My Blog

The Blind Assassin Meander: Week Eight

Written by

admin

in

So it is we find ourselves cresting page 400 (Blue), with only two weeks remaining, two weeks to find out whither the blind assassin and the tongueless girl, who with Alex when, and which with pen wrote words before these words to Myra.

Oh, and a magnet will be revealed! As is your due. And perhaps a thought will be shared about our next journey. (Likely aimed for early August, to give folks time to change their shoes, buy new laces, store up on trail mix….)

Like many folks on last week’s (excellent) thread, I’m reading with a mix of dread and then a spark of joy at an Irisidic aside. (“Irisidic”: not a word, but should be. Speaking of which, Tonsure: “a part of a monk’s or priest’s head left bare on top by shaving off the hair.” A word I think I perhaps once knew? and now know again.)

It’s mystery, yes, and a noir. But it’s also increasingly a horror story. One I’m very glad to be reading. But I’m also getting ready to sit down at the table and take in the portion of the puzzle that Iris and MA choose to share.

Wherefore hence? Let’s find each other just over the next hill, at the end of page 457 (Blue) where “the fitting symbols of peace and hope” appear to await.

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 10.2 (“Mayfair, 1937″) through 12.2 (“Mayfair, 1939″).

Comments

34 responses to “The Blind Assassin Meander: Week Eight”

  1. e. Avatar
    e.

    putting the marker down here….

    also, re “irisidic”–you may be ahead of your time, cecil. this is a recent form of the term–probably destined to become the one and only because the english language cannot be stopped. in any case, the preferred term–for now–is “irisid” with emphasis on the “ris”–like “triffid” with a “ris” in the middle. example: “your tone is unapologetically iricid today, cecil.”

    sorry i can’t post about the book this week; i was so bad–i read ahead. and since time is not linear in TBA, i don’t dare comment because i might spoil things.

    Reply
  2. Susan C Avatar
    Susan C

    Another comment on the times and somehow connected to White Noise too: “All that speech-making can bloat a man up. I’ve watched the process, many times now. It’s those kinds of words, the kind they use in speeches. They have a fermenting effect on the brain. You can see it on television, during the political broadcasts–the words coming out of their mouths like bubbles of gas.”

    Reply
  3. Computilo Avatar
    Computilo

    For Iris, “Reverie intrudes at intervals. She imagines him imagining her. This is her salvation. In spirit she walks the city, traces its labyrinths, its dingy mazes: each assignation, each rendezvous, each door and stair and bed. What he said, what she said, what they did, what they did then. Even the times they argued, fought, parted, agonized, rejoined. How they’d loved to cut themselves on each other, taste their own blood. We were ruinous together, she thinks. But how else can we live these days, except in the midst of ruin.”

    Oh, my. Did Lady Gaga read this passage before writing the lyrics to “Bad Romance?”

    I want your ugly
    I want your disease
    I want your everything
    As long as it’s free
    I want your love
    (Love-love-love I want your love)

    I want your drama
    The touch of your hand
    I want your leather-studded kiss in the sand
    I want your love
    Love-love-love
    I want your love
    (Love-love-love I want your love)

    Reply
  4. Computilo Avatar
    Computilo

    But wait, there’s more. Later in the same section cited above, MA notes of Iris:

    “She’s the round 0, the zero at the bone. A space that defines itself by not being there at all.”

    So evocative of Emily Dickinson’s ” A Narrow Fellow in the Grass,” about a snake Miss Emily observes. The poem closes with:

    Several of Nature’s People
    I know, and they know me
    I feel for them a transport
    Of Cordiality

    But never met this Fellow
    Attended or alone
    Without a tighter Breathing
    And Zero at the Bone.

    Week 8’s reading creeped me out. Especially with crumbling national and world events this week. Can’t wait to finish this book.

    Reply
  5. Alyssa Avatar
    Alyssa

    Racing toward the end now (doesn’t it feel as though the story has picked up the pace as well?) and just pausing briefly to mark my place here.

