Okay, hear me out.

This was a weird experience for me because I broke my own personal cardinal rule and read this after I watched the show. So this rating is my own damn fault and I take full responsibility. That being said, the show is considerably better IMO. This is not really a review since this book has plenty of those already.

Problems I had:
1. Very little world building. I. have. so. many. questions. And it was really frustrating that by the end of the book, I still don't have satisfying answers. In order to enjoy this, you really have to suspend a certain amount of belief and give the book far more concessions than it deserves. This is probably why I like the show better. It fleshes out so many scenes the book overlooked. We get a much better view of what is happening.

2. Character backstories were virtually non-existent. Who are these people? What did they do before? Why should I care for anyone other than the narrator? I get that it's from the narrator's POV and very difficult to portray this, but it made it hard for me to understand character motivation as a result.

3. I disliked the ending. I've never been a huge fan of open ending books because I'm the kind of person that needs closure. The thing that plagued me was the main character's ending. And I understand that that's sort of the point, but that doesn't mean I have to like it, so I don't.

4. At times it was boring. The narrator was not the most fun person to listen to.

Alas, on to the next.

I felt kind of slow last night so I didn't want to keep reading my nonfiction book and I started this instead. I think though that was a slight mistake because I did feel like I missed things when reading this and went back a few times to reread sentences. I'm mentioning that to say I really liked how well written it felt and the writing style itself was really appealing to me. I like when writing is a little vague and disconnected, I really enjoy the stream of consciousness type of narration when its done well a lot.

The premise of the book was also really unique and the book did a really good job keep me engaged. I was kind of bummed we never find out what happens to the main character though and I'm not sure how I felt about that ending. I know it's supposed to imply that things eventually became more normal over time but it was hard to know. I might also have felt that way because like I said I was kind of slow last night and had trouble concentrating. I do think it was a good choice to never tell us the name of the main character though, that really went well with the tone of the book. All in all I really enjoyed this one, this was 4.5 stars for me.

The Handmaid’s Tale—or, as we call it now, ‘The News.’

First time I read something from Margaret Atwood. This is a story set strictly in a first person narration, deftly narrowing down the reader's perception.

The story can surprise you as it runs, while offering a reasonable number of highlights about Gilead society. Its characters are a huge asset, they hardly ever boil down to bland stereotypes. Yet, male psychology goes through severe impairements and males naturally not positively highlighted, although the book never veers into proselyte feminism.

Pleasure-wise, the author sets high stakes and expectations for the reader. While reading, you can't help but feeling for Offred. Also, the retrospective narrative strategy aims home. It conveys a distance and helps in suspending scepticism.
Perhaps I am to put a small damper on this : the unnecessary postface, since the inner logic suffices.

As a conclusion, it amounts to some sizeable surprise, when I expected nothing of the matter.
Margaret Atwood doesn't sound heavily biased to me. The workings of Gilead are coarse, 1984-like, but as a guideline in a dystopian novel, it works!

____________________________________

Le premier que j'aie lu de Margaret Atwood. La forme est résolument un récit à la première personne qui limite judicieusement la perception du lecteur aux dimensions de celle du personnage.

L'histoire suit une évolution capable de surprendre, en présentant un nombre satisfaisant d'éléments de contexte sur la société de Gilead. Ses personnages en sont une force ; c'est rare qu'ils se réduisent à un type. Maintenant, la psychologie masculine ressort pleine de coupes, et les hommes n'en ressortent naturellement pas à leur avantage. Mais jamais l'ouvrage ne verse pas dans le féminisme prosélyte.

Question plaisir de lecture, l'auteure crée l'attente chez le lecteur, avec brio. Au fil de la lecture, je guette la suite des déboires d'Offred. De même la logique par moments rétrospective de la stratégie narrative fait mouche. Elle apporte une distance et m'incite à suspendre mon scepticisme premier, assurant la réussite éclatante du livre. Je trouve la partie postfacée superflue : la voix d'Offred, la logique de l'histoire y suffit.

Bilan : une agréable surprise, d'un bouquin dont je n'attendais pas grand chose. Margaret Atwood se garde de verser dans la mauvaise foi et si les mécanismes sont grossiers, à la 1984, en tant que fil rouge de roman d'anticipation, ça marche.

