The Handmaid’s Tale (The Handmaid's Tale, #1) in Overdue Podcast

Sep 01, 2012 Sonia rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary-fiction, own

I sit in my room, at the window, waiting. In my lap is a handful of crumpled stars.
The Handmaid’s Tale is a construction of a dystopian world. The protagonist is the Handmaid named Offred; this is not her real name. It is now illegal to use her real name which she now considers as an “amulet, some charm that’s survived from an unimaginable past“. It is also illegal for her to be outside on her own, to use a pen, to read a magazine, to read anything. Offred is seen purely as a body, no longer a b I sit in my room, at the window, waiting. In my lap is a handful of crumpled stars.
The Handmaid’s Tale is a construction of a dystopian world. The protagonist is the Handmaid named Offred; this is not her real name. It is now illegal to use her real name which she now considers as an “amulet, some charm that’s survived from an unimaginable past“. It is also illegal for her to be outside on her own, to use a pen, to read a magazine, to read anything. Offred is seen purely as a body, no longer a being. She has been reduced to a function: to breed. Dressed in red, with ‘wings’ that sound more like blinkers, Handmaids are passed from household to household, offered to a Commander and his Wife, to be impregnated, to populate a world in a breeding crisis. They are ‘trained’ to be good Handmaids, to be convinced that this is a better world:

"Now we walk along the same street, in red pairs, and no man shouts obscenities at us, speaks to us, touches us. No one whistles. There is more than one kind of freedom, said Aunt Lydia. Freedom to and freedom from. In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from."

Offred has known a different world, a world where she had a mother, a family, a life of wasteful pleasures, trivial conversations and careless acts. The fact that Offred had this life taken from her adds a film of melancholy to the story, a desperate yearn for what was:

"You can wet the rim of a glass and run your finger around the rim and it will make a sound. This is what I feel like: this sound of glass. I feel like the world shatter. I want to be with someone."

"I feel like cotton candy: sugar and air. Squeeze me and I’d turn into a small sickly damp wad of weeping pinky-red."

The Handmaid’s Tale was published in 1986 and soon became a bestseller. This novel is viewed by some as a social commentary of the time. The ‘social revolution’ of the 1960s and 70s made way for a conservative backlash in the 1980s. Some consider this novel a ‘response’ to that backlash, a ‘what if’ scenario played out in a totalitarian society; a society where women have been stripped of their right to feel and think and love, where sexuality has been reduced to its rawest function.

I found this wonderfully entertaining. I am not so much drawn to where this novel sits in the world of politics, sexual and otherwise. I viewed this book like I view all my reads: on its own merits. Atwood is a beautiful writer. She spends a lot of time describing this dystopian world, sometimes to the detriment of the novel’s pace but the structure works well, dipping into flashbacks along the way. It speaks to me about love, love lost and human connection that we often take for granted. Until it’s taken away. ...more

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Oct 12, 2012 Amber rated it it was amazing

OK, WOW. Seriously that's what my response was to this. The layers of meaning, the messages, the utter repulsion I felt trying to imagine it actually happening and realizing it wasn't hard to at all. It was all superb.

This, I am embarrassed to say is my first Atwood book. I found her writing to be like my dream prose. It's poetic and descriptive, while not being long-winded or confusing. The pages seemed to fly by and I got to the end and felt desperate for more book. I liked that she didn't fee ...more

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Jun 18, 2017 Jeni rated it really liked it

Shelves: beers-and-book-club

It was great! It was a book that was hard to put down. I wasn't surprised by the feminist overtones, but what did surprise me was how bleak it was for the men too. Yes, women lost power and it became a total patriarchal society, but there were still different classes of men. And they lost love too. It was clearly a lonely life for the Commander and he missed having a real connection with a partner, someone he could talk to and share ideas with rather than the new system of wife and handmaids. Th ...more

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Apr 09, 2017 Kate rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, kindle, 2017

Brilliant. Terrifying. I couldn't stop reading this. Anytime I did stop reading this and then thought about it, I heard her words echoing through my head and I knew I was gritting my teeth.

I... it's too real. ...more

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