    Reply
  6. Soi Distant Bill Avatar
    Soi Distant Bill

    What with the lockdown-related time dilation, it seems like years since we started this book. And to be honest I’m starting to feel a little panicky about when it ends. I know you need a break, Cec, but August is a long way off.

    Reply
  7. Itto Ogami Avatar
    Itto Ogami

    Iris: “From here on in, things take a darker turn. But, then, you knew they would. You knew it, because you already know what happened to Laura.”

    Was very surprised for MA (Iris) to break the fourth wall.

    I think MA always intended Laura’s death to open TBA, but I wish TBA had not. I am sure there are excellent and perhaps essential literary reasons why TBA is written this way. But, I have found the agonizing human (almost entirely women) tragedies harder to read also knowing Laura’s end.

    Shifting gears, additional MA interesting facts:

    -She made a craft beer in honour of her book MaddAddam.
    -She contributed a baked lemon custard recipe to Bon Appétit in 2006. According to Epicurious reviews, it’s very good.
    -She wrote a rock song called “Frankenstein Monster Song.”

    As a child, she loved Tinkertoys.

    Great toys.

    Reply
  8. The Other Susan Avatar
    The Other Susan

    Dropping a marker – 20 pages short but too distracted now to forge ahead today.

    Reply
  9. The Same Mike Avatar
    The Same Mike

    Still trucking along. Loved Itto’s snippets of MA interviews. Here’s one principally about Blind Assassin — her writing process and thinking are fascinating: https://charlierose.com/videos/1366

    Reply
  10. Peaseblossom Avatar
    Peaseblossom

    This week’s random thoughts:

    Lots of talk about time in this week’s discussion: non-linear time, time racing, time dilation, etc. Has anyone read Alan Lightman’s 1992 bestseller Einstein’s Dreams?

    I find it horrifying that Dr. Witherspoon put electro-shock therapy on par with insulin treatment—one of many horrors in this week’s go-‘round.

    “There’s no place like home.” But what if home keeps changing?

    Reply
  11. Jennifer E Avatar
    Jennifer E

    Just struck by the sense of loss and betrayal, feels like Iris and Laura never really had much hope for happiness.

    Reply
  12. Itto Ogami Avatar
    Itto Ogami

    Einstein’s Dreams is one of my favorite books. Other Alan Lightman books also very good.

    Reply
  13. Dr. Vitz Avatar
    Dr. Vitz

    What Laura said about Richard,“She called him a lying treacherous slave-trader, and a degenerate Mammon-worshiping monster,” is seemingly the most honest reporting in the novel so far. And it is given to us as part of what seems like the greatest of falsehoods.

    I’m sure we all know at this point we hover on the edge of revelations about Laura’s commitment, Aimee’s parentage (though Atwood is hedging that one much), and the intent of TBA’s author.

    In some ways we couldn’t have chosen a more cliffhanger-like point to stop this week

    Reply
  14. Lydia_S Avatar
    Lydia_S

    I have to think all the time about the symbolism of the colored photos and about the intimated horrors in the sanatorium. In the same way I had the impression that Laura had Reenie as her back-up for all this horror. And who does Iris have?

    Reply
  15. Ute Avatar
    Ute

    Some memorable phrases:

    Love is giving, marriage is buying and selling. (Laura on Winifred’s idea of marrying her off)
    Good girl. (Richard on hearing about Iris’ pregnancy)
    Spin the wheel and take your pick. (Aimee on Sabrina’s father)

    Reply
  16. Guzmán Avatar
    Guzmán

    During the whole book we see the way women were treated and what it was expected from them only 100 years ago:

    Richard about Laura:
    “She doesn’t really need to go to school anyway. It’s not as if she’ll ever have to work for a living.”

    What about “secondary” female characters? What have they had to do to keep afloat (Winifred? Reenie?).

    Reply
  17. Amanda Avatar
    Amanda

    “Where was the threshold, between the inner world and the outer one? We each move unthinkingly through this gateway every day, use the passwords of grammar – I say, you say, he and she say it, on the other hand, does not say – paying for the privilege of sanity with common coin, with meanings we’ve agreed on.

