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The Blind Assassin

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Margaret Eleanor Atwood＜Anchor Books＞

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~~定価：￥ 1,405(税込)~~

特価：￥ 1,639(税込)

　　中古品￥634 より

発売日：2001-08-28

売上ランキング：Bookで46897位

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商品の説明（Amazon.co.jp）

『The Blind Assassin』は2人の姉妹の物語だが、冒頭で、うちひとりが不可解な状況で命を落とす。残されたアイリス・チェイス・グリフェンは、はじめ、身内の死に気持ちを動かされる気配を見せない。しかしアトウッドの過去の作品が、幾重にも重なった入れ子構造だったり、それどころか実は小説全体が別のもうひとつの小説の中にすっぽりとおさまっていたりしたように、読者が、家族の「騙し合い」のゲームがどれだけもつれたものであるかを忘れていられるのは、最初だけである。

「車が橋から飛び出したとき彼女は何を思ったのだろう。午後の陽光の中で、トンボのような輝きを放ち宙を舞った、落下まぎわのその瞬間に。アレックスかリチャードのことだろうか。裏切りのことだろうか。あるいは父さんのことだろうか、父さんが事業に失敗したことだろうか。それとも神のことか。あるいは破滅へとつながる三角関係のことだったか」

物語はここで全く別のストーリー、すなわちローラ・チェイスという作家の『The Blind Assassin』へと切り替わる（この小説は著者の死後、1947年に出版された、という設定）。金持ちの婦人が戯れに落ちる身分違いの恋、そしてその恋人が彼女を楽しませるSF的寓話、の2重構造の小説だ。複雑なつくりではある。しかし著者は、様々なストーリーをうまく織り込み、見事としか言いようのない達人芸で読者を欺きつつ物語の中へ巻き込んでいくのだ。余韻としてわびしさを残すことも忘れてはいない。予測不能な物語の進行のなかで、登場人物たちはほとんどみな、肉眼で見えるものをなんとか目に入れずにすます（あるいは見えていないふりをする）。アイリスの言葉にもあるように、思い出もさほどの癒しにはならない。「亡くなった人を理解することほど難しいものはないってことがわかりました。だからといって彼らをないがしろにすることほど危険なこともないでしょう」。アトウッドは、ポストモダン風の冷笑主義や、作中人物たちを軽視する昨今の文壇の傾向に流されない。深い愛情を人物に注ぐだけの余裕があるからだ。アイリスのとぎれとぎれの回想に読者が引き込まれていくにつれ、このとりすました社交界の婦人には、実は自らをとり巻く混沌がすべて明瞭に見えており、"blind（盲目）" などではなかったことが明らかになっていく。

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時間と場所が混ざる不思議な小説
原書に挑戦したが、小説の構造が複雑かつ単語も難しい用語が多数使用されているため読みこなすのに苦労した。
構造は今は老女となった主人公のアイリスが過去を振り返る手記の体裁をとっているが、その中で妹のローラが書いたといわれるThe Blind Assassinという小説が平行して展開し、更にこの小説の中でSF的な物語が語られるという複雑なものだが、これを最後まで読ませる著者の技量はおみごと。
但し、主人公のアイリスとローラの姉妹とこの二人に関わる男性アレックスのキャラクターに共感できるものがないため、感情移入はできなかった。

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It was just ok
The most wonderful thing about this book is the side-by-side storytelling of the main plot along with a main character's own novel (which itself contains a sub-story). Interesting and well-done. The main plot 'twists,' however, are easily guessable. I had only finished half of the book when I knew the big secret which drove Iris' sister Laura to despair. I can't imagine anyone else not being able to figure it out. If the author had kept that 'revelation' hidden, this book would have been amazing. But still a worthwhile read. 試み Giorgio Kostantinos 極度小説 The Quest

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暗殺者は誰か
この本は前半とっつきにくくて、謎の部分は早くに見当がついてしまうし先は長いしげんなりしたが、やはりアトウッド。読ませる。

悲しみと後悔が溢れている。暗殺者は誰だったのか。
ダフネ・デュ・モーリアの「レベッカ」を思い起こさせる傑作。
作中劇も見事。

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Giant rollercoaster of a novel, full of sizzling harpies...
You're in your late twenties, you're married to one of the most powerful industrialists/politicians in post-war Canada (although you're now living apart), and your beautiful Harpy sister has just died in a mysterious road accident. So what do you do? You publish your sister's first and only novel, and watch as the vultures descend...

