![]() ![]() The man, himself a writer, entertains his lover with an ongoing ‘serial’, part fantasy and part space-opera. Throughout the book, another inserted narrative strand shows us the obliquely erotic progress of an affair between a young woman (we can only guess at her identity) and a young man whose identity is only slightly clearer. Iris’ account takes her from the 1920s into the 1930s through the war years and after. Laura’s suicide begins the novel, but this is not just another dysfunctional family saga. Iris is the eldest of two daughters of a man who had, of course, wanted sons her sister Laura has immense amounts of character, spirit, and individuality but no ego-strength at all. The story presents the memories of Iris Chase Griffen, an octogenarian in the late 1990s, who writes in the possibly vain hope that her only grandchild will read her words. As a historical novel, it approaches an almost metaphysical view of humans in – reacting to – Time, described fictionally or otherwise. Simply taken as a novel, this is a superbly complex and powerful work. With such a reputation, we will be required to view her historical fiction seriously. ![]() ![]() Any review of Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin as a historical novel must confront Atwood’s received status as a major ‘mainstream’ novelist. ![]()
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