Donald read and liked Martine's review of The Handmaid's Tale (Contemporary Classics):

"The scariest thing about Atwood's dystopian fantasy, first published in 1985, is how prophetic it seems. There were references in the book which sent a chill of recognition down my spine. A right-wing government which blames Islamic fundamentalists f...more The scariest thing about Atwood's dystopian fantasy, first published in 1985, is how prophetic it seems. There were references in the book which sent a chill of recognition down my spine. A right-wing government which blames Islamic fundamentalists for terrorist attacks and begins to suspend certain human rights, claiming it is doing so to protect the people from heathen bastards? I daresay it will sound familiar to any left-wing American who has ever looked with a wary eye at the country's increasingly influential religious right. Nuclear disasters which affect health and fertility? I know some Ukrainian women who could tell a few nasty stories about that. And of course the suppression of women which is the main subject of The Handmaid's Tale is only too real in places like Iran and Afghanistan, where many women are probably worse off than Atwood's protagonist, Offred.

So, yes, the novel rang true to me. I've read reviews by people who said their appreciation of the book was significantly undermined by the unlikeliness of the premise, but it didn't seem that far-fetched to me. I don't think a society like the one Atwood describes in The Handmaid's Tale would necessarily exist for a long time, but then regimes don't have to last long to cause untold damage. Just look at the havoc Nazi Germany wreaked in just over a decade, or Mao's Red Guards in Cultural Revolution-era China...

I found The Handmaid's Tale a compelling book, and not just for its powerful vision of a dystopian future. Sure, it has a cold, impersonal tone, but that is appropriate, given the subject matter. What stayed with me most, other than the disturbing descriptions of chants and punishments, was Offred's boredom, the sense of loss that pervades the book. Bereft of her job and the right to read books or own anything, Offred has no distractions from her own thoughts, which she refers to as 'attacks of the past'. She frequently dwells on people and things she has lost -- people and things she used to take for granted, and now will never see again. Furthermore, she endlessly analyses her own thoughts, feelings and actions, simply because she has nothing else to do. Atwood does a great job describing Offred's crushing boredom and her desire for distraction, for something to give her life a little meaning. At the same time, she shows how indoctrination and forced inertia can wear an otherwise intelligent and engaged person down. Atwood's Offred is no heroine, no rebel. She sometimes has rebellious thoughts, but she never actively goes out there and makes things happen. Instead, she waits for others to give her cues, showing little initiative of her own. As a modern heroine, then, she is flawed; she is too passive really to appeal. However, as an illustration of how fear and oppression can beat an intelligent woman down and paralyse her into near-submission, she is near perfect. Those readers who complain about her passivity and lack of active engagement obviously missed the point.

As far as I'm concerned, The Handmaid's Tale has only one real flaw, which is its ending. It felt rushed to me. I didn't necessarily crave more closure; I just felt the story deserved a less abrupt ending. As for the epilogue with its almost flippant tone, I didn't really care for that either, but I can see why Atwood felt the need to include it; it definitely answered a few questions, and offered a message of hope, as well. I can see how some readers might appreciate a message of hope after such a depressing read. Personally, though, I think the book would have been even more memorable if Atwood had remained true to the style and tone of the rest of the book. It would have made a chilling read just a tad more compelling.

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Donald read and liked Xio's review of Voyage in the Dark (Penguin Modern Classics):

"Two quotes:

"That was when it was sad, when you lay awake at night and remembered things. That was when it was sad, when you stood by the bed and undressed, thinking, 'When he kisses me, shivers run up my back. I am hopeless, resigned...more Two quotes:

"That was when it was sad, when you lay awake at night and remembered things. That was when it was sad, when you stood by the bed and undressed, thinking, 'When he kisses me, shivers run up my back. I am hopeless, resigned, utterly happy. Is that me? I am bad, not good any longer, bad. That has no meaning, absolutely none. Just words. But something about the darkness of the streets has a meaning.' "

"It was like letting go and falling back into water and seeing yourself grinning up through the water, your face like a mask, and seeing the bubbles coming up as if you were trying to speak from under the water. And how do you know what it's like to try to speak from under water when you're drowned?"

Writers, usually male, have written often about female madness, feminine otherness has usually been the domain of feminist theory, but writers like Rhys, Leduc, Duras and some others manage to unflinchingly capture this gender experience without pandering to cliche, stereotypes of weakness: nerves, sensitivities, or by pointing fingers at the 'enemy' (or oppressor,etc) of the moment....Yes, the female protagonists are emotional, they are often in a condition of weakness, but these are conditions of circumstance which they themselves view practically from the status of aliens (albeit very human).

It is late here and I'll probably have to erase all of this in the morning because of an entire lack of meaning.

I suppose what I mean here is that when I read the tales of the women in the stories of Jean Rhys, for example, I do not ever feel that the problem is presented as being a product of the condition of being female. Their options, certainly, are limited by their gender depending upon the culture they inhabit, but Rhys and Leduc for example, present women who are as alien from their society as any man out of J. Baldwin, Genet, and so down the line of the writers of the marginal-ized.

And so I suppose what I'm driving at is the value of the novel (and the other Rhys novels) to me is this inclusion of the protagonist to a community of humans who are alien, itinerant and confusing to all others who opt in (and the majority who do not see the choice in the first place)to whichever dominant culture surrounds them.

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