n  It's been almost five years since I wrote my review. I've rewritten large parts of it for clarity. The main idea remains the same.n

Extremist Judeo-Christian beliefs have won America's culture war. Now women have no rights. They are slaves to men and the biblical, patriarchal society in which they live. The Handmaid's Tale is the first-person account of one of these enslaved women.

Massachusetts Turns Into Saudi Arabia?
More than thirty years have passed since The Handmaid's Tale was first published in 1985, but many still think of it as the go-to book for feminist fiction. It makes numerous "best of" lists, the kinds with 99 other books everyone should read before dying. Even so, The Handmaid's Tale frustrates me a lot—and not only because it contains run-on sentences and needlessly abandons quotation marks. (This is no train wreck like José Saramago's Blindness, but it's bad enough.) Simply put, if you can ignore whether you agree or disagree with Margaret Atwood's ideas about politics, religion, and women's rights, the plot and setting make no sense.

The religiosity of the Reagan era inspired Atwood's dystopia, in which fundamentalist Christians have taken over society. While that premise does give me the heebie-jeebies, Atwood’s taken the idea to a literal extreme to make a point. This ruins the foundation of The Handmaid's Tale because most American fundies would balk at this world. Atwood imagines the extreme of the extreme and in the process completely misunderstands American evangelicalism.

I'm a heathen bastard and no fan of religion. Fundamentalism has hurt people, particularly women, for millennia. Extremism continues to hurt people every day, especially in some parts of the world, especially in some states. Even so, it's hard to accept Atwood's dystopia when it's set in the U.S., in the near future—and in Massachusetts, one of the most progressive states in the country, one of only sixteen states in the union with state constitutional protections for abortion (since 1981, I believe). Massachusetts is a liberal bastion when it comes to American women's reproductive rights, so it's an odd setting for this brand of nightmare. In recent decades, Massachusetts is also one of the least religious states, so it's an odd setting for a theocracy, too.

Atwood chose Massachusetts for its puritanical history. I can embrace the connection to the Reagan administration, in the same way I can embrace Orwell's fear of communism in 1984, but to imagine an unchanging, puritanical Massachusetts requires a bit too much.

Societies Don't Change Overnight
The Handmaid's Tale is told in first person by a woman who’s lived in our present day (more or less), as well as in this dark fundamentalist Tomorrowland. She’s gone from wearing flip-flops and sundresses to a full-body religious habit, color-coded red to match her subservient role. She was married once, had a child. Now she’s another’s property, one of the handmaids sent from one man’s house to another. The hope is that she will become pregnant when a prominent man’s wife cannot. Her life has been flipped and made forfeit. She lives in fear and depression and abuse. This is meant to make me unnerved, and it does.

But.

Simply because an author wants to comment on society doesn’t mean he or she can ignore important, logical story elements. The logic part should be emphasized here, I think, given this is supposed to be science fiction, not fantasy. (Although Atwood does insist The Handmaid's Tale is speculative fiction, because that further legitimizes her story...or something? Never mind that sci-fi and fantasy are types of speculative fiction.)

There’s a question I have that never gets answered, not properly at least. How did this happen so quickly? How did we go from "burning bras" to having every part of our lives regulated? Why did it take Massachusetts decades, centuries, to reject puritanism, but only a few years(?) to reject liberalism?

Rights can erode, but you don’t see it happen on such a large scale and so seamlessly, and not overnight. Nothing happens overnight, especially not governmental takeovers in relatively stable, secular societies, which is the book's scenario.

Societies evolve, one way or another, usually rather slowly. Civil, moral, and regime changes don't sneak up on you. It wasn't the case in Germany before Hitler, in China before Mao, in Afghanistan before the Taliban, in Syria before its civil war. It's not the case in 2016, with people like Ted Cruz and Donald Trump leading in GOP primary polls. The world may be disappointing and horrible sometimes, but it is rarely surprising.

If Atwood had built her dystopia on a chain of events that occurred over a longer period of time, or explained how everything unraveled so quickly, I might have been on board with the premise. That isn't how The Handmaid's Tale is written, though. The explanations for the sudden changes are fantastical, at best, dependent on evil, digitized money—be careful with the mobile payments and bitcoins, ladies!—and misogynistic, conservative conspiracies that readers are to believe could bring millions of people to a stupefied halt and change culture in the blink of an eye. Apparently it’s easy to gun down all of Congress while it’s in session. Who knew?

I don’t buy it.

You can change laws all you want, but society, culture, has to be willing to follow the most drastic changes. (This is why the American Drug War has never worked, why prohibition of alcohol never worked, why banning abortion didn't work.) Why was modern American society so willing to enslave women?

Atwood chucks a plot point at you here or there, hinting at a larger, more complex world through her main character. There’s a vague fertility crisis (of course). There's conflict somewhere between some people about some stuff, but details are never given. Some of this can be excused, what with the limited point of view, but not all. Plot holes aren't mysterious or clever. They're just plot holes.

