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puszysty at 08:21pm on 08/04/2010
puszysty at 08:21pm on 08/04/2010Since everyone was raving about it, I decided to read The Blind Assassin. I didn't care for it. Here's why:
1. I had the ending predicted within the first 10 pages of the book. I knew she'd murdered Richard as soon as that article on his death appeared. I just didn't know why.
I also knew it could not have been Laura that wrote that book, unless she miraculously became smart as an adult. The fact that she took everything literally and had a loose, or naive perhaps may be a better word, grasp on reality, really smacked of mental deficiency, like autism or some such.
I figured out she was the girl in Blind Assassin about halfway through the book.
2. I did not connect with Iris in the slightest. Until the end of the book, she was just, it seemed, a do-nothing spoiled rich girl with zero ambition, zero drive, and zero care for much in life. I can't stand people like that. Usually if the book doesn't have a strong female character, if there are female characters in the book, I have a really difficult time finishing it. (I hadn't really thought much about that before, until I read this book, but I can very honestly go through my fiction collection right now and point to the strong females in them. I think this may be a result of growing up on American Girl and Dear America.) I know Iris is supposed to be the protagonist, but I could not make myself care for her. Reenie could arguably be presented as the strong woman in this story, but she's a tertiary role.
3. In fact, I think the only character I actually really got interested in was the blind assassin himself, but that got dropped abruptly from the storyline. I get the analogy- that the blind assassin is Alex Thomas, living in the shadows, fighting battles that aren't his own, and that Iris is the girl with no tongue, deprived of her voice in the world by others. Which I think is why it was left out of Alex's published version. But I don't see it as a powerful enough analogy to carry the whole book.
So that's my two cents. Please feel free to debate me.
1. I had the ending predicted within the first 10 pages of the book. I knew she'd murdered Richard as soon as that article on his death appeared. I just didn't know why.
I also knew it could not have been Laura that wrote that book, unless she miraculously became smart as an adult. The fact that she took everything literally and had a loose, or naive perhaps may be a better word, grasp on reality, really smacked of mental deficiency, like autism or some such.
I figured out she was the girl in Blind Assassin about halfway through the book.
2. I did not connect with Iris in the slightest. Until the end of the book, she was just, it seemed, a do-nothing spoiled rich girl with zero ambition, zero drive, and zero care for much in life. I can't stand people like that. Usually if the book doesn't have a strong female character, if there are female characters in the book, I have a really difficult time finishing it. (I hadn't really thought much about that before, until I read this book, but I can very honestly go through my fiction collection right now and point to the strong females in them. I think this may be a result of growing up on American Girl and Dear America.) I know Iris is supposed to be the protagonist, but I could not make myself care for her. Reenie could arguably be presented as the strong woman in this story, but she's a tertiary role.
3. In fact, I think the only character I actually really got interested in was the blind assassin himself, but that got dropped abruptly from the storyline. I get the analogy- that the blind assassin is Alex Thomas, living in the shadows, fighting battles that aren't his own, and that Iris is the girl with no tongue, deprived of her voice in the world by others. Which I think is why it was left out of Alex's published version. But I don't see it as a powerful enough analogy to carry the whole book.
So that's my two cents. Please feel free to debate me.
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