lightreads

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The autobiography of a woman written at the end of her life, encompassing her girlhood as the familial wealth faded; her strange, ethereal sister; her marriage. And running through that, excerpts from her sister’s posthumously published science fiction cult classic.

Strange, beautiful, and just ever so slightly not quite. The genre-crossing here isn’t a gimmick. It’s done so well, it feels like the sort of expensive, avant-garde meal where the fish is sprinkled with pumpkin seeds and the martini is topped with a dash of habanero juice (mmm, that was tasty). Unexpected compliments.

And even though I didn’t think this quite came together into something coherent, it’s Margaret freaking Atwood, you know? She writes like – okay. You know how a lot of professional book reviewers toss the word “luminous” around when they don’t know what to say about a bit of contemporary fiction? Well, Margaret Atwood’s writing is luminous, and I mean that very specifically. I mean that when I read one of her books, I feel like there’s light coming off each page and illuminating me. (We’re pretending, for this exercise, that I actually read a printed copy of this book, which I in fact did not.) Just, her writing makes me think of all those words we use for qualities and textures of light – lucid, liquid, cool. So I honestly don’t care what she’s writing about, when you come right down to it.

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