By the end of The Handmaid’s Tale, I feel the book is less an exploration of religious extremism and feminism than it is a narrative written for shock value. It’s an irrational feminist’s fears exposed, that the world is out to get you at every turn—especially the men, especially the women controlled and brainwashed by the men. Nowhere is safe. Overall, the summary for this book could be this: Almost anyone with a penis is mostly unfeeling and evil, deep down. (The rest are idiots, I suppose.) He doesn’t care. He will betray you at the first opportunity. Even when you're dead and gone, he will chuckle at your misfortune and demise. No, this isn’t sexist or a generalization. Of course not. Not at all.

Except it is.

Asides
- For a slightly more accurate portrayal of American Christian fundamentalism and its very awkward relationship with women, see Hillary Jordan's n  When She Woken. It makes several nods to The Scarlet Letter and The Handmaid's Tale—and better understands its villains and their behavior.

- Two nonfiction books, Jenny Nordberg's n  The Underground Girls of Kabuln and Ned & Constance Sublette's n  The American Slave Coast: The History of the Slave-Breeding Industryn, will show you what it's really like to live in a society where women are chattel.

- Some think that because I dislike this book I'm not a feminist, or am a bad feminist. I hate to break it to everyone, but Margaret Atwood is not feminism's god, and The Handmaid's Tale is not a religious text. If I must attach labels to myself, feminist would be one of them, and I'll say and think whatever I damn well please. And as a feminist, I hate how one-dimensional the men are in this book, just as much as I hate how one-dimensional women are in far more books, TV shows, and movies. Deal with it. Or don't. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

n  n

Update 2022: As Stephen King wrote on Twitter: Welcome to The Handmaid's Tale


I. Night

I am lying awake in my bed. I keep my eyes closed and beg sleep to come. Fruitlessly! Outside, the rain is whipping the windows without mercy. My husband is sleeping next to me, oblivious to my struggle. I need my thoughts to go away. I need to forget that I just finished the Handmaid's Tale and its effect on me. I knew I should have resumed myself to the self-imposed daily quota of 10%. But no. I had to read the last 30 % in one go and now I can't sleep because of it. It’s like a shot of caffeine to my veins. How can I review such a book? How can I explain how I feel? I don’t even know. I can't say I enjoyed it. I was both dreading and expecting to open the pages. I wanted it to be over, like I want a punishment to be over. It made me choke; I was uncomfortable and in pain the whole 312 pages. However, I was also in awe to the power and poetry of Atwood's writing. The last novel they made me feel this way was Never Let Me Go. I can still smell the heavy the heavy atmosphere. Submission! This is it. Both were about submission to a terrible destiny. I could not understand and accept it then and I cannot do it now. Or can I? What would I do to survive, if submission were the only hope? There is a knot in my throat.

What she wrote in this novel, the world she created is absurd isn't it? It cannot happen, not in a million years, right? We are past this, we have evolved enough. We cannot get there. It would be terrible, unthinkable. It is absurd to think that people’s will can be so easily obliterated, that minds can be erased and that fear can rule one’s life into submission. And still... Kim Jung-Un in Korea, Putin in Russia, more recently the election in Turkey. Trump is just as dangerous. Le Pen can become the next president in France. Yes the daughter of the man that said that Holocaust did not exist. The world is a dangerous place and freedom is fragile. We need to open our eyes, be vigilant and never be complacent with what we have so it is not taken from us.

I still cannot sleep. The rain becomes even more punishing. My mind races. I think about the past of my country. In the end of the novel, at Historical Notes, there were a few examples of other similar regimes that reacted as Gilead. It said that Romania has anticipated Gilead in the eighties by banning all forms of birth control, and imposing other restrictions. How I wished this was also part of the author’s imagination. Ok, there were no compulsory pregnancy tests and promotion did not depend on fertility but a decree was passed by Ceausescu, our last communist president where all birth control and abortion was banned. The punishment for not complying was severe; women were imprisoned and beaten to confess. During the 20 years when the decree was in place, more than 10,000 women died from illegal, mostly home-made abortions. Another world where men controlled women’s body. Not so long ago. We cannot go back to that, can we?

Motherhood. Another hurtful subject. To have your child taken away from you. To be unable to have a child and have your husband conceive with someone else while you watch. A nightmare for any woman (or man). No more love, no more sex for pleasure. No, here I draw the line. I cannot see this happen. And still…

Historical Notes
The above memoir of a distressed reader that could not sleep because of the Handmaid’s Tale, was found in the notes of a mobile phone. It is hard to identify the person that wrote the document as there were probably many people that lost sleep over this novel in Atwood’s republic. She tends to write some uncomfortable stuff, that author. We cannot confirm the authenticity of the document, still the disturbed tone suggests that the person actually read the Handmaid’s Tale and was deeply impressed by it. And scared.

