Dialectical Journal # 30: The Blind Assassin

Passages From The Text	Pg #	Comments & Questions
“’It must be terrible’ I said, ‘not to know who you really are.’            ‘I used to think that’ said Alex, “But then it came to me that who I really am is a person who doesn't need to know who he really is, in the usual sense. What does it mean, anyway- family background and so forth? People use it mostly as an excuse for their own snobbery, or else their failings. I’m free of that temptation, that’s all. I’m free of the strings. Nothing ties me down.’ …           Was that the beginning, that evening- on the dock at Avilion, with the fireworks dazzling the sky? It’s hard to know. Beginnings are sudden, but also insidious. They creep up on you sideways, they keep to the shadows, they lurk unrecognized. Then, later, they spring.”	190	(R) Is Alex the mystery man? I think he is! I would be happy about this, except that he is about 22 and Laura is 14. So now I’m mostly creeped out by this whole situation.            I’m very curious as to what “beginning” Iris is talking about that would make her be all gloomy like that. It’s strange how people usually portray beginnings as things that are happy and should be looked upon with joy and what-not, yet here it’s being described as something almost dangerous, like a mugger.

Dialectical Journal # 29: The Blind Assassin

Passages From The Text	Pg #	Comments & Questions
·         “’ Don’t annoy him,’ I said to Laura. ·         ‘it doesn't matter whether I annoy him or not,’ said Laura. ‘Anyway, he’s not annoyed. He only wants to put his hand up my blouse.’ ·         ‘I’ve never seen him do that,’ I said. ‘Why would he?’ ·         ‘He does it when you’re not looking,’ said Laura. ‘Or under my skirt. What he likes is panties.’ She said it so calmly I thought she must have made it up, or misunderstood. Misunderstood Mr. Erskine’s hands, their intentions. What she described was so implausible. It didn’t seem to me like the sort of thing a grown-up man would do, or be interested in doing at all, because wasn’t Laura only a little girl? ·         ‘Should we tell Reenie?’ I asked tentatively. ·         ‘She might not believe me,’ said Laura. ‘You don’t.’”	165	·         (R) I feel bad for Iris and Laura! I know that when someone makes an accusation like that, that person should be believed! But Laura is just so.. absent-minded and weird that I can understand why Iris would hesitate to believe her. But that's her sister!!! When it comes to a situation like this, Iris should believe her until Laura is proven wrong.

Dialectical Journal #28: The Blind Assassin

Passages From The Text	Pg #	Comments & Questions
·         “What if someone sees me? she says. It’s broad daylight. ·         It’s all right. They won’t know you. They’ll just see a woman in a slip, it’s not an uncommon sight around here; they’ll just think you’re a… ·         A woman of easy virtue? She says lightly. Is that what you think too? ·         A ruined maiden. Not the same thing. ·         That’s very gallant of you. ·         Sometimes I’m my own worst enemy. ·          If it weren't for you I’d be a lot more ruined, she says.”	120	·         (R) What is up with Laura! She’s having a secret affair with some man who is a bit too commanding for my taste, but he’s not my secret lover! I can’t wait for this mystery man to be introduced in the story. I can’t imagine a man with Laura because she is just so strange. I’m kind of scared that he’ll be a horrible person or something, and then I’ll have a hard time reading her portion of the novel because I don’t want to read about her running around all over town just to sex some mean guy!

Dialectical Journal #27: The Blind Assassin

Passages From The Text	Pg #	Comments & Questions
·         “’ We’ll go to Betty’s,’ said my father. ‘I’ll buy you a soda.’ Neither of these things had ever happened to me before. Betty’s Luncheonette was for the townspeople, not for Laura and me, said Reenie. It wouldn't do to lower our standards. Also, sodas were a ruinous indulgence and would rot your teeth. That two such forbidden things should be offered at once, and so casually, made me feel almost panicky."	100	·         (R) This makes me feel sympathetic towards Iris and her sister. I can’t imagine what it’s like to not really know your father, and not have him know you. The thing that makes this whole situation worse is the fact that Iris lives with her dad. They have been in the same house, yet he doesn't know that his daughters have had the idea that that restaurant and soda are bad pounded into their head since they were how old? That’s unacceptable. The sad thing is that though this story is fiction, this kind of father-child relationship is some people’s reality.

