The Blind Assassin; Margaret Atwood

I really liked this book, although my friend Judith thought it in need of a good pair of editing shears. In that sense, perhaps it’s a book best served up with a long summer vacation. It’s a story that is told in the present about events set between the two wars. So you find yourself travelling back and forth between these two time periods: the present world of an old woman, and the events of the past as she remembers them. The structure of the novel, with the past and present, along with a novel told within a novel (The Blind Assassin), could have been very confusing (take note Mr Faulkner), and I did make some wrong assumptions about who was who in the past, which in the end is the very point of the story as it finally unfolds.

The other thing is that her writing is so lovely, and descriptions of the everyday are really very poetic. But, despite all that, why is it on the Top 100 books? I think it just ticks all the right boxes – strong story, exquisitely told, characters that will linger for a while, and cleverly structured. Oh, and a Booker Prize. But it’s not a WOW factor book. Perhaps that is its greatness, the subtlety and effortlessness of it all.

As an old woman you see Iris struggling to maintain some sense of control and autonomy in her life while at the same time it’s clear that her life is shrinking and her capacity to care for herself is diminishing. But, you can see why it would be so important to her when you see how little of her life was under her own control. As a young woman her life is determined by her father until she is pimped off by him to a business competitor in order to save the father from financial ruin. It’s a scene in the book that is awful not merely because of the callousness of the father, but for the way in which she succumbs to the demand without protest. It was like watching a life snuffed out. Even when she finds some ‘passion’ with Alex the Bolshevik, he is demeaning and cruel, and despite his dependence on her, he never relinquishes his power or authority. Is this why women weren’t signing up for the revolution in droves? Ultimately it is her complacency and complicity which Iris blames for all that happened to her. Interestingly, while it’s the men who hold the power, Reeny and Winifred both play their part in keeping Iris in her place.

The moral of the story is surely is to wash up as you go. A mountain of dirty dishes at the end of your life is just too depressing, and God knows, doesn’t the evening pass so quickly.

The Sound and the Fury - Part 2

I feel a bit cheated. There should be some reward for completing difficult books. It's like after a week of starvation and deprivation when you jump on the scales only to find no change. I was hoping that eventually all would be revealed like one of those 'magic eye' pictures where you have to stare at the image in soft focus until the 3D image suddenly reveals itself. Never happened. That's it for me and stream of consciousness writing. The confusion, fog, double guessing, frustration, and sense of inadequacy I can get with trying to fathom my own stream of consciousness. But the critics tell us that this is one of the greatest novels of the 20th century. In fact the Modern Library rates it as the sixth greatest English-language novel of the twentieth century. Perhaps its an American thing.

In the end there is no incest only a brother trying to think of a way to share the shame of his sister's promiscuity. Apparently, a hand around the shoulder and a box of tissues didn't cross his mind. Another brother throws himself into the river - although not quite clear when that happened. The 'imbecile' gets castrated, but that fact is well hidden among gibberish about a gate been left open. And all of this is blamed on the muddy knickers of their sister. See what I mean?

I noticed that after spending such a difficult time with all these characters I didn't really know them nor their real story any better. Yet, isn't this why we love reading, to be immersed in the fullness of another's life, or have the world revealed afresh through the eyes of another? Perhaps it's a stalker thing.

In the end I was just frustrated that the richness of the characters and the story itself was obscured by the writing style. I was always too conscious of the author's hand rather than the characters themselves. I'm thinking about smarty pant chefs who so work over the food and your left wishing you'd ordered the steak sandwich. Think all things foam and Shannon Bennett. To me this book is the beginning of the ascendancy of 'the idea' over 'beauty' in Art. Given the books' focus on consciousness and thoughts it's no wonder it feels like the soul is missing - clever but!

The Sound and the Fury - Part 1

What the ***** was that all about. Well at least this book came with a warning, in the form of Richard Hughes' Introduction. He encourages the reader to persevere past the first section which really makes very little sense at all. In fact he suggests reading the book a couple of time. Clearly he has no idea of my schedule. The first section recalls April 7th 1928 as perceived by a 33 year old 'congenital imbecile'. There are 10,000 characters with names that give no indication of gender or whether black or white. There's also a bit of time travelling me thinks. I've made it to the next section June 2nd 1910 and I think there might be a bit of hanky panky going on between brother and sister and an impending suicide, but since I don't know who's who, their ages, their relationship to each other, or what time we are in, I'll hold back on pretending I have any real grasp on anything so mundane as narrative or plot. However, I do have a hunch that someone might have given this book to James Joyce to read, and we know where that got us.

Madame Bovary

Was Emma Bovary written as a sympathetic character? Mostly I think this is a cautionary tale of the destructiveness of always having your eyes set on the horizon waiting for something to happen, " Like a shipwrecked sailor she scanned her solitude with desperate eyes for the sight of a white sail far off on the misty horizon. She had no idea what chance would be... But every morning when she woke she hoped to find it there. She listened to every sound, started out of bed, and was surprised when nothing came. Then at sunset , sadder every day, she longed for the morrow.'

Emma Bovary was blighted with a destructive longing; that writhing, wriggling, restlessness that nothing is right and hoping and searching for that someone or something that will make her feel alive and contented. Miserable, dissatisfied, and enraged she

looked beyond herself in order to feel complete.

I loved the part where she is being seduced by Rodolphe, and interspersed with the flowery deceitful language of his seduction are the cries from the Agricultural Show judges announcing winners for "best manure" or "pigs". It's a lovely juxtaposition between what's real and the artifice of her life and fantasy. Ultimately Emma's 'constant craving' destroys her and her family. The book is a great account of the Global Financial Crisis or of the passions that fueled it - the dissatisfaction with one's lot and an insatiable hunger for things and people we hope will "soften the bitterness of (one's) life".

A more sympathetic reading of Emma might be that her talents, spirit, genius, or self was thwarted by small town life where women were destined to have unfulfilled lives. But, Emma pins her salvation or hope for contentedness in others and not in her own self expression. In this sense Emma does not take her place in the pantheon of courageous women. For her, deliverance from her suffering is achieved by someone else and not herself.