramids; an authenticating detail, though not, when you come to think of it, al that reassuring. Not only will these flakes whisk you out like a pot scrubber, they murmur of renewed vitality, of endless youth, of immortality. The back of the box is festooned with a limber pink intestine; on the front is an eyeless jade mosaic face, which those in charge of publicity have surely not realized is an Aztec burial mask.”

    Wonderful. I love eating ‘ancient’ super grains. Teff, kamut, freekeh. So much better, delicious, healthy (iHerb has them). But, love MA’s sarcasm.

    So, MA recipe book should add: Freekeh, chickpea and herb salad (https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1017122-freekeh-chickpea-and-herb-salad)

    Additional MA fun facts

    – She wrote a comic called Angel Catbird about a cat-bird-person.
    – She is Honorary President of the Rare Bird Club.
    – She wrote an opera, called Pauline.

    Reply
  6. Dr. Vitz Avatar
    Dr. Vitz

    First – I realize that last week I wrote that the couple in TBA seemed to represent Laura & Alex, when I meant Iris & Alex (sorry)

    There’s a lot in this week’s reading that made me think of our current political situation. The way Laura is made into an unmanageable dissident at school because she questions and may influence others. The casual looting by the wealthy on Queen Mary. The implicit cruelty of the wealthy & powerful against those who are less wealthy & powerful. Richard’s treatment of Avilion (and its people) as a thing he has seized and can lay to waste.

    I suppose the one positive takeaway is that Iris gets to write the history, so Richard doesn’t seem to be the long term winner.

    Reply
  7. Neil Avatar
    Neil

    Enjoyed the bit about souvenier hunters on the Queen Mary. Anyone else here visited the Queen Mary down in Long Beach? I went there on a school field trip in the 3rd grade, and again shortly after college. Seemed enormous the first time, just big the second time, and now when I looked it up online (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Queen_Mary) it seems quaint, at least compared to the modern monstrosities that have been in the news lately, massive germ circuses that are more like floating casinos with water slides. Iris would be appalled. 😉

    Reply
  8. blue_f Avatar
    blue_f

    This week’s section is a bit more difficult for me to summarise, but I enjoyed reading it.

    The bit that stood out was “The casual looting by the wealthy on Queen Mary” as Dr. Vitz put it. Toward the end of chapter “The ashtray”, Iris wonders what “the rationale for all this pillaging” was. “Souvenirs. These people needed something to remember themselves by.” She talks about *them* in a condescending way – and then very dryly adds that she herself “made off with an ashtray”.
    To me this bit represents how much she disliked that life and herself, because she behaved like *them*. I’m sure she never enjoyed having/using/looking at that ashtray.

    Looking forward to the next section!

    Reply
  9. Ute Avatar
    Ute

    “Laxity in one area may lead to derangement in all” – feels very apropos of the times we’re currently living (as in taking meetings in pyjamas…).

    And don’t we all need something to remember ourselves by – meander magnet for those of us who meander till the end, just saying – just like the Queen Mary passengers who take off with whatever they can “because they needed something to remember themselves by”.

    Reply
  10. Kathy Avatar
    Kathy

    It’s very sad and heading into tragic.

    Reply
  11. The Other Susan Avatar
    The Other Susan

    One of the saddest quotes for me this week, “ I was sand, I was snow – written on, rewritten, smoothed over.”

    Reply
  12. jeff g Avatar
    jeff g

    Very sad section overall, but thank goodness Iris (and MA) has maintained her sense of humor, even as she remains imprisoned by her memories and guilt. My favorite passage was near the end of the section:

    “When you’re young, you think everything you do is disposable .You move from now to now, crumpling up time in your hands, tossing it away. You’re your own speeding car. You think you can get rid of things, and people too–leave them behind. You don’t yet know about the habit they have, of coming back.”

    Iris is facing a reckoning.

    Reply
  13. Willem Avatar
    Willem

    She is indeed putting 2 and 2 together….

    Reply
  14. The Same Mike Avatar
    The Same Mike

    Can’t wait to finish this book. A) I am driven by the plot and the themes. B) This book is a lot to absorb.

    Reply
  15. Peaseblossom Avatar
    Peaseblossom

    “Don’t misunderstand me. I am not scoffing at goodness, which is far more difficult to explain than evil, and just as complicated. But sometimes it’s hard to put up with.” Agreed.

    “Not listening was the only way I had, during those months, of keeping my balance. I had to blot out the ambient noise.” And that’s my homage to our previous meander.

    Reply
  16. Guzmán Avatar
    Guzmán

    I loved this paragraph too.

    Reply
  17. Guzmán Avatar
    Guzmán

    “Time is dreams is frozen. You can never get away from where you have been”.

    Reply
  18. Jennifer E Avatar
    Jennifer E

    I’m enjoying figure out who is narrating in the different sections and trying to guess what really happened to both Iris and Laura. I think that Atwood has often focused on the relationships between women and the tendency for betrayal when there’s a possibility of gaining power. I’m interested to see how Laura will manage refusing to participate in the charade Iris is engaging in.