    But even as a child, Laura never quite agreed. Was this the problem? That she held firm for no when yes was the thing required? And vice versa, and vice versa.”

    Today, I am thinking about how the price for admission for a place within the shared reality created through language is subjugation to narratives – the tangled ball of stories that form societies, families, human beings. Stories told by society, by others, by ourselves about who we are.

    Language can see ephemeral – it is breath – or benign in it’s abstraction, little markings waiting passively to be found, consumed, and transformed into meaning by the human cortex. Yet, what is possible, what is right, is contained, codified, and propagated by the stories we tell ourselves and others.

    I think that there is something beyond the spy-like deception of Laura’s enigmatic language of pigments. It makes sense that a person who defies the narratives imposed on her by others (what she should do and be) would communicate in a medium beyond the confines of written language.

    Reply
  18. Jeff G Avatar
    Jeff G

    Like e. above, I felt so compelled by the narrative that I could not stop at the agreed-upon marker, but just went ahead and finished the book. And it did not disappoint. I will not pose spoilers of course and will save my observations for next week. But I will say that MA did a really incredible job with the structure of the narrative(s). And if my backlog wasn’t so humongous I’d be tempted to start over again immediately, because I imagine a second reading would be quite different, knowing what we know. It is a helluva life that Iris led. No wonder she had so much to say that she was never able to say out loud.

    Reply
  19. Willem Avatar
    Willem

    Oh Iris….

    Reply
  20. blue_f Avatar
    blue_f

    This section was so difficult to read. As stated above by Iris “From here on in, things take a darker turn. But, then, you knew they would.”
    Yes. I knew it, but this passage just held so many deeply sad sentences, feelings, notions. I want to give Iris that hug that she so wanted from Reenie.

    She is so damn hard on herself, and all the others too. I haven’t read the end but I can’t wait. Like Jeff G I also believe the book was worth a second read and would be very different and revealing.

    So many touching sentences, but this one is both wonderful and horrible.
    “She hasn’t given up hope, just folded it away: it’s not for daily wear.” (In TBA: The tower)

    Reply
  21. Neil Avatar
    Neil

    “Adorable!” said Winifred. “But my goodness, we were expecting a blond.”

    And with that one simple line, all the pieces started to fall into place.

    Atwood is definitely a talented writer. But dang, she is a fantastic storyteller!

    Reply
  22. Neil Avatar
    Neil

    “…blonde.” (Spellcheck, you fail me at the worst possible times!)

    Reply
  23. KT Avatar
    KT

    Chomp, chomp, chomp….

    Reply
  24. Susannah Avatar
    Susannah

    Very eager to finish

    Reply
  25. Barbara B Avatar
    Barbara B

    I post!

    Reply
  26. Jim Compton Avatar
    Jim Compton

    Yes, the fact that Winifred is patronized by the “real” society ladies as a social climber (can we add the Mutants’ “Insect Lounge” to the playlist?), and her outburst to Iris, suggest something of a struggle on her part.

    Reply
  27. Clort Avatar
    Clort

    I saw that Cecil pointed to the poetry quoted in ‘The cubicle’ – the sense of finality is so great in those lines, they feel woven into the heart of the book. On the other hand, hats off to Iris (again) for imagining it (grimly) on the bathroom wall. This week’s was the grimmest hike yet?

    Reply
  28. Kathy Avatar
    Kathy

    Still meandering

    Reply
  29. Kathy Avatar
    Kathy

    Still here

    Reply
  30. Kathy Avatar
    Kathy

    Will catch up next week

    Reply
  31. Kathy Avatar
    Kathy

    Posting now

    Reply
  32. Kathy Avatar
    Kathy

    Will this thread let me post??

    Reply
  33. Christian Crumlish Avatar
    Christian Crumlish

    I had to re-skim the beginning to confirm some early impressions.

    Nabokov’s Ada had the same effect on me.

    Reply
  34. Sinja Avatar
    Sinja

    Which chapter is this excerpt from?

    Reply

Leave a Reply to Christian Crumlish Cancel reply

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

More posts