P.S. I found in another review an interesting article wrote by Atwood where she discusses the book. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/10/bo...

There are only a small handful of books that have affected me in a REALLY personal way. In a way that I always try to put into words and always, ultimately, fail. I have read a lot of books over the years and I've liked many, disliked plenty too, loved and hated a smaller amount... but out of the thousands I've read, there's less than ten - maybe even less than five, now I think about it - that honestly hit me so hard that I would go so far as to say they changed me.

The Handmaid's Tale is a book that changed my life.

I know, I know, big dramatic statement to make. I hear you. And normally I wouldn't say that, even about books I give five glowing stars; but with this book it is nothing short of the truth. This book was the spark that turned me into a feminist. It was the spark that made me interested in gender politics and, through that, politics in general. One of my favourite teachers in the world gave me this book and said "I think you'll like this one."

She was so wrong.

I didn't like this book; I loved it. And I hated it. I lost sleep over it. I lived in it. I was so completely absorbed into this world, into this dark but oddly quiet dystopian reality. There is something about the tone of Atwood's novels that works like a knife to my heart. Quiet, rich, the drama just bubbling under the surface of the prose. Atwood doesn't waste words, she doesn't sugarcoat her stories with meaningless phrases, everything is subtle and everything is powerful.

This dystopia is a well-told feminist nightmare. An horrific portrait of a future that seems far too reminiscent of aspects of our own society and its very real recent history. The best kind of dystopian fiction is, for me, that which convinces me this world might or could happen. Atwood's world-building may be sparse and built up gradually as the story unfolds, but she slowly paints a portrait of stifling oppression and injustice that had me hanging on her every word.

For someone like me who was so caught up in Offred's experiences, this book was truly disturbing. In the best possible way. There are so many themes and possible interpretations that can be taken from this book - plenty of which I've literally written essays on - but I'll let new readers discover and interpret the book for themselves. I will issue you one warning, though: the ending is ambiguous and puts many people off the book. But, for me, it's one of the very few cases where an open ending has worked 100%. It made the story even more powerful, in my opinion, and guaranteed I would never be able to forget Offred and, indeed, this whole book.

n  n    “We were the people who were not in the papers. We lived in the blank white spaces at the edges of print. It gave us more freedom. We lived in the gaps between the stories.” n  n

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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.

This book focuses on a dystopian society where the child-bearing women are rounded up and forced to produce children for the barren Wives.

This is an interesting book with flashbacks to the "before" period, the period before Gilead. It is also very interesting to know that this book was written more than 35 years ago, but it still relevant today. Although serious, this book really gave me food for thought in more ways than one.

There are some key differences between this book and the Hulu mini-series although the series does follow the book pretty closely. Third time reading this, and I am pretty sure there will be a fourth.

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JantA Town Like Alice
FebtBirdsong
MartCaptain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Berniere
AprtWar and Peace
MaytThe Woman in White
JuntAtonement
JultThe Shadow of the Wind
AugtJude the Obscure
SeptUlysses
OcttVanity Fair
NovtA Fine Balance
DectGerminal

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(edited from a paper I wrote in college about the book)

In 1986, when Margaret Atwood published The Handmaid’s Tale, Ronald Regan had declared “Morning in America,” and society was going to renew itself by returning to the old values. The Christian right, in its infancy at the time, was rising in reaction to the Free Love, and the horrors of AIDs. The 1984 election gave us Willie Horton, and a reminder about how violent and evil society had become. Finally, even though Chernobyl happened shortly after the book was published, the Union Carbide disaster in Bopal, India was still fresh in the headlines—a reminder that even the air is not safe. It was not hard at the time to extrapolate the ultimate end that this cocktail of fundamentalism, conservatism, violence, disease, and disaster would bring, but what Atwood could not know, is how much of her novel would become reality in the world.

Amazingly, twenty years after it was written, there are elements of the story that have become true—perhaps not in the United States, where the story takes place, but throughout the world. The most obvious first connection is with many of the issues regarding women’s rights and religious fundamentalism that are taking place in the Middle East. It was shocking to read in the book that the initial attack on the US Government was blamed on Islamic Fundamentalists, though the story was written after the Lockerbie Pan Am bombing, and the massacre at the Rome airport. While this kind of terrorism was only in its infancy, Atwood’s insight is almost prophetic in the book. When the Murrah building in Oklahoma City was bombed, the initial reaction by the media was to blame Islamic terrorists, when in fact—like the novel—the terrorism was homegrown. The scale of the attack that took out the US Government in the novel is also eerily similar to the attacks of September 11, 2001. Reading this novel in the post-9/11 world can send chills down one’s spine: the novel includes suicide bombings at checkpoints, restrictions of rights in the name of safety, blind patriotism, and an overwhelming belief that there is only one true religion, and deviants from this should be killed.