    Reply
  19. So-Called Bill Avatar
    So-Called Bill

    I am both eager to get on with the next thrilling episode, as all the threads begin to intertwine, and nervous about just how ugly it’s going to get.

    Reply
  20. Itto Ogami Avatar
    Itto Ogami

    Very well said So-Called Bill. Perpetually nerve racking.

    Reply
  21. Jim Compton Avatar
    Jim Compton

    More of a mordant chuckle here: “After a certain point, the ravages of experience reverse themselves; we put on innocence with advancing age, at least in the minds of others.”

    Reply
  22. Lydia_S Avatar
    Lydia_S

    I did not realize, that I fell in love with Avilion (somehow). And when it was said, that it drained Winifreds energy, I thought it was satisfying to read. I am sad, because the good times in Avilion are gone now.
    I also. realized, that Iris seems to be concerned about Sabrina but never talks about Amy. Or did I miss something? I am curious how everything will fall into place and if the hints, we are given, are misleading or not.

    Reply
  23. Susan C Avatar
    Susan C

    Yet “two and two doesn’t necessarily get you the truth…. The living bird is not its labelled bones.”

    Reply
  24. Susan C Avatar
    Susan C

    And just to add to our food list, from the Top Hat Grill: ” …a hot beef sandwich, the meat grey on bread white and soft and flavourless as an angel’s buttock, the brown gravy thick with flour. Canned peas on the side, a delicate grayish green; French fries limp with grease.” Actually, let’s not add that.
    And even more on the souvenir passage–the part I think is most perceptive is this: “An odd thing, souvenir hunting: NOW becomes THEN even while it is still now.” Sort of the same to me as spending your time taking pictures of something instead of experiencing the actual thing in the present.

    Reply
  25. Alyssa Avatar
    Alyssa

    Almost forgot to mark my place here this week! May be back later with more coherent thoughts but still enjoying this journey.

    Reply
  26. Cecil Vortex Avatar
    Cecil Vortex

    agreed on all…. the scene of the looting in particular is one that’s sticking with me…
    -Cecil

    Reply
  27. Cecil Vortex Avatar
    Cecil Vortex

    I loved finding that line in the middle of a memoir…
    -Cecil

    Reply
  28. Cecil Vortex Avatar
    Cecil Vortex

    what a line….
    -Cecil

    Reply
  29. KT Avatar
    KT

    When I get to this stage of a book, just a sliver left, I generally binge the rest, staying up to to wee hours of the morning to finish. So hard to take these pauses.

    Enjoying how MA is gradually building this sense of foreboding. Curious to which form it will finally take. A tryst discovered? Richard horrors redirected? Multiple trysts uncovered? Paternity revelations? Sabrina sightings?

    Lotta strands, man.

    Reply
  30. Clort Avatar
    Clort

    Lots of awfulness in this week’s march. And outright nastiness. And semi-hidden nastiness. And terrible, brutal people. And brutal, terrible people. Hats off to the frisky, persistent, semi-Gothic hand that insists on writing this all down (in The ashtray). Go Iris!

    Reply
  31. Barbara B Avatar
    Barbara B

    I read on, with dread but also trust that the Storyteller will lay me down, not crush me. Still, I might be left near the Chase crypt, forlorn.

    Reply
  32. Cecil Vortex Avatar
    Cecil Vortex

    Pro Tip for the end of the journey: Hold off til next Sunday and then read the rest in one sitting. 🙂
    -Cecil

    Reply
  33. Amanda Avatar
    Amanda

    Response coming shortly!

    Reply
  34. e Avatar
    e

    yikes–I’m here!!!!!!!

    Reply
  35. Amanda Avatar
    Amanda

    This line stood out to me as well. Throughout the book, Iris describes places that have been redefined through use – in memory, the button factory is a space that exists as it was when Iris was a girl, when it was derelict after the fire, and as a shopping center. In this passage, I saw the human body in the same way – as a historical site. A place that is subject to and at once records acts, narratives, experience, and pain. Iris describes her bruises as invisible ink, but, of course, their emotional stain is indelible. The doctor that she sees in this same section is like the comical inversion of this idea – all of his hours in the sun will be represented and recorded (or so Iris says) in his face.

    Reply
  36. Jim Compton Avatar
    Jim Compton

    I’ve also been struck by how Iris seems to be haunted much less by her daughter’s death than by her sister’s (or by her granddaughter’s estrangement), and I don’t know what to make of it.

    Reply
  37. Christian Crumlish Avatar
    Christian Crumlish

    and here is someone who did not like the book: https://maebookblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/blind-assassin-by-margaret-atwoood.html

    Also I am wondering if re-reading the scenes on the Water Nixie would creep me out now.

    Reply

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