The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood

From Library Journal
In a startling departure from her previous novels ( Lady Oracle , Surfacing ), respected Canadian poet and novelist Atwood presents here a fable of the near future. In the Republic of Gilead, formerly the United States, far-right Schlafly/Falwell-type ideals have been carried to extremes in the monotheocratic government. The resulting society is a feminist's nightmare: women are strictly controlled, unable to have jobs or money and assigned to various classes: the chaste, childless Wives; the housekeeping Marthas; and the reproductive Handmaids, who turn their offspring over to the "morally fit" Wives. The tale is told by Offred (read: "of Fred"), a Handmaid who recalls the past and tells how the chilling society came to be. This powerful, memorable novel is highly recommended for most libraries. BOMC featured alternate. Ann H. Fisher, Radford P.L., Va.

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Fascinating and scary in the the Huxley/Orwell-ian sense. Fundamentalists have taken over. Women cannot hold jobs, and are forbidden to read. The narrator is the titular handmaid, government-issued to the older scions in the community and then forced to produce children in order to maintain her position. It's sad and frightening in that this woman remembers her life before, where she had a job and a husband and a child ... all of which taken away from her. The language is very simple and direct, yet still narrative. I enjoyed noticing the multiple references and metaphors for parts of the body. The entirety of society is in some way sexually repressed ... even the men are not really supposed to enjoy the act of intercourse. There's also a lot of reference to color; women's roles in the society are color-coded. "Marthas" are green, Wives are blue (Virgin Mary reference, perhaps?), and Handmaids are red. The narrator's sense of the importance of color is striking in a world that attempts to remove much of what is enjoyable and aesthetic from society.

Ultimately, though, Atwood makes a bit of a departure from Orwell's 1984 and Huxley's Brave New World in that this fundamentalist society is a sham. Even the heads of the community secretly acknowledge that there is still a desire, or perhaps a "need" for what they call depravity. The Wives and the Marthas typically despise the Handmaids, yet there are still times where all three classes join together in breaking the rules - a moment of sisterly solidarity. There is, of course, an underground movement of questionable authenticity as well.

I recommend this. The language finds the balance between artistic and prosaic. Plus, as with any of these "watch out for the future" type things, there are warnings and messages to be had. Perhaps in the final count, Atwood wants us to simply be grateful for the freedoms that we have.

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Sadly, I had to leave this, and now coming back to it I am not positive I managed to remember what else I wanted to say. This whole "book report" thing is going to be an experiment in reading/processing sensitively. I'm probably going to be reading a fair amount of literary criticism in the near future in order to aid me in that goal. Stay tuned for Ender's Game, and perhaps the long-promised comparison of Will in the World and Shakespeare by Another Name. Don't expect anything great from that one, though. I procrastinate too often; it's been a while now since I finished them.