While George Orwell’s 1984 is often referred to as an insightful perspective on modern society whenever someone puts a video camera on a street lamp, or the government begins referring to negative events with positive doublespeak. Orwell’s world never materialized in full, and likely never will materialize to the degree he created. Instead it is Atwood’s distopia, seemingly outrageous at the time it was written, that became reality. This novel should serve as a cautionary warning about the result of any extremist view taken to its logical conclusion—the Taliban is proof that society cannot dismiss the notions of this book as outrageous and extreme. They have proven in the last decade, a plausible end to the error of letting fundamentalism in any form guide one’s society.

Not a very well written book. The writing itself is clumsy. It doesn't feel like you're reading a story; it feels like you're reading a piece of writing. Good writers put their words together for a calculated effect, but Atwood's words aren't just calculated-- they're contrived. In a good piece of writing, you shouldn't see the writer at all. You shouldn't see the structure of their writing. All you should see is the story. If you're seeing the deliberate cadence of a phrase, or the use of repetition instead of its effect, then these style choices weren't done subtly enough. If you can see the writer's style through their words, then they're just not doing it right. I think Atwood very much falls into this trap. Her style lacks the subtlety required to tell a story like this.

The other problem is that it's impossible to forget that this was written in the mid-1980s. The appeal of dystopian fiction, I thought, was that it served as a timeless warning against the pitfalls of humanity. Of course, I'm not a big fan of dystopian writing, so I can only draw on 1984 again as a reference, but: the great thing about 1984 is that it doesn't read like it was written in 1948. It doesn't read as an unambiguous warning against communism, which would make it static and irrelevant today, where the red threat has passed. It is as yet a timeless story, a warning against the state, which did not discredit itself in 1989, but which instead took on a new meaning. Today, one doesn't read Orwell as a warning against communism in particular, but against oppression in general. What's great about 1984 is that it is ambiguous enough to remain dynamic and relevant through reinterpretation, but real enough that it resonates across the years to mean something still.

The Handmaid's Tale doesn't carry that kind of resonance. It's just not, to me, that powerful a story, and then Atwood drops in details, devices, that ground it more and more solidly into the mid-80s. That the novel is set contemporary to her writing it fixes the action in time. She makes reference to real movies, real magazines, real time frames, real places, real events. But to understand them, you need to have an intimate understanding of what was going on in the world in 1985. You need to understand what North American culture was like. You need to understand how American history was being interpreted. But you also need to understand that Iran was a new player, a new threat on the world stage, and you need to understand how the world reacted to it.

But these background concepts are not universal, nor are they timeless. Already people are forgetting about the 1980s brand of feminism, and already people are forgetting about the Iranian revolution. And North American culture is not a homogeneous as it once was: today the religious right could not stage a coup as is described in the novel, because there are too many diverse groups and networks today who would oppose it. Arguably the religious right has seized power, but not like that. Atwood's vision of an extremist revolution is dated, which makes me question the validity of the other warnings she puts forth.

That's not to say that I think it's a bad book. Atwood does advance some chilling theories about the future of mankind, and even as I sat there shaking my head and going, "that could never happen," the possibilities are deeply disturbing. The novel served as a warning in its own time, and it is interesting to read it with that in mind. And if you like dystopian fiction, then it is definitely worth a read. I just have a problem in reconciling the novel's message with today's reality, where Atwood's fears actually seem to be the least of our worries.

06/24/22

These are dark times…..

‘I just don’t like her.’ ‘I heard she has a lot of emails.’ ‘But I really love Bernie! If I can’t have Bernie, I’m not voting for HER… I’m going to vote my conscience!’

Elections matter. This draconian decision overturning Roe endangers every woman of child baring age, and it’s just the beginning. This decision is not about life, it’s about controlling women. As racist as this country is, it’s much more misogynistic. Don’t believe me? Barack Obama.

By not voting for Hillary Clinton, whatever your reasoning, you (each of you) put lives of these women in danger. You are responsible for their deaths. It’s that straight forward.

But, I understand you were misled.

This does not have to stand! You have all the power and can redeem yourselves! You HAVE to vote Democratic up and down the ballot in the midterms this fall, and in every election going forward. Just two more Democratic senators is all that is needed to kill the filibuster and codify Roe into federal law.

The first thing that must be done in 2023, after the Democrats control the house and the senate (because, this time you listened to me) … is to expand the court. Also, impeach those idiots that were put in by a criminal president.

Pregnancy is dangerous. Women die from pregnancy. This is a healthcare issue.

Vote. Vote blue. Every time.

You know better, now do better.


05/03/22

Well, well, well….

A heartfelt ‘fuck you’ to everyone who said I was over reacting in November 2016.

Expand the court!

Kill the filibuster!

VOTE BLUE!