Dialectical Journal #26:The Blind Assassin

Passages From The Text	Pg #	Comments & Questions
“She did understand, or at least understood that she was supposed to understand. She understood, and said nothing about it, and prayed for the power to forgive and did forgive. But he can’t have found living with her forgiveness all that easy. Breakfast in a haze of forgiveness: coffee with forgiveness, porridge with forgiveness, forgiveness on the buttered toast. He would have been helpless against it, for how can you repudiate against something that is never spoken... She wished him to owe his recovery to her alone- to her care, to her tireless devotion. That’s the other side of selflessness: its tyranny.”	77	(R) It’s amazing how Atwood can make something such as forgiveness, something that’s usually viewed as an admirable virtue, into a jail. Though, people always seem to want what they can’t have. If the man had been greeted with anger he would think ‘You don’t understand.” Yet, when shown understanding, however fake it may be, and given a heaping plate of forgiveness, it seems wrong.              I thought the last line was interesting though. (“That’s the…tyranny.”) Could that be true? Caring nothing about yourself, caring everything about other people… wouldn't the person who’s being cared about so wholly start feeling as if they owe you something? If you deny that person anything, you would seem heartless. Biting the hand that works so hard to keep you happy.  I kind of feel suffocated just imagining it.

Dialectical Journal #25: The Blind Assassin

Passages From The Text	Pg #	Comments & Questions
·         “My bones have been aching again, as they often do in humid weather. They ache like history: things long done with, that still reverberate as pain. When the ache is bad enough it keeps me from sleeping. Every night I yearn for sleep, I strive for it, yet it flutters on ahead of me like a sooty curtain.”	56	·         (R) I first have to say that I love the way that Atwood writes. The line about how the characters’, Iris, bones “ache like history” , which is beautifully written, reminds me of that saying ‘Time heals all wounds.” I've never thought that that was necessarily true and I guess Iris agrees with me! I think it’s interesting that I feel that Iris is such an engaging character and she is over four times my age. Also, I’m a little ashamed to admit, I wouldn't expect the little old lady strolling around in Wal-mart to be as funny and quick-witted as Iris.  I think I may have an ageist mind-set.

Dialectical Journal #24: The Blind Assassin

Passages From The Text	Pg #	Comments & Questions
“… What if anyone sees us?             They’ll only see the car. This car is a wreck; it’s a poor folks’ car. Even if they look right at you they won’t see you, because a woman like you isn't supposed to be caught dead in a car like this.            Sometimes you don’t like me very much, she says.            I can’t think about much else lately, he says. But liking is different. Liking takes time. I don’t have the time to like you. I can’t concentrate on it.”	25	(R) This book contains a story within a story. The story I quoted was “The Blind Assassin” which was written by the deceased Laura Chase. The characters have no names; they have been refereed to so far as “he” and “she”. I’m not surprised that this story is so weird since Laura seems to be a strange character herself. I don’t understand why “He” would spend so much time with “She” if he doesn't like her. Why not hang out with someone you do like? And why does this mystery woman hang out with this guy who is not so nice to her? Is this even a story? Could it be Laura’s life?

Dialectical Journal #23: The Blind Assassin

Passages From The Text	Pg #	Comments & Questions
“Ten days after the war ended, my sister Laura drove a car off a bridge. The bridge was being repaired: she went right through the Danger sign. The car fell a hundred feet into the ravine smashing through the treetops feathery with new leaves, then burst into flames and rolled down into the shallowly creek at the bottom. Chunks of bridge fell on top of it. Nothing was left of her but charred smithereens.”	1	(R) When I first opened this book, I was apprehensive because all the other books I had read from the AP Lit list of “Books-It-Would-Be-Good-To-Read” had bored me right out of my mind. Then I read this book< and I’m hooked from the first sentence. Teachers (Well, English Teachers) are always telling students to write a great “hook”.  Whenever I hear that I always think, ‘There’s no way a writer can pull someone in with just one sentence! You need to at least read the first paragraph.’ Margaret Atwood, I’m pleased to say, has proved me wrong. I’ve barely started the book, but already I have all these questions in my head that make me want to hide away somewhere and devour this book until I discover the answers.