Finished: The Blind Assassin (Atwood). Loved this book by the author of The Handmaid's Tale! I loved the story, loved the writing, loved the surprises, loved it all. :-) The book is actually a story alongside a fictional story within a story, if that makes sense! The story starts with this line, and never lets up....Ten days after the war ended, my sister Laura drove a car off a bridge. The narrator is 25 year old Laura's sister, Iris. Iris discovers a book written by Laura and has it published after her death. Portions of the book are interspersed with the actual story of Iris' and Laura's lives until you come to understand that the book is really about a mystery man they were both involved with in real life! And to further complicate matters, the man in the book is a writer who is creating a sci-fi/medieval/mystical story about blind assassins, alien attacks, secret societies, lizard men, and more. He tells his lover a little piece of the story each time they meet....but exactly who is the lover? Of course, I stopped cold at the part of the sci-fi story where the young boys became blinded and were then used as assassins. Did George R. R. Martin read this book? Was it the inspiration for making Arya a blind assassin in The Game of Thrones?? Also interspersed between the story, the fictional book, and the sci-fi story are newspaper clippings of current events, i.e., Laura's death notice, war notices, charity ball notices, other death notices, etc., that also pertain to the story. It's such an intricate, creative, and mesmerizing book. Yet, Atwood writes it all without going off on tangents or using more words than she needs to. Everything is nice and succinct...every sentence, every word, has a purpose. I simply loved it! :-) I believe it's going on my favorites list!!

Some passages I liked. Here is the mystery man's first description of the blind assassins in his sci-fi book:

    The carpets were woven by slaves who were invariably children, because only the fingers of children were small enough for such intricate work. But the incessant close labor demanded of these children caused them to go blind by the age of eight or nine, and their blindness was the measure by which the carpet-sellers valued and extolled their merchandise: This carpet blinded ten children, they would say. This blinded fifteen, this twenty. Since the price rose accordingly, they always exaggerated. It was the custom for the buyer to scoff at their claims. Surely only seven, only twelve, only sixteen, they would say fingering the carpet. 
    Once they were blind, the children would be sold off to brothel-keepers, the girls and the boys alike. The services of the children blinded this way fetched high sums; their touch was so suave and deft, it was said, that under their fingers you could feel the flowers blossoming and the water flowing out of your own skin.
    They were also skilled at picking locks. Those of them who escaped took up the profession of cutting throats in the dark, and were greatly in demand as hired assassins. 

I love this description by the now octogenarian narrator at a school function in Canada, where the book is set:
    The school orchestra struck up with squeaks and flats, and we sang "O Canada!," the words to which I can never remember because they keep changing them. Nowadays they do some of it in French, which once would have been unheard of. We sat down, having affirmed our collective pride in something we can't pronounce. 

The narrator, Iris, speaking of her grandmother. I really liked this in your face statement:
    Also she went in for Culture, which gave her a certain moral authority. It wouldn't now; but people believed, then, that Culture could make you better - a better person. They believed it could uplift you, or the women believed it. They hadn't yet seen Hitler at the opera house.

Iris commenting on the family housekeeper's outspoken opinions:
    "He's new money, anyhow," said Reenie scornfully, surveying Richard Griffen. "Look at the fancy pants." She was unforgiving of anyone who criticized Father (anyone, that is, except herself), and scornful of those who rose in the world and then acted above their level, or what she considered their level; and it was a known fact that the Griffens were common as dirt, or at least their grandfather was. He'd got hold of his business through cheating the Jews, said Reenie in an ambiguous tone -- was this something of a feat, in her books? - but exactly how he had done it she couldn't say. (In fairness, Reenie may have invented these slurs on the Griffens. She sometimes attributed to people the histories she felt they ought to have had.)

Love that last line! Sounds like someone I know, but my lips are sealed. :-)