The Handmaid’s Tale (The Handmaid's Tale, #1) in Reading 1001

Mar 17, 2017 Michael Finocchiaro rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: arthur-clarke-award-winner, fiction, feminism, made-into-movie, dystopian, novels, canadian-20th-c

Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale is a tale of terror as well as a warning. The dystopian future she describes in "Gilead" which appears to be centered in Boston (due to the reference to Mass Ave and the town of Salem) is chillingly misogynistic where women are reduced to strict categories: Martha for housework and cooking, Jezebels (easy to guess, right?), Eyes, Angels (soldiers for the state), infertile Wives and potentially fertile Handmaids. It is beautifully written with lots of flashba Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale is a tale of terror as well as a warning. The dystopian future she describes in "Gilead" which appears to be centered in Boston (due to the reference to Mass Ave and the town of Salem) is chillingly misogynistic where women are reduced to strict categories: Martha for housework and cooking, Jezebels (easy to guess, right?), Eyes, Angels (soldiers for the state), infertile Wives and potentially fertile Handmaids. It is beautifully written with lots of flashbacks of "Offred",
the protagonist's name, of how things devolved into the horrors of her present. It is disturbing because it exposes the politics of reproduction and male sexuality taken to extremes of violence that are shocking and, yet, probably seemed one possible future during the Reaganite 80s when she wrote the book and now feel like the world of which Michael Pence in particular and perhaps Paul Ryan but most definitely Steve Bannon must dream. Could things so change as quickly as she describes in the book? Let us hope not. #resist

It is certainly the most explicitly feminist dystopian book I have ever read. It was thought-provoking cover to cover.

All in all, a very well-written feminist text that should serve as a clarion call for defending women's rights to maintain control over their own bodies and lives now and forever.

Just found this article about my last point: here

Drumpf's sexist, violent tweet against Morning Joe and the escalating attacks against reproductive freedom are moving the American experiment dangerously towards Atwood's Gilead. #resist

Apparently, there are also changes at the CIA that bring the spectre of Gilead a little closer. In another note, I just got Mona Eltahawy's Headscarves and Hymens which is also on subject.

Any of my review readers want to tell me whether the Hulu show about this book is worth my time or not?
[UPDATE] I have watched the first two seasons of the Hulu series and am hooked. That being said, I have watched 5 episodes of S03 and been disappointed. For those who may not know, only S01 is based on the book. The other two seasons are new writing (but with Margaret Atwood supervising the writer's room).

I am quite interested to know if anyone has already read the sequel that was just published in September 2019?
[UPDATE] The sequel The Testaments was pretty good. My review here. ...more

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Jan 19, 2017 Nick rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: utopian-dystopian, five-plus, 1001, authors-atwood

Really brilliant, one of the best dystopian novels.

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Sep 21, 2017 William Irvine rated it liked it

I read this book because (a) because I'd found the recent TV adaptation entertaining and (b) a friend advised me the book included many of the narrator's thoughts and feelings that the TV adaptation had (necessarily) omitted. It does. Dystopian stories are usually thought-provoking and worth taking the time to read. I did like the unsettling open ending [NB but not the postscript]. I also enjoyed many of the twists and turns in the plot which kept me interested. So why, I've been asking myself, I read this book because (a) because I'd found the recent TV adaptation entertaining and (b) a friend advised me the book included many of the narrator's thoughts and feelings that the TV adaptation had (necessarily) omitted. It does. Dystopian stories are usually thought-provoking and worth taking the time to read. I did like the unsettling open ending [NB but not the postscript]. I also enjoyed many of the twists and turns in the plot which kept me interested. So why, I've been asking myself, did it find this book dissatisfying?

The premise - a military coup creating an autocratic theocracy, robbing women of their current freedoms overnight (in Massachussets of all places!) - was plain silly. I tried to persuade myself that this shouldn't matter - also that it was something that had actually happened in Iran in 1978 when women's rights were dramatically and swiftly reversed under Ayatollah Khomeini's theocracy. Perhaps Teheran and some real life stories might have made the tale more credible and, as a result, more powerful? Somehow I struggled to buy in or give credence to the Dystopia, plagued and exacerbated as it as by scifi fertility issues.

I'd been hoping for a feminist 1984 and was greatly disappointed. What Atwood fails to do, and that Orwell did so brilliantly, is to create a genuinely chilling atmosphere that the reader is able to believe in on some level. It's interesting that the TV adaptation 'sexed up' the horror aspects by adding amputations and stonings to the mix of the regime's draconian sanctions for those who oppose it. The TV adaptation also worked hard to make some of the characters less one-dimensional - another weakness of the book.

Great entertainment, but not a book to read if you really want to learn something. The issues of women's empowerment, rape, mysogyny and the self-righteousness of the religious are hugely important - and interesting. Atwood fails to do them justice - they deserve more serious psychological treatment than we find in The Handmaid's tale. 'Praised be. Blessed be the fruit'...I mean honestly! ...more

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