09/01/21

RE: Texas (AKA Gilead)

Told you so…so many times. I could go on, but I don’t think it’s necessary. Rich, white, women will ALWAYS be able to get abortions BTW. It’s about women’s bodily sovereignty and about the men who are salivating at the thought of controlling us. Now let’s air lift EVERYTHING with a vagina out of Texas.

I don’t see a difference between Republicans and the Taliban; Do you?

#KillTheFilibuster #ExpandTheCourt


02/13/21
Today 43 Republicans, traitors to their country, worried about losing their jobs decided against growing a pair. Portman in Ohio who isn't running for re-election is the portrait of cowardice. He could have voted guilty, but he didn't. Moscow Mitch voted 'not guilty' then immediately turned around to make a speech about how guilty Donald is for inciting the insurrection! You can't have it both ways, Mitch! Why did he vote 'not guilty?'
Because of process... one can't hold a trial for a president for his crimes after he's out of office for crimes he committed while in office (yet, a president can't be held responsible for his crimes whilst in office)... But, between January 6th and the 20th, Mitch shut down the senate and refused to call the senate back to hold the trail, when according to him, would have been the appropriate time to hold the trial. All of which is entirely bullshit. Donald was impeached while he was still in office so it was entirely appropriate (required, actually) to put him on trial after he left office. My head hurts.

Someone please stuff lettuce in Mitch's mouth and turn him on his shell.

01/06/21

Sadly, it’s time for an update.

In this book, Gilead took control of the United States government via a violent coup in which they kill all the members of congress at the capitol. Then martial law was enacted.

Carry on.
5/22/19

Looking back on my original review, it reads as quaint compared to the draconian state laws recently being passed, my state of Ohio being one of them. Make no mistake, this not about ‘life’ it’s about controlling women. If you can’t decide what happens to your own body you do not have freedom. This is about bodily autonomy.

Women have the RIGHT to legal and safe abortions with no qualifications. The fact that the narrative has gone to ‘in cases of rape and incest’ is troubling. Rape...incest...life of the mother....horrible birth defects....you’re young, single and not ready....you have five kids and can’t afford more, it doesn’t matter!

This is a medical procedure and pregnancy is a risky condition, it can cause death. Every woman has the right to decide whether or not they want to take that risk. Period.

Men don’t have anything that compares to this. No law is forcing them have vasectomies, or even denying them their bonner pills.

7/7/17 I'm just going to leave this here.... fuck Paul Ryan.... but not literally, ew.

Sleeveless women? My stars and garters!

03/31/17. So, this Russia thing.... Am I right?

2/5/17.....just another giant step towards making this book a reality, like they always dreamed of.

Original review written in 2o12:

WARNING: This review is being written after I worked a 13 hour day, with another one on the horizon tomorrow, and a glass of wine and while watching the Rachel Maddow show. Current events have put this book on the forefront of my mind, and damn it I got to get this out.

I have never written a review on The Handmaid's Tale because I love the book, and it is so hard to write about a book you love.

Ehh, what the hell.

OfFred was a normal everyday woman with a career, a name, a life like all women have come to expect and take for granted in this age. When the Religious Right came into power, they began to put into practice their insane beliefs which strip women of their identity, their rights, their body, their very name. Women are to be called Of(whatever asshat they belong to), instead of, say Beatrix. Reproduction is an issue because all the toxins in the environment have rendered many women infertile. But if you are fertile, woe to you, you get to be a baby factory against your will, get promised to some jerk you don’t love or even like because someone deemed him important enough to breed. Oh, come on!

This book was written in 1986, FYI. I thought it was scary and sort of possible when I first read it, but farfetched. This could NEVER happen in the United States of America. Never would it be allowed to happen here, we are too educated.


So………


I turn on the news (in twothousandandfrikntwelve) and certain religious factions on the right are trying to defund Planned Parenthood, because they perform abortions which is only 3% of what they do (with NO federal $ going towards them). Mostly PP provides healthcare to women who wouldn't get it otherwise………..icky poor women.

Now it’s birth control? Seriously? Birth control??????? Did I wake up in 1950? Am I stuck in a Atwood novel? 98% of Catholic women (technically I’m one of them) use/used birth control. Even they are asking WTF?

I’m not sure what these people are trying to do. There are more women than men and we vote……unless that’s the next right on the chopping block.

------------------------------------------------------------

There have several updates to this review that I have removed to make room for the next. what follows is the most recent one.

------------------------------------------------------------
It’s been nearly a week since the unimaginable happened and I had to let the shock wear off before I could put a coherent, non-rage filled update on this review. Not that I don’t have rage, I have plenty to spare, but I think it’s now at a level that is manageable enough for me not to just type out a string of obscenities. That being said…

Update 11/14/16: An unqualified, racist, xenophobic, sexist, pathological liar, psychopathic reality star was elected to be the 45th president of the United States and the leader of the free world.

FUCK!

