Margaret Atwood's tenth novel is both familiar and new. As it is an Atwood novel, we get eggs, a ravine, shit, snow, an ethereal double or sisterly doppelgänger, a bridge, a river, an act of violence - images and themes from her earlier fiction metamorphosed. The Blind Assassin also possesses the unusual lyrical sensuousness that distinguished Alias Grace (1996), Atwood's last major work. A complex rumination on narrative, it is as elegant and dynamic as its predecessor, but more contemplative and more edgy - and much more witty.

LRB 5 October 2000 | PDF Download