After reading 'The Handmaid's Tale', I can see why this dystopian classic has made such an impression on so many. This is a book that definitely hangs with you, haunting your thoughts, long after you finish the book. It is thought-provoking and terrifying.

The story centers on the heroine, Offred, who is a "handmaiden" in this futuristic world created by Ms. Atwood. As a handmaiden, Offred's sole purpose is to produce a baby for the Commander and his wife, Serena Joy. Once she has served her purpose, she will be reassigned to another high-ranking man for the same purpose. This pattern will repeat over and over, until she is no longer able to bear children. What happens then, nobody really wants to talk about. Worse yet, if she fails to produce a child then she will face a fate reserved for the lowliest of women.

This is the world that Offred and others are left with after a brutal civil war stamped out the rights that citizens like Offred had taken for granted. The overthrow of the democratic government was gradual...until it wasn't. The changes that took place were very insidious.

One moment, people like Offred were consumed with trivial problems, like where they were going to go out for dinner that night. The next thing they knew, a civil war was raging. Soon, their every movement was monitored closely. Of course, this was for their own "protection" and "safety". Then, women weren't allowed to hold jobs or manage their own money. (After all, the poor little dears shouldn't have to bear that burden. A man should handle those sorts of things.) Next, anyone that dared to oppose the new regime was eliminated. Before long, citizens like Offred cannot even recognize their new reality. They are stuck under the rule of an incredibly oppressive, misogynistic regime.

Worst of all, their complacency paved the way for this gradual overthrow. Little by little, they handed over their rights with little resistance. They refused to see the writing on the wall and wanted to believe the lies that they were spoon-fed. Once they wised up, it was too late. Now, they are a people broken. Women, especially, face a grim fate.

This book is remarkable! Although it can be rather slow-moving at times, the message was powerful. This story serves as a cautionary tale and a necessary reminder. Civil rights are hard won and easily lost.

It is easy to draw comparisons to many of this books' events and the events of the past and present. Ms. Atwood highlights many important issues and offers a great deal of social commentary. There were so many important topics that she touched upon that I can't even begin to list them.

This book is considered to be a classic for a reason. It is a book that needs to be read and taken in by readers. While it isn't necessarily the most entertaining read, it is certainly one of the most enlightening and thought-provoking. I highly recommend that everyone read this book, at least once.

Atwood created an intriguing post-modernism dystopia describing a tyranny based on convert traditional values and ideas, in a reproductively challenged society called Gilead. Atwood wanted to write from a female point of view and in her dystopian world women are repressed and restricted in their freedom, they can't own property, work for pay, get an education, and they have to do whatever they are told. There is a specific class of women our protagonist Offred is a part of, called Handmaids. Their sole purpose is to reproduce and carry out children for powerful high-class couples, Commanders and their wives, making them basically baby-making sex slaves.

This incredibly reductionistic view of women, interestingly and horrifyingly, Atwood did not invent from scratch. The restrictions are not new, but borrowed and merged from the history of different societies, creating a world of Handmaid's tale, too dreadful to think about. The stories of contraception being outlawed in Romania being one of Atwood's inspirations as well as reported fundamentalist sect in New Jersey in which wives were called “handmaidens“. I love what Atwood did in taking that hateful fragments of ideas and showing us where some even commonly encountered reductionistic thoughts can take us when being played out in the real-world to the extreme (“Women should stay in their place“, “Sole purpose of women is to make children“). Playing out ideas on a great scale shows us the true essence of them and exposes their malevolence. That is the purpose of good dystopia, to show us signpost pointing toward disaster and consequences of social and political change, also to remind us of the resilience of humanity.
What do we do what there is no expected progress of civilization, but regression? Restoration is not found in the fantasy of glorified past values that have already been partially discarded or transformed to serve more to the prosperity of the whole society, as there is grave danger in reestablishment of fundamentalist ideology.
What is so frightening in this book, is the retrospective shift from modern society that is liberated and individualized to a society of tyranny where traditional and other religious values are distorted and used for manipulation and destruction of freedom, dignity and life itself.

The rationalization of the created system is also brilliant, as almost no evil is done in this world before being justified and infused with good intentions. The oppression is explained as a form of protecting the women who were exposed to sexual attacks, rape (in Gilead the penalty for rape is painful death by brutal lynch) and the burden of being both businesswomen and mothers. This shows that the true quest for women empowerment is stepping out of the traditional frame of fragility where women have to be protected because institutional protection often means control. As Camille Paglia states; feminism in her time in collage fought against different rules for male and female dormant residents, and was on a quest to set women free of the imposed rules by college, giving them the freedom even to “risk rape“.