Margaret Atwood's Booker prize-winning novel is long and difficult to digest, a veritable seven-course meal. It's taken me a long time of reading and rereading to get my angle upon it. From the start, everything seems relatively straightforward. You know what happens to whom, and where and when they died. The rest of the novel explores have they got there. However, what's most interesting about this narrative is that it does stray from the path, and ventures into the Wild Woods. When Atwood won the Booker, she poignantly praised the work of Angela Carter, which resounds in a small paragraph in the novel: "All stories are about wolves". The Blind Assassin is very much a work of magic realism. You need to have some background reading, starting off with Dante's Inferno, especially Canto XIII. The Wood of the Suicides features the Harpies, and I believe these are symbolic of Laura's supposed 'hysteria'. Harpies are also known as 'The Robbers', and Laura is a notorious klepto. Iris (the name of our narrator) was also sister to the Harpies in myth. The two young heroes in the pulp novel have to enter a wood that supposedly has terrifying dead women in it. Laura is symbolised by the suicide of Dido from the Aeneid. There's also the glorious Book of Daniel, which recounts how Babylon fell overnight (which resounds in the pulp novel too, including the victorious Assyrians' Code of Hammurabi). Allied to this is the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, translated by Edward Fitzgerald: "The Moving Finger writes" quote is a direct link to the Book of Daniel and the Fall of Babylon. Add to these ingredients a generous helping of the Pre-Raphaelites and Alfred Lord Tennyson, and you've got the kind of novel that I love.

No doubt this will sound pretty daunting for your average reader (I've compiled a page concerning the context of this novel for interested readers). However, I think most people will be able to enjoy this novel without all these references. On the other hand, Margaret Atwood makes a big assumption that lots of people will know what the Depression was like in Canada. Unfortunately, Roosevelt and his New Deal are far more famous internationally than the ruthless 'Iron Heel' of Canadian Prime Minister Richard Bennett. Canada had a devastating Depression in the "Hungry Thirties", which was only fuelled by Bennett's policy of setting up forced work camps. This suffering made more people rally to the Communist Party of Canada under the leadership of Tim Buck, and led to organised protests, such as the Ottawa Trek. This was also the time of the 'Red Scare', the violent repression of 'pinkos' in North America. It's worthwhile looking up the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti, and the deportation of Emma Goldman in order to really appreciate Alex's flight. Alex symbolises the many Canadian Communists who fought in the Spanish Civil War. However, Iris and Laura are cocooned in Avilion, and you don't really get to see anyone starving in The Blind Assassin to get any sense of this context, so probably Alex's cause is lost on a lot of readers.

The only fault of the novel is openly acknowledged within Laura's narration: "I've failed to convey Richard, in any rounded sense. He remains a cardboard cutout. "Due to the plot of the novel, Richard's most significant actions are always clandestine, off-camera. The only factual error I can find in the novel also revolves around him: "He was a frequent participant in the Pugwash conferences," we're told in his obituary at the beginning of the novel. Yet Richard died in 1947, and the Pugwash Conferences started in 1957 - the only way that Richard could have attended would have been as a manifestation of Banquo. Since the Pugwash Conferences were devised to bring around world peace, Richard (who's profited so much from his pugilistic attitude and the Second World War) seems a most unlikely candidate for membership. Margaret Atwood can't have too much of a liking for the legendary King Arthur on this evidence, but it's poetic justice that Richard's Excalibur is thrown away, never again to see the light of day.

All in all, this is a very enjoyable novel, and Atwood deserves the Booker prize (even if I think Matthew Kneale's English Passengers is slightly better). John Buchan, author of The Thirty-nine Steps, makes a cameo appearance towards the end in his more formal role as Lord Tweedsmuir, Governor General of Canada at the start of the fall of the British Empire. The narrative also concerns the Fall of the House of Chase. Norval Chase commits an unforgivable act of patriarchy when he sees the writing on the wall, and submits his daughter to the veil. Just like Belshazzar, he cannot avoid his fate, especially when faced with the mercurial Richard Griffen as adversary. Laura finally finds her voice after years of numbness, but at what price? The house of the Patriarch is falling (which is only just), but Margaret Atwood is courageous enough to question what has taken its place.

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