The United States has officially shat the bed. Few foresaw it, but in hindsight, it was coming down the road for a very long time. The United (divided) States voted for Hillary Clinton on whole (popular vote) by over 2,000,000 votes and counting (millions are still out in California, for example), yet Donald Trump is our president elect (gag) due to an antiquated electoral college system (which I could explain, but I’m not because Google can do that better than I can.) Now, I’m all for ditching the electoral college, unless the electors decide to do what it was intended to do under this circumstance; to save us from ourselves. See, our founding fathers knew that we would fall for some con artist, demagogue at some point in the future, so they wisely created the electoral college, a group of actual human beings trusted upon to stop such a calamity. I implore the folks of current electoral college recognize this election as a collective loss of sanity of less than a quarter of the population of this nation, and on December 19th put their votes towards the popular vote winner, Hillary Clinton. I realize that this is unlikely, but one can dream.

How did this happen? There are many factors involved. Lots of opportunity for pointing fingers and fighting amongst ourselves, which I will admit to being a party to…..guilty. But, in my opinion, what it boils down to is these four things: Division, misinformation, apathy and fear of the ‘other’.

Division: We are all in our own comfortable bubbles, digesting the information we are most comfortable with. For example, I never believed there was this much hate it this country because I didn't want to look at it; I knew it was there of course, but not at the level that it appears to be. Everyone wants to live where they feel they belong. Amongst those that are like minded and reaffirm your very rightness. Liberals don’t want to live in Indiana (or Ohio….sigh) any more than a conservative want’s to live in Washington state. We even do this in our social media as well (guilty again). This is what messed us up with the electoral college.

Misinformation: I am not going to tell you who’s right or wrong here, I’ll let this study speak for itself.

Apathy: Half…HALF… the country didn’t vote. You guys suck.

Fear of the other: This country harbors more racism than I can comprehend. The white people in this country seemed a little angry about the black man in the white house and the white men were staunchly determined not to have a woman (white or not) follow him. I don’t mean all white men, just too many of them (chill.) “The advantage for Trump among men is larger than the 7-point advantage Romney had in 2012 and much different than in 2008, when men preferred Obama over McCain by a single point.”-PewResearchCenter. But then there are the white women, 53% went for Trump…..oh my sisters, I have no words.

Which brings me to the reason why this update is relevant to this review and to this book (for those who tell me that my opinion is unwarranted....again.) Is the United States a more racist country, or a more sexist country? America has spoken, at least the ones who cared to speak, and the answer is “a goodly amount of both”, but in this election sexism won and women lost.

I’ve been moved by books in the past, many times, but I’ve never before read a book that has emotionally drained me to such a degree. This is frightening and powerful. And sometimes it only takes a single paragraph to make you realise how much so:

n  “Yes, Ma’am, I said again, forgetting. They used to have dolls, for little girls, that would talk if you pulled a string at the back; I thought I was sounding like that, voice of a monotone, voice of a doll. She probably longed to slap my face. They can hit us, there’s Scriptural precedent. But not with any implement. Only with their hands.”n

Needless to say, this is an absolutely awful situation. From the very beginning, I knew how much I was going to like this book. Its story isn’t one that it is simply read: it demands to be heard. It beckoned me to see the full force of the situation. The Handmaids, the average woman, have no free will or individualism; they are treated as simple baby producing machines. An oppressive regime is forced upon them, and to deviate from the said standard results in a slow and agonising death. There’s no hope or joy for them, only perpetual subjugation.

Indeed, this is where Atwood’s awe inspiringly persuasive powers reside. By portraying such a bleak situation, she is able to fully demonstrate what life could be like if we suddenly followed the misogynistic views of the old testament with fierce intensity. Women would have no power whatsoever. This would be reinforced by a complete cultural destruction and lack of any form of self-expression. They would not be able to read or write; they would not be able to speak their minds. It would even go as far as to condition them so powerfully, that they completely lack the ability of independent thought. And, to make it even worse, the women know no difference. Sure, the narrator of this remembers her past, but she’s not allowed to. She is forced to repress any sense of individual sentiment.

n  “But who can remember pain, once it’s over? All that remains of it is a shadow, not in the mind even, in the flesh. Pain marks you, but too deep to see. Out of sight, out of mind.” n



The narrator has a horrendous ordeal, in an equally as horrendous world. The notion was devised as a response against a drastic decrease in birth-rates. Men in power have taken complete control of women in both body and mind to insure an increase in the declining birth-rates. As I mentioned, their individualism is repressed, but the men also prevent any physical freedom. The women are owned by the state, by the men and by corruption; their bodies are nothing more than a means to provide new life. In this, they are degraded to a state of sub-human existence; they are no longer people. Atwood suggests that they are merely a reproductive organ, one that can be discarded without thought, mercy or conscience. This is reinforced on every level; the language delivers this on a revealing scale. The names are suggestive of the oppression; the protagonist is called “Offred.” She is of-Fred: she belongs to him. The women are assigned names that are not their own; they are dubbed with the disgusting title of “Handmaiden.” By doing so they are left with very little of their former lives. The women are simply objects to be used, controlled and destroyed and the slightest hint of nonconformity to such an absurd system. But, here’s the rub. The best, and most haunting, thing about this novel is its scary plausibility.

