book:"the blind assassin" by margaret atwood theme of review: the books of our lives
so i finally finished "the blind assassin" on sunday after way too long--too many short, short subway rides and not enough alone time to just finish the damn thing. plus, it was one of those cases where you don't necessarily want it to be over. it was not a surprising end whatsoever, but i think that's the whole point really. you knew she--iris, the narrator--was going to die--she'd already said she was what, eighty-something? she was writing her memoirs so that she could die. you knew she was going to move on when she was done and she could finally rest.
after all, the great mystery came in the midst of the book, when you began really getting involved with her sister laura chase's book, the book within the book (called "the blind assassin"), and the book within the book within the book (the story about the other planet which was really about the blind assassin and his tongue-less maiden, written/spoken by alex thomas). when you started pondering whether laura could really think that deeply and that articulately. whether alex had actually written it for her. whether she or he was talking about her or himself or an imagined existence, an imagined relationship they shared. you believed the narrator, iris, was telling you the truth to some degree, that surely laura had to have written it. she'd said she'd left it for her to find, right? well, yes and no. but then as the pieces started falling into place, iris's thoughts and actions started sounding more like the girl's in laura's book, you started wondering a bit if maybe laura had been writing about iris and alex.
but i don't want to ruin it for you.
what i want to talk about is the idea of the book within the book within the book and how this has to do with identity. this is what i've been thinking about: we are all books within books within books. i mean, the life and person we present to people are together one running storyline which may be very different from the storyline going on inside our lives and yet also different from the dialogue going on inside our heads. but that's not to say that they are so separate as to be unrelated. quite the opposite. they're all pieces of us that present different forms of our lives and somehow they all fit together. it's just a matter of deciphering--or letting someone decipher--how they all fit together and what exactly that pieced together puzzle means. i mean, that's what iris wanted--she wanted her granddaughter to return and try to put all the pieces together and understand where they all were coming from, and in turn, forgive iris and give her love.
but of course, for many of us, the goal is not for a granddaughter to put the pieces together, but for someone we are actually in love with. that other person. that life partner (does such a phrase still exist, guys?). each relationship we enter is a struggle at that conveying of the many books contained in our lives, that message that "this is me" and "this is also me" and "this is why i'm me." with each interaction we are searching to see if that other person really gets us, can really put all the storylines together and decode what we're talking about, what we're about. and relate. or just embrace. (typically, either one will do.) even if we present each story as if it's not really ours, as if they're completely separate or unrelated or a matter of repulsion, they are each still ours and still a vital part of ourselves, and thus not to be rejected or ignored or misunderstood. each story is part of the big picture of who we are as individuals and why we are individuals.
but the scary side issue of all of this is it is so rare to find someone who actually knows all their own storylines by heart, much less who gets that they do all fit together and how they all fit together. after all, who is that self-aware? so to try to convey any of the storylines to another person becomes chaotic and virtually impossible. the most you can hope for--and i mean the utmost, the amazing, the mind-blowing chance--is that you will find someone who wants to hear your stories and tell you theirs and work all of them out together. they don't need to read that last page right now. they don't need to hear the explanation behind every relationship and problem in your life. quite the opposite: they want to be a part of the equation. they want to be a part of the story. they would not be happy if they weren't.
and thus iris died a sad and lonely--though good-humored and wise even beyond her eighty-some-odd years--woman as she hoped for eternity that sabrina would return and sit down with her and just hear the story as it had progressed, and help her write a different ending. but it didn't happen that way. and probably for all too many of us, that's the way we'll go out as well.
and though it sounds cheesy, there was another lesson to learn within the story in that iris would have done many things differently. she'd led a double life and paid dearly for it when she revealed it almost spitefully to her sister. she had shut her eyes to many wrongs, as well, just to not make waves and to get on with life. she'd let her daughter be taken away. she'd let her granddaughter be kept away. she'd never made a strong play for anything she really, really wanted. not even alex. and as a result, she blindly assassinated the people all around her who really needed and loved her.
