Turning the Pages: Rereading Atwood’s Novels

D     " " is often taken as an insult: a dismissal of the book on the grounds that its primary, and possibly only, appeal is at the level of plot.But all fi ction attempts to appeal to its readers, and those readers should be tempted to turn the pages.In the case of Margaret Atwood's fi ction, however, readers are tempted to turn the pages both ways.Her fi ction urges fi rst-time readers forward, forward toward richly satisfying, if not entirely conclusive, moments of closure.But her fi ction also demands readers to turn backwards, to turn the pages in the other direction as well: to go back to read again and reassess in light of the new insights they have gleaned as they have read forward. ink, for instance, of the diff erence between a reader's fi rst encounter with Off red in  e Handmaid's Tale and that same reader's return to the novel once s/he understands that Off red's story has been pieced together by the insidious Pieixoto.Similarly, with each new addition to the œuvre of this prolifi c author, while readers fi nd themselves moving on to meet new fi ctional characters and landscapes, they also fi nd themselves returning, turning back as it were, to earlier Atwood works in order to read those works through a new lens and with new insights.Take, for example, Blind Assassin, which,