As I said in my essay on Eco's Ur-fascism, all fascist and oppressive systems based on inequality repress at the same time both women and men. Men in Gilead are also forced into celibacy, they are not allowed to have pornography, or to estalish relationships with women if they are not of the highest status. There is a reductionistic view on men as they mainly just provide sperm for procreation; pleasure in sexuality is shamed, forbidden and punished for men as well as it is for women.

Also, in every society, there are both some men and women that have more privilege, power and authority. Even in a world where women have no official power there is a well-established power structure among women, and some women are way more powerful than ordinary men (Aunts, Commander's wives). More frighteningly, there is a subculture of women that will perpetuate and stand with and want the system of destructive patriarchy. Aunt Lydia is indeed the cruelest character and her example demonstrates that toxic aspects of patriarchy and symbolical tyrannical Mother really do go hand in hand, as destructive patriarchy is, paradoxically, sometimes more alluring to women than men. Interestingly, there is no individual male character that is cruel and inhumane, only female characters are dangerous and vicious. In feminism, there is often confusion in the identification of destructive principles of patriarchy with masculinity as a whole, acted out in hatred towards innocent individual males. Atwood shows that evil governing principles of society are not meant to and cannot be pin pointed at the individual person of the male gender. As Martin Luther King said, we are fighting against vile ideas and principles, not individuals!

Atwood also cleverly reveals that even being at the top of both male and female hierarchy in the repressive system, means suffering. Tyranny does not bring peace and joy to anybody, and symbolical tyrannical kings and queens often suffer from the same oppression that they impose on others, living in the gloomy internal world of paranoia, torture and persecution of vivid and joyful parts of life. A short glance at truly miserable lives of Hilter and Stalin confirms that. In Handmaid's Tale, the Commanders are the ones who are secretly violating rules they imposed on others (Fred playing scrabble with Offred, keeping prohibited books, and going to forbidden sex clubs), confirming that a drive for sexuality, aliveness, playfulness, connectedness and freedom are indestructible and that rules they are trying to impose are inauthentic and irreconcilable with human experience and therefore doomed, on both personal and collective scales.
That is why in the course of history every system resembling dystopian ones was ultimately destroyed, from the inside or outside, as the pathological system that goes against human nature can not prevail in the long run.

The resilience and heroism of humanity shines and rises even more in the horrors of an oppressive society, as the emphasis on forbidden true values rises for men and women that will not cling to the evil regime, no matter the scope of oppression and constant monitoring. The human spirit ultimately can not be restrained and tamed.
We see that in the character of Moira, and even more in Offred. Offred's empathy stayed consistent through all horrors, in ceremonies of copulating and public executions she was succumbed to, and she retained her eccentricity, individualism and humanity. Offred has no real name, her name Offred is a derivative of the term “of Fred“, which symbolizes her status of male possession. Gilead is a society in which woman loses individuality, uniqueness, dignity, and respect attached to that. Identity is connected to name, and usage of the name Offred is dehumanizing, Offred only being allowed to be identified as a handmaid - a role that wants to falsely substitute for true identity.

But Offred, despite her circumstances, in a society that devalues femininity, nourishes her voice and tells her story from her unique point of view as a woman, and the story flourished in typically feminine values of openness, compassion and sensuality. Her perspective is focused on bodily experiences by cataloging physical sensations and inner emotional responses in relatedness and connectedness to herself, others and the world.

“I sink down into my body as into a swamp, fenland, where only I know the footing. Treacherous ground, my own territory. I become the earth I set my ear against, for rumors of the future. Each twinge, each murmur of slight pain, ripples of sloughed-off matter, swellings and diminishings of tissue, the droppings of the flesh, these are signs, these are things I need to know about. Each month I watch for blood, fearfully, for when it comes it means failure. I have failed once again to fulfill the expectations of others, which have become my own. I used to think of my body as an instrument, of pleasure, or a means of transportation, or an implement for the accomplishment of my will. I could use it to run, push buttons of one sort or another, make things happen. There were limits, but my body was nevertheless lithe, single, solid, one with me. Now the flesh arranges itself differently. I’m a cloud, congealed around a central object, the shape of a pear, which is hard and more real than I am and glows red within its translucent wrapping. Inside it is a space, huge as the sky at night and dark and curved like that, though black-red rather than black. Pinpoints of light swell, sparkle, burst, and shrivel within it, countless as stars. Each month there is a moon, gigantic, round, heavy, an omen. It transmits, pauses, continues on and passes out of sight, and I see despair coming toward me like famine. To feel that empty, again, again.“

