This is the second work by Margaret Atwood that I have read, having just completed the Handmaid’s Tale last month. The Blind Assassin did not end with a hopeful sensation. It is a powerful work. It is a pulp science-fiction fantasy within a lightly fictionalized memoir, within an allegory of power and powerlessness within a world of privilege and avarice. It may not be accurate to call that second level “lightly fictionalized memoir”. It is a fictionalized memoir of a character in the allegory. I don’t know if there is any relationship with Atwood’s biography. I will have to find out.

With these two novels alone to judge, Atwood seems to have a preoccupation with the roles of women as baby makers, and the ways in which female self-determination is limited and controlled.