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  • The Blind Assassin

  • Written by: Margaret Atwood
  • Narrated by: Lorelei King
  • Length: 18 hrs and 26 mins
  • 4.3 out of 5 stars (217 ratings)

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The Blind Assassin

Written by: Margaret Atwood
Narrated by: Lorelei King
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Publisher's Summary

Man Booker Prize, Fiction, 2000

For the past 25 years, Margaret Atwood has written works of striking originality and imagination. In The Blind Assassin, she stretches the limits of her accomplishment as never before, creating a novel that is both entertaining and profoundly serious.

The novel opens with these simple resonant words: "Ten days after the war ended, my sister Laura drove a car off a bridge." They are spoken by Iris, whose terse account of her sister's death in 1945 is followed by an inquest report proclaiming the death accidental. But just as you expect to settle into Laura's story, Atwood introduces a novel within a novel. Entitled The Blind Assassin, it is a science fiction story told by two unnamed lovers who meet in dingy backstreet rooms. When you return to Iris, it is through a 1947 newspaper article announcing the discovery of a sailboat carrying the dead body of her husband, a distinguished industrialist.

Told in a style that magnificently captures the colloquialisms of the 1930s and 1940s, The Blind Assassin is a richly layered and uniquely rewarding experience. The novel has many threads and a series of events that follow one another at a breathtaking pace. As everything comes together, you will discover that the story Atwood is telling is not only what it seems to be - but is, in fact, much more.

©2000 O.W. Toad, Ltd (P)2014 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd.

What the critics say

Book Sense Book of the Year Award Finalist, Adult Fiction, 2001
"Listeners will find themselves piecing together the clues, guessing at truths, but the rewards are to be found in the layering of details and the skill of the storytelling." (AudioFile)

What listeners say about The Blind Assassin

Average Customer Ratings
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Horrible performance. like a translator on news

barely got through it. the reader was awful. she sounded like those flat translator voices on government channels or parliamentary coverage. As well, she mis-pronounced some key words like Yonge Street "YAWN-J" and Spadina "SPA-DEENA"....annoying.

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11 people found this helpful

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    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Just not my thing

I found it very boring and was unable to get through it. Maybe if I would have stuck with it, it might have got better. ( at least for me )

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3 people found this helpful

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    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
  • BLP
  • 2021-09-22

Not her best work

A very difficult story to listen to. Love Margaret Atwood, but this story left me confused.
It is not my type of story

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Multilayered, melancholy plot

This is a great book, a book with layers on layers and a reveal at the end that makes me realize that if I went back and reread the entire book again now with the full knowledge of the plot, I would see so much more in the story than I did the first time through.

However, it's also a sad book, a book about old age and unhappy marriage and the breakdown of family relationships, so I know I probably won't go back and reread it to get the full extent of appreciate out of the story that I'm pretty sure is possible.

The book tells a story on many layers; it's old-aged Iris telling the story of her childhood with her sister Laura and then her unhappy marriage to Richard. It's the story of The Blind Assassin, a book written by Laura and published posthumously, in which a woman meets a lover who is a pulp SF writer and who tells her the story of the planet Zycron and the pulp SF tales that take place thereon, ostensibly the story of a blind assassin and the girl he rescues, but I now suspect there is a high degree of reflection in these stories of what's happening in the outside world of Iris and Laura, although I didn't know enough to catch it all the first time through. Laura is the most nebulous character all throughout, it's always hard to tell what she's really thinking and doing since we only see her through her sister's eyes, and her sister's eyes. Only at the end do all the remaining loose ends get tied together and we finally understand what each character's place is within the novel and how they all fit together.

Like I said, I think that if I reread the book now, having just finished it, I'd find layers and layers more, and discover that in a way, Atwood was telling the whole story all along, we just didn't know enough to see it until the end of the novel. But, it is also such a melancholy story and left me with such a sad feeling for really almost all the characters in it, that I'm not sure I want to go back and revisit the story again.

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2 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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  • S
  • 2022-09-18

Incredible story

As an avid reader of Margaret Atwood, I have read and listened to many of her novels, and loved every one of them- but this is the only one that has made me cry at the end. Full on sobbing, as a matter of fact. While listening to this book (in every spare minute, I was hooked) I was fully enthralled by the beautiful and complex work of art that Atwood had created. All I could think about, and the only thing I wanted to talk about, was Iris and Laura, and the Blind Assasin and the planet Zycron.
This book has many layers to it- Atwood does a fantastic job of foreshadowing and hinting.
This novel was a bit less grisly than some of Atwood’s stories, but still it was at times horrifying, in a “the horrifying truth” type of way.
Altogether, this story is by far my favourite Margaret Atwood novel thus far, and Iris and Laura will be on my mind for a long time.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Not what I was expecting...

...but nonetheless, a great story.

I had to work hard to keep up with Atwood's time shifts, filter which character Lorelei King was reading, and have a few long sessions to get it all straight in my head. Perhaps this is a book better read than listened to, but I persevered.

Set in places I know, and featuring characters I could relate to, the tale progresses in a staccato fashion but becomes ever more difficult to put down as the hours ticked away. I've read Attwood before, but this was not like her other works, or at least those I've read, but it was a story that I really wanted to finish, even driving an extra 15 minutes on my way into work to listen to more; not one or twice, but every day for weeks.

I don't intend to talk about the plot, or the characters, but I do wish to commend this book to people who have the time to follow it through. Believe me, the it's worth it.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Not an Atwood fan but this book changed my mind.

I think Margot Dionne's narration has a lot to do with it. It was fantastic.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Takes some time to get into

Fantastic book but the first 200 pages were a little slow. The book really picks uo once you get into the flow of the various timelines and stories.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Probably the best Canadian novel I've read. . .

. . .And being able to hear it read aloud was a great treat. #Audible1

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    5 out of 5 stars
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A Great Listen

Not quite what I was expecting but I am very glad to have listened to this.

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1 person found this helpful