Her capability to connect to observing ego function and see herself through the eyes of others and both describe sensation from within, and see and understand deeper driving motivations of others is one of manifestations of her openness. Sinking into her body opens a space for her that is inaccessible to others, more real than reality, vast, neverending, her own territory. She asserts her existence by telling her story, and her storytelling is her coping mechanism, survival technique, establishing humanity in the culture that keeps denying it.

As in the final chapter of 1984, historical notes at the end assures us that the dystopian regime will eventually be over, but even in the healthier society in which we live, the labyrinths of oppressive principles are never completely dismantled. Let us not take our rights for granted, as freedom is fragile and we have to watch over the ever-rising principles of enslavement and continue to build our resilience.

“Nolite te bastardes carborundorum. Don't let the bastards grind you down.”

I started this huge book May 1st 2019. I actually have been reading it on and off alongside the series which I have been intermittently watching too.

It’s an immediate Classic when it first was released so I understand.

The sequel is due out soon or out?

It’s written by the infinite Margaret Atwood whose books I read a few years ago now but never this one. Her writing is brilliant and the series was incredible.

The premise of this everyone’s knows about, so I’m not going into details.

It’s harrowing, it’s palpable and at times darn right gory. The punishments were harsh.
The deaths......

I’m so glad I finally read it though.

The Handmaid's Tale portrays a terrifying but very real and possible dystopia. At first, it's difficult to tell what exactly is going on in the handmaid's world, although her spare narration is filled with a deep sense of fear and danger. It's challenging but exciting to try to make sense of all the frightening details that she describes, and that's one of the things that made this such a compelling read for me--I was desperate to figure out what was happening as well as how and why things had gone so wrong. The story progresses beautifully, as the details of the present unravel at the same time and with the same urgency as the events of the past, tracing a frighteningly believable path from our world to hers.

One thing that I really liked about the development of the story: as the circumstances of the handmaid's life and surroundings become clearer and more oppressive, she actually seems to gain some small measure of hope. There's a constantly escalating contrast between the powers threatening her and the growing strength of her voice.

For me, I guess the most beautiful and thrilling theme of this novel was its focus on the fragility and importance of our small little moments of happiness. So many times the main character reflects on images from her past and thinks, "And we didn't even know we were happy then." Atwood has done a masterful job of portraying how quickly and uncontrollably the things by which we define our daily selves can be destroyed and rewritten, and how our fear and desire to keep on living makes us silent in the face of power.

I love books that stay with me during the time when I'm away from them, and this is definitely one those books. Over the past few days, I've frequently found myself sitting on the metro, looking out the window and thinking about different passages and themes from the novel, marveling at how the story seems both far away and very familiar.

I'd be interested to chat with anyone else about their take on the book. I'd like to know if other people think it's just terrifying all the way through or whether it ever reaches a point at which it's somewhat hopeful. Looking back on it, I can't really tell. At times, the terror in this novel seems so great that even the smallest glimpses of hope seem bigger than life.

4.5/5

Click here to watch a video review of this book on my channel, From Beginning to Bookend.

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Terrifying! But SO good!

Update in Year One ... No .... It's Already Year Two ... Terrible Two ... Of Dystopia:

As long as you are allowed and capable to read, please do read this novel! In an era when politicians in the Western world are not ashamed to refer to pregnant women as "hosts", deprived of their rights as individuals, we must start speaking up against the steady realisation of dystopian fiction. Let these authors, such as Orwell, Atwood, or Ishiguro, stay great writers of fiction! Don't make them involuntary prophets!

If we don't oppose the hypocrisy and illogical idiocy of lawmaking against women's choice regarding unwanted pregnancy, claiming that it is based on moral and religious grounds, we will have a society ruled by 17th century Puritans with an evil modern twist.

"Thou shalt not kill!" I agree. Let's start implementing that commandment where people are actually dying.