The culture created is evocative of one that could actually exist. The way the men attempt to justify its existence is nothing short of terrifying. They make it sound perfectly normal. Well, not normal, but an idea that could be justified to a people. Not that it is justifiable, but the argument they present has just enough eerie resemblance to a cold, logical, response to make it seem probable in its misguided vileness. The totalitarian elements provide an image of a people that will do endure anything if they’re provided with a glimpse of liberty. The small degree of liberty the Handmaids think they have doesn’t actually exist: it’s an illusion, a trick, a shadow on the wall. They’re manipulated into believing it and become frenzied in the face of it. It is the ultimate means of control in its nastiness.

n  “A rat in a maze is free to go anywhere, as long as it stays inside the maze.”n

This book was horrifying and strangely perceptive. If you’re thinking about reading this, stop thinking, just read it. It’s brilliant. It’s a book I will definitely be reading again because it is just so thought provoking and disturbing.

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i figure since i'm making all these sweet lists over on riffle, i should be better about heads-upping people who might want to visit the place i have all my readers' advisory fun these days. so, here, i made a readalike list for this book:

https://www.rifflebooks.com/list/230410

“I wish this story were different. I wish it were more civilized. I wish it showed me in a better light, if not happier, than at least more active, less hesitant, less distracted by trivia. I wish it had more shape. I wish it were about love, or about sudden realizations important to one’s life, or about sudden realizations important to one’s life, or even about sunsets, birds, rainstorms, or snow…I’m sorry there is so much pain in this story.”
-tMargaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale

“Nolite te bastardes carborundorum.”


Even without the election, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale would have had a pretty good year. I mean, it’s not every day that a novel three decades old gets turned into a prestige television series. But then the election did happen, and suddenly, the book meant so much more, to a lot more people. It probably isn’t surprising that that’s how I came to it.

That reality makes this a difficult book to review. The Handmaid’s Tale has been heavily freighted with meanings and projections that are incredibly personal. I am a white guy who was born in Minnesota and now lives in Nebraska. I’ve only viewed the world through those eyes, and no other. I can imagine life as someone else – a different race, a different gender – but that would only be imagining, not living, not experiencing. In other words, I’m keenly interested in not sticking my foot in my mouth and swallowing. As to politics, well, I’d rather physically eat a stapler (loaded with staples) than engage in political discourse on the internet.

So I tried putting down my thoughts in a pseudo-objective manner, as though everything else that’s going on in the world didn't exist. Ultimately, that proved a failure, because The Handmaid’s Tale is powerfully connected to this world, in this moment, and to separate the two does not work. That, I suppose, is one indication of Atwood’s genius.

The Handmaid’s Tale is set in a future time when the United States has splintered apart. The New England region has turned into a strict, patriarchal theocracy known as Gilead. The titular tale is told in the first-person by Offred, who is looking back from some point beyond the events of the story. Her retelling is akin to a frontier captivity narrative or – as many others have pointed out – Anne Frank’s diary. In that sense, Offred’s narrative is fragmentary and episodic. It frequently jumps back in time, sometimes to the days before Gilead, when the good ole’ USA still existed, sometimes back to the period when Offred was training to be a handmaid.

Atwood’s pacing is very gradual. She spends a lot of time on world building, but in a very narrow way. This doesn’t have the sweep and scope of, for instance, A Song of Ice and Fire. Instead, Offred gives a very detailed telling of the things that are closest at hand: daily life under the Gileadian regime; the ceremonies; the different roles played by men and women of varying status.

Offred is a character of great depth and complexity. It is a testament to Atwood’s skill that she is not always likeable. She does things or does not do things that make you shake your head. Yet all her actions are the organic outcomes of her well-drawn personality. In comparison, the secondary characters are more hazily drawn. This is partly a function of the first-person narration, since you only get to see the world through one person.

There is an obvious direction many dystopian novels take. Atwood makes a more interesting choice. I found this to be a novel of observation rather than action. Offred is a somewhat passive character, as she readily admits. There is a resistance – there is always a resistance – but that is not made a central plot-point, as it might have been in the hands of a different author. In this way, Atwood toyed a bit with my expectations. By doing so, she managed to close her story in a way I found unexpectedly powerful.

I had my share of hesitation about even picking this up. The Handmaid’s Tale has had a lot placed upon its shoulders. I’m typically wary of things that appear oversold. Moreover, this really isn’t my genre.

