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The Handmaid's Tale
by Margaret Atwood (Goodreads Author)
by Margaret Atwood (Goodreads Author)
** spoiler alert **
I just re-read this book and felt like with this reading I related to it in a very different way. One major shift for me was that, as a new mother, the parts in which Offred reflects on the loss of her daughter hit me in my stomach and made knots of tension between my shoulder blades. The need to protect a child and the very thought of having them taken away feel so much more concrete to me now, and I was devastated by the i nightmarish clarity with which this was captured in this book.
Another change is that the dystopic vision that Atwood presents seemed much less far-fetched to me. While the political climate at this exact moment (with the 2008 democratic presidential race) feels somewhat hopeful, for years now I have avoided having too much knowledge outside of my liberal little NYC bubble, because the growing power of fundamentalist Christian conservatives and their extreme values, leaves me cold and shaky.
The Handmaid's Tale imagines a society where this group has taken control and created a regimented lifestyle that is just as oppressive and frightening as the worst of the fundamentalist Islamic societies that we are currently supposed to see as our enemy, though with Christian doctrine at the forefront. It is a lonely world where individuality, especially for women, has been completely supressed and people must live within a very strict moral behavioral code and under the constant fear of being seen relaxing into their humanity for a moment and the violent punishment they receive if discovered in even the slightest deviation. It is horrifying because it is not totally out of the realm of possibility, largely because most, if not all, of the restrictions placed on people's lives happen or have happened in other countries.
The first half of the book is very vague and creepy. You are trying to piece together where this is, and what exactly is happening, and the enigmatic oppressive horrors are fascinating, and Offred's memories of the life before poignant and beautiful. As the book goes on and the situation becomes more clear-- and especially in the irritating last chapter, taking place at some academic symposium in the year 2095-- I felt that some of the beauty of the book was lost. Maybe if more of the whys and hows are filled in, it is harder to believe that this world could exist and easier to dismiss it as alarmist science fiction. In any case, I felt that the spell it had over me was broken.
I would still definitely recommend the book. It is haunting and gorgeously sad.
Another change is that the dystopic vision that Atwood presents seemed much less far-fetched to me. While the political climate at this exact moment (with the 2008 democratic presidential race) feels somewhat hopeful, for years now I have avoided having too much knowledge outside of my liberal little NYC bubble, because the growing power of fundamentalist Christian conservatives and their extreme values, leaves me cold and shaky.
The Handmaid's Tale imagines a society where this group has taken control and created a regimented lifestyle that is just as oppressive and frightening as the worst of the fundamentalist Islamic societies that we are currently supposed to see as our enemy, though with Christian doctrine at the forefront. It is a lonely world where individuality, especially for women, has been completely supressed and people must live within a very strict moral behavioral code and under the constant fear of being seen relaxing into their humanity for a moment and the violent punishment they receive if discovered in even the slightest deviation. It is horrifying because it is not totally out of the realm of possibility, largely because most, if not all, of the restrictions placed on people's lives happen or have happened in other countries.
The first half of the book is very vague and creepy. You are trying to piece together where this is, and what exactly is happening, and the enigmatic oppressive horrors are fascinating, and Offred's memories of the life before poignant and beautiful. As the book goes on and the situation becomes more clear-- and especially in the irritating last chapter, taking place at some academic symposium in the year 2095-- I felt that some of the beauty of the book was lost. Maybe if more of the whys and hows are filled in, it is harder to believe that this world could exist and easier to dismiss it as alarmist science fiction. In any case, I felt that the spell it had over me was broken.
I would still definitely recommend the book. It is haunting and gorgeously sad.
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Pamela
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Mar 20, 2008 09:01am
amanda--you make me want to re-read the book. it's been years since i read it, but it's one of those books whose images i often recall. i'll be curious to see how i respond to it now.
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You should re-read it. I was startled at how contemporary it felt. I truly felt that it seemed more contemporary than it did the first time that I read it.
I totally agree--for me, too, towards the end the spell was broken. Strangely I read up to the scene where she dresses in the sequiny costume while riding "to" somewhere on a train, and the remainder on the "from". I was wondering if that affected my impression of the last part but it looks like it really does lose something. The main character stops being tentative. She seems to lose herself. And the world basically stops being uncovered at that point--little more is added, just her going through in almost a fog. Then something like a deux ex machina.
