Blind Assassin (70 page)
Authors: Margaret Atwood
Tags: #Fiction, #General, #Literary, #Fiction - General, #Psychological fiction, #Domestic fiction, #Psychological, #Romance, #Sisters, #Reading Group Guide, #Widows, #Older women, #Aged women, #Sisters - Death, #Fiction - Authorship, #Women novelists
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint already published material:
Epigraphs:
Ryszard Kapuscinski,Shah of Shahs: © 1982, Ryszard Kapuscinski, translated by William R. Brand and Katarzyna Mroczowska-Brand. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1985. Reprinted by permission of the author.
The Carthaginian urn inscription attributed to Zashtar, a minor noble-woman (c. 210–185 B.C.E.), is cited by Dr. Emil F. Swardsward in “Carthaginian Shard Epitaphs,”Cryptic: The Journal of Ancient Inscriptions, vol. VII, no. 9, 1963.
Sheila Watson: fromDeep Hollow Creek © 1992, Sheila Watson. Reprinted with permission from McClelland Stewart Inc.
The vernacular renditions of songs are based on:
“The Smoke Goes Up the Chimney Just the Same.” Traditional.
“Smokey Moon.” Lyric by G. Damorda. Music by Crad Shelley. Copyright © 1934 Sticks Inc./Skylark Music. Copyright renewed 1968 by Chaggas Music Corporation on behalf of author and composer. Used by permission.
“Stormy Weather.” Lyric by Ted Koehler. Music by Harold Arlen. Copyright © 1933 Mills Music Inc./S. A. Music Co./Ted Koehler Music/EMI Mills Music Inc./Redwood Music. Copyright renewed 1961 by Arko Music Corp. U.S. rights for the extended term in the United States administered by Fred Ahlert Music Corporation on behalf of Ted Koehler Music. U.S. rights administered by S. A. Music on behalf of Harold Arlen Music. Rights outside the U.S. administered by EMI Mills Music Inc. All rights relating to the interest of Ted Koehler in Canada and the reversionary territories are controlled by Bienstock Publishing Company on behalf of Redwood Music. International Copyright Secured. All Rights Reserved. Used by permission.
The account of the Queen Mary’s maiden voyage is excerpted from:
“In Search of an Adjective” by J. Herbert Hodgins.Mayfair, July 1936. (Maclean Hunter, Montreal). Exact ownership of copyright unknown. Reprinted by permission of Rogers Media and Southam Inc.
THE BLIND ASSASSIN
MARGARET ATWOOD
 | Copyright |
The Blind Assassin
Copyright © 2000 by Margaret Atwood
Cover art and eForeword to the electronic edition copyright © 2003 by RosettaBooks, LLC
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
For information address
[email protected]
First electronic edition published 2003 by RosettaBooks LLC, New York.
ISBN 0-7953-2831-1
| Contents |
The Blind Assassin: Perennials for the Rock Garden
The Colonel Henry Parkman High School Home and School and Alumni Association Bulletin, 1998
The Port Ticonderoga Herald and Banner, 1933
The destruction of Sakiel-Norn
The Blind Assassin, Epilogue: The other hand
Imagine the monarch Agha Mohammed Khan, who orders the entire population of the city of Kerman murdered or blinded – no exceptions. His praetorians set energetically to work. They line up the inhabitants, slice off the heads of the adults, gouge out the eyes of the children…. Later, processions of blinded children leave the city. Some, wandering around in the countryside, lose their way in the desert and die of thirst. Other groups reach inhabited settlements…singing songs about the extermination of the citizens of Kerman….
—
RYSZARD KAPUSCINSKI
I swam, the sea was boundless, I saw no shore.
Tanit was merciless, my prayers were answered.
O you who drown in love, remember me.
—
INSCRIPTION ON A CARTHAGINIAN FUNERARY URN
The word is a flame burning in a dark glass.
—
SHEILA WATSON
| eForeword |
Told in a style that magnificently captures the colloquialisms and clichés of the 1930s and 1940s, The Blind Assassin is a richly layered and uniquely rewarding experience
Opening with a terse account of her sister Laura’s death in 1945, it is followed by an inquest report proclaiming the death accidental. But just as the reader expects to settle into Laura's story, Atwood introduces a novel-within-a- novel, a science fiction story told by two unnamed lovers who meet in dingy backstreet rooms. With many threads and a series of events that follow one another at a breathtaking pace, everything comes together and readers discover that the story Atwood is telling is not only what it seems to be—but, in fact, much more.
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