"Nolite te Bastardes Carborundorum."
I can't remember the first time actively I took notice of The Handmaid's Tale. I had seen trailers for season 2 of the Hulu series fairly regularly, it almost seemed like it was following me around. It eventually came up on my GoodReads, which was when I found out that it was a book (yay!) and that it was written by Margaret Attwood. I was pleasantly surprised when I saw her name, as I'd recently attempted one of her much earlier novels (her first, in fact) and I couldn't finish it - a shame because I had done a small amount of research on Attwood before starting The Edible Woman and thought she was fab - I'd never read anything before by a feminist writer. So, I bought a copy of The Handmaid's Tale, (via e-book, because I couldn't wait for it to arrive) and I got to reading.
The Handmaid's Tale more than deserves it's rave reviews, it has a fascinating and totally compelling storyline and I could not put it down*. This was my first dystopian novel* and it totally floored me. The basis of this terrifying civilization is that extreme pollution and radiation has caused widespread infertility, and a Christian totalitarian state named Gilead has taken over. Women are oppressed and have their rights refuted, and are forced to either;
if fertile, become:
a)
b)
if infertile, become:
a)
b)
There's more to it, but you get the picture. All women are completely tyrannized, it's petrifying and its worst element is, it's not all that far-fetched. This isn't a novel depicting an impossible society - it's a warning for future generations.
I really thought this novel was written beautifully by Attwood, at many points throughout the book I found myself pausing specifically to admire metaphors used to illustrate Offred's position, which isn't something I can say happens to me too often. I also called my sister, Sophie, numerous times to tell her how much I was enjoying it*, along with anyone who's ear I could talk off about it.
There were also moments where Attwood took such a fantastically objective, almost bird's eye view of life, and gave us these beautiful but eerie analyses in abundance, which I thought were so smart and out of the box."A rat in a maze is free to go anywhere, as long as it stays inside the maze."
"No mother is ever, completely, a child's idea of what a mother should be, and I suppose it works the other way around as well."
"He was not a monster, to her. Probably he had some endearing trait: he whistled, off key, in the shower, he had a yen for truffles...How easy it is to invent a humanity, for anyone at all."
Spoilers! Please scroll away now if you want to read the book, or skip to the conclusion! Have you seen my review of The Girls by Emma Kline?? It's based on the Manson
Let's talk about the final chapter, which I almost didn't read because I thought it was a boring analysis. Just in case you didn't read it and made the same mistake that I almost did, the chapter is a continuation of the plot, based in a university approximately 200 years after Gilead took over, where a guest speaker is conducting a lecture on the accuracy of a manuscript. This is referred to as 'The Handmaid's Tale' and is an assemblage of thirty transcripts of anonymous tapes found in a previously locked army storage trunk in an underground 'femaleroad' in Maine. They talk for a while about their attempts to find out Offred's real name, and who her commander was, but I'll let you read that yourselves. Now, being the ever-optimist that I am, I refuse to take anything from this other than the idea that Offred escaped. I've entertained the idea that maybe she didn't. Maybe she was simply taken by Mayday, who as we know took her away from her posting under the guise of violating state secrets, and was allowed to tell her story for the education of future generations. She could have then been re-posted, or sent to become a jezebel. I only hope that she wasn't sent to the colonies.
Spoiler Free Zone Below
I think the only critique I have of The Handmaid's Tale, if you can call it a critique, is that it's slightly difficult to understand the whole plot until you've finished the book - Attwood has a funny way of revealing small bits of background information at a time, so that the scene feels almost like it hasn't fully been set until the very end of the book, and even then I had questions, for example, I couldn't work out why Econowives weren't also forced to be Handmaid's. It's a peculiar writing style, but I can't say that I totally disliked it, it certainly had me on my toes and pondering things in-between chapters.
The Handmaid's Tale is going to receive a well deserved 5/5 from me. I absolutely loved it, from the first page to the last. Beautifully written, fantastic plot. Margaret Attwood has been firmly redeemed in my eyes, and I'll be looking to read more of her work soon.
Laura x
* I missed my stop on the metro home one night while reading it because I was so engrossed and ended up having to get 2 more metros to get home :) :) :)
* Excluding my first attempt at George Orwell's 1984, which didn't go quite as swimmingly.
* Much to Soph's distain, as this was next on her reading list but she was going through an intense exam period at uni and had no time for recreational reading. Poor gal, love u <3
* Just googled Harry Carry and found out it's actually "Hara Kiri" and it means suicide by disembowelment!!!! what the heck
