A Great Read | The Handmaid's Tale: A Novel

a worthwhile read | The Handmaid's Tale: A Novel | Margaret Atwood

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	• The Handmaid's Tale: A Novel Margaret Atwood Anchor, 1998 - 320 pages average customer review:based on 560 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

nolite te bastardes carborundorum

....thought provoking, inspiring and stays with you...

A Great Read

I've just read this again after about fifteen years since my first reading. This time round I am more aware of the upsurge in religious fundamentalism in the real world and so there are elements within the story that are not so unbelievable. Some women in Iran and Afghanistan for example have experienced a change from relative western-type freedom to being covered and kept at home as mothers exclusively. It would be foolish to assume that any society is totaly safe from such revolutions.

In 'The Handmaids Tale' the revolution seems to have been brought about, at least in part, by widespread infertility caused by nuclear accidents, various pollutants and toxic waste. Only some women are fertile and are used by certain high-class couples for producing children. One passage that stood out for me this time round was the Japanese tourists, the women in short skirts, asking to take photogaraphs of the handmaids and enquiring through an interpreter about the handmaids happiness etc. The 'modern', 'normal' world is still going on outside of 'Gilead' - not totally unlike the contrasts between some societies around the world today but here it is the US that has flipped.

All futuristic fiction makes us ask questions about the worlds and lifestyles we tend to take for granted and this is a large part of its attraction but it works best when it also is a great read. 'The Handmaid's Tale' is certainly a great read.

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a worthwhile read

I can honestly say that The Handmaid's Tale was one of the most unique novels i have ever read. In the novel, Offred and all other women living under the Gilead society are restricted and must follow guidelines of what they can and cannot do. Atwood gives a vivid and moving depiction into the futuristic Republic of Gilead, in which women such as Offred served for the sole purpose to reproduction, due to the influx of diseases and toxics. Besides making it clear to the reader of the kind of helpless and hopeless life women like Offred are forced to lead, Atwood goes above and beyond: she digs deep into Offred's past in order to really get the full picture of the dramatic change and the vulgarity of such a society.

I really haven't read a novel like this one for a long time: one that could move me and keep me turning the page long after my planned reading time. More importantly, it made me think. In many ways, Gilead is a glimpse of what our future could look like if we do not change our habits and learn to live with the consequences.

This book really is a page turner. I couldn't get enough with the fluid, vivid language and Atwood so expertly incorporates. Often times, I actually felt as if I were in Gilead, witnessing the events in the book as if they happened right before my eyes. The novel is descriptive, but not wordy. It gives insight and perspective, but doesn't sound like a lecture hall. all in all, this novel has what every avid reader wants to read: an compelling and inspiring storyline matched with imaginative and vivid language that completes the story without sounding stiffy.

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Why did I wait so long to read this?

I usually don't care for these bleak, dystopian, post-apocalyptic novels because they just depress the hell out of me, but this book was outstanding. Although nothing much really happens in the first few chapters, the tension is palpable and conflict builds on every page, and there are smart little touches to Atwood's world that just add to the verisimilitude. I don't know if it's because I read Girl With a Pearl Earring first, but I was constantly reminded of that book because of the relationships between both girls, the respective masters of their houses, and the jealous and thwarted wives. This book is far superior however, and I understand how such a novel either made or cemented Atwood's reputation. On a side note, this book was banned in high schools in my area (I live in San Antonio) and students protested to have the book reinserted into the curriculum. I think this novel is far more valid as a cautionary tale these days than is 1984 or Brave New World, simply because of the religious fanaticism behind the new state, but it is sexually frank in a way that would make me a little uncomfortable with it being required as part of a reading list. Perhaps I am underestimating the maturity of high school students, however.

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A warning to us all

Margaret Atwood, in this beautifully written but incredibly disturbing fictional novel, describes what could happen if religion gains too much power, and what society could become if women's rights are not protected.

The story is set in the United States in the near future. A brutal attack has left all members of Congress dead and the country has collapsed into civil war. A section of the United States, governed by religious fundamentalists, becomes a totalitarian state called the Republic of Gilead. The Constitution is suspended; civil liberties and freedoms are dissolved; the death penalty is instituted for dissidents, homosexuals, and non-Christians; and women loose the right to work and earn money.

Radiation poisoning from the war has resulted in almost all women becoming infertile. Those few in Gilead who can still bear children are forced to become Handmaids, surrogate mothers for infertile couples. The book takes the form of a personal diary belonging to a Handmaid named Offred, who is commissioned to the house of a Gileadean commander, and whose sole purpose is to routinely copulate with him in order to bear a child for his infertile wife. Using this as the basis of the story allows Atwood to address the conservative, traditional and sometimes religious belief that the only purpose of a woman is to bear children. In Offred's own words:

"We are two-legged wombs, that's all: sacred vessels, ambulatory chalices." Pg136.

and

"What we prayed for was emptiness, so we would be worthy to be filled: with grace, with love, with self-denial, semen and babies." Pg 194.

Offred takes the reader through her many trials as she struggles to come to terms with her place in a suppressive and legalistic society. The story frequently flashes back to Offred's memories of her life before the war, when she had her own job, money, a loving husband and a young daughter. This dualistic nature of the story provides the reader with a comparison between two societies: one where women have choice and the other where women have little or no choice at all.

This is a dystopian novel, and through it Atwood provides a warning of what could happen if religion becomes the ultimate law of the land, and if women are no longer free to make their own decisions, especially regarding sexuality and reproduction.

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