The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood (2 stars)

As a winner of the Booker Prize in 2000, and on Dymocks' top 100 list, I decided this was a worthy candidate for my summer reading list. I wish I hadn't.

The unusual thing about this book is the number of simultaneous stories that are being told. They are: Laura and Iris growing up, Iris' affair with Alex Thomas, the science fiction story Alex and Iris come up with together, and Iris' day-to-day life as an older woman. The only interesting story out of all of these is sadly the sci-fi one, which gives the book its title. Unfortunately Atwood treats this story flippantly and has Alex end it in a couple of paragraphs with no regard to the readers' interest:

Not one escapes alive. The King is hanged from a tree, the High Priestess is disembowelled, the plotting courtier perishes along with the rest. The innocent slave children, the guild of blind assassins, he sacrificial girls in the Temple - all die.

My main complaint about this book is the lack of any interesting, thoroughly developed characters. Atwood pre-empts this criticism in the text by acknowledging that she (Iris) has merely provided a cardboard cut-out for her husband Richard. Unfortunately it is also true of all the characters except Iris.

Iris is boring, lacks backbone, and is so weak-willed she does nothing when others conspire to commit her sister to a mental institution. In contrast, Iris' sister Laura is one of the most interesting characters, yet we never discover her motivations: why does she constantly challenge the status-quo and display all of the spunk that Iris lacks?

The only other potentially interesting character is Alex Thomas, but his involvement is mainly limited to an emotionally cruel treatment of Iris and being the vessel for the science fiction story.

The 'twist' at the end of the story is less twist and more bleeding obvious plot development. Even Atwood acknowledges it:

But you must have known that for some time.

As I would expect for a Booker Prize winner, the writing is excellent. It's a shame the story is no good.

2 stars.