I am Pro Life: Let's work to put an end to the distribution and availability of weapons, the death penalty, and wars. Let's speak up for better health care to protect the lives of millions of human beings. Let's support refugees from other parts of the world that are threatened by war or famines or disease. Let's focus on the big issues that threaten life on earth! Let's care for our environment. Pro Life!

Update a couple of months into Year One Of Dystopia:

I just listened to an interview with a conservative Catholic politician in the UK who believes so much in the teachings of the Catholic Church that he thinks it is morally indefensible for a woman raped by a family member to have an abortion. Where is the novelist who can write a science fiction story about him waking up in hell after death and realising that Catholicism was not the absolute truth after all, but Hinduism. He receives the message that his next incarnation on Earth will be a young Catholic girl raped by a priest. Oh karma!

In Year Two of Dystopia we still quote the bible both to justify forbidding abortion AND to cause massive trauma to babies born on the wrong side of a border. Pro Life, anyone? Pro children?

Pro human beings? We are moving into Gilead, and it is no fun. I had intended to post news about misogyny in the Western world here regularly, to point out the incredible importance of this book regularly, but the sheer mass of reports makes it impossible. Today's harvest, among other things: 100,000 Christians subscribe to try to prevent US libraries from supporting a Drag Queen Story Time, bizarrely claiming it would "teach boys to become drag queens"! How long will we have to listen to that bullshit? Sorry for the expletive, but I am angry, really angry. If one could choose one's sexuality, I think many, many women who are victims of domestic rape would choose to be gay to escape toxic masculinity once and for all, but unfortunately, that is not how it works. Otherwise I would like to re-educate all patriarchs to a different sexual orientation, as theirs is by far the one that harms society most.

I can't wait to see what happens to Offred next, but I sense a gloomy sequel... The Testaments will tell.

After the somewhat bittersweet experience of reading The Testaments earlier this month, I e-borrowed The Ur-text from the library. This was an experience I absolutely LOATHED from giddy-up to whoa. I will not do it again unless there is no conceivable means of buying the ebook or borrowing the tree-book ever again in the annals of civilization. I will say no more about it unless I am under subpoena.

While there is no way to recapture the frisson of reading this horrific dystopian warning cry for the first time, it is instructive to compare Author Atwood's peak-of-powers prose to the newer book's less deft, more thudding verbiage. This book is urgent and unexpectedly pleading, begging its readers to STOP AND THINK, to look at each instinctive flinch attendant on Offred's systematic and outrageous disassembly as a whole, discrete, thinking being; perhaps more appalling is her reassembly into Offred, a uterus with legs, a creature of the powers who need and thus abhor her. It is telling that the sections of the 2019 book that come close to this level of power and passion are those told by Aunt Lydia...a horrible, vile being much more complete in my mind after The Testaments than it could ever hope to have evoked on my first reading of this book.

The intellectual Author Atwood, the one who beat me senseless with her current book, is decidedly less present in this book. In her place is terrified, outraged Mother-of-Daughter Margaret, begging me to THINK about the world; I listened then, I listen now, caught in Mother's howling anxiety for her daughter, whose horrorshow is here spread out, because it is deeply personal. That feat isn't replicable. That's why reading this book is an irreplaceable experience; re-reading it is, with the best will in the world, never going to live up to that.

But damn me for a fool if it wasn't worth every awful moment.

Novelón. La distopía de las distopías. Una historia muy original que impresiona y nos hace reflexionar. Aterra pensar que algún día podamos llegar como sociedad a realizar tales barbaries. No pude dejar de leer hasta llegar a un final que me pareció perfecto.

Me lo he inventado. No ocurrió así.

Llegué a esta historia con muchas ganas y me decepcionó porque el ritmo es lento y esa narración en primera persona tan fría no me transmitió las emociones que una trama tan potente podría generar. Me sobró mucho el anticlimático epílogo.

Tampoco ocurrió así.

El cuento de la criada me ha gustado mucho y la autora escribe muy bien. Lo he leído porque vamos a estudiar su estructura en un taller de escritura que imparte Javier Peña y ha sido una gran lectura, pero sí que es verdad que esperaba un poquito más por culpa de las traicioneras expectativas.

“Mantengamos la esperanza de que no lleguemos a eso. Yo confío en que no ocurra”
Margaret Atwood.