To fully appreciate the experience, I did some outside reading after I finished the book. Atwood is a great interview, and she does a superb job of critiquing her own work in light of its sudden reemergence in the spotlight. In my version of the novel, she also provides a new and extremely recent introduction.

In talking about her work, Atwood has explained that that she recognizes the pitfalls of dystopian fiction. Specifically, she mentions three things she wanted to be aware of: first, the “tendency to sermonize; second, a veering into allegory; and third, a lack of plausibility.”

This is a handy little metric to review The Handmaid’s Tale. Overall, I think she did a credible job of avoiding common clichés. With regards to the first two potholes, she did as well as she could. I’m not sure it’s possible to write a novel like this without some level of sermonizing, and without it feeling allegorical at times. Clearly, this is a book with a message. And clearly, there are parts that feel allegorical, especially the precise details regarding colors, costumes, and names. Still, Atwood mostly delivers her message naturally through Offred’s arc, rather than by speechifying or leaden dialogues with other characters.

As to plausibility, there is always a conceit you have to swallow in dystopian fiction. Atwood never fully explains – except in really broad strokes – how Gilead was born. The phrase yada yada yada springs to mind. But whatever. That isn’t a fatal injury. There is nothing inherently unbelievable about the setting. The histories are filled with committed individuals or group who harness some larger event (a natural disaster, a war, an economic depression) to change a nation, a continent, or even the entire globe.

I hate to join the internet crowds analogizing to Adolf Hitler, but the obvious parallel is the way the Austrian rabble-rouser leveraged the Great Depression to be named German Chancellor by Hindenburg, and then used his power as Chancellor to abolish democracy and rule by fiat. There are other examples too. The Bolsheviks used World War I to topple Kerensky’s post-Tsar provisional government and seize absolute power in Russia. And of course, there is Palpatine, who rose to become Supreme Chancellor of the Republic after the war with the Trade Federation in The Phantom Menace. (Or something. I couldn’t really follow what happened in The Phantom Menace).

All the laws within The Handmaid’s Tale have been issued in this, our actual world, at one time or another, at one place or another. I’ve noticed a kneejerk reaction among critics is to say, well, that’s the way it is other places, not here. But we are not that far removed from women being treated as property and unable to vote. “The past is a great darkness,” Atwood writes, “and filled with echoes.” Is this necessarily where we are going? No – but that’s sort of the point when you write this kind of novel. This isn’t a prophetic, or meant to be; it is, as Atwood has said, an anti-prophetic novel. Once you lay it out, it makes it harder for it to become a reality.

This is where I get to the part I wanted to avoid but cannot.

You might have noticed these are highly charged times. The president is on record saying what he thinks about women, things I wouldn’t accept out of anyone’s mouth, much less that of the nation’s chief executive. Just recently, an alleged sexual predator nearly became a senator. Politicians from both parties have started to resign as their own dark pasts come back to life. An Oscar-winning producer has been accused of rape. I could go on, but you’re already dispirited enough. While there may have been positive changes since the Dawn of Time to 1985, and from 1985 till today, things have not simply changed. Atwood’s Gilead is an exaggeration, a view from the bottom of the slippery slope, but it springs from a truth known by half the population, and unknown or denied or perpetuated by the other half.

Classics often have a timelessness to them, because they tell us something about the human condition that was, is, and forever shall be. We can only hope The Handmaid’s Tale can eventually be a classic without that aspect. That someday, someone will read this and say: I can’t even imagine that. Until that day, The Handmaid’s Tale will remain an important and necessary book.

In the near future, the rights of women have been stripped away and the fertile ones become Handmaids and are assigned to upper class men. Offred remembers the time before and knows there must be a way out of the hell men have created...

Once upon a time, I dated a woman whose favorite writer was Margaret Atwood and she passed along this book for me to read. Frankly, I was pretty impressed with the dystopian tale but found it a little far-fetched at the time. Now, in the later part of 2017, it feels a lot more plausible so I decided it was time for a reread.

Margaret Atwood paints a grim view of a future when women's rights are stripped away until they're reduced to breeding stock. Reading is forbidden! Reading! At the time I first read it, it seemed like a paranoid fantasy. Now, in an era where people's rights are being steadily eroded and the gap between the rich and the poor is a fathomless chasm, it's all too easy to imagine. Anyway, the paranoid feel is one of my favorite parts. Anyone could be a rat!

Atwood knows her way around a sentence. The writing is rich and she weaves quite a narrative around the life and times of a Handmaid. While she alleges she doesn't write science fiction, yes, Margaret, this is science fiction, at least on some level. Just because it's also literary and something of a cautionary tale doesn't give it a free pass. While I like the writing quite a bit, I thought it was a little wordy for what it was.

The Handmaid's tale is a powerful book and there's a reason it's won so many awards and wound up on so many people's top lists. Through the magic of aging 10-12 years, I forgot most of it so it was like a whole new book. I'm glad I reread it. 4.5 out of 5 stars.