The Handmaid's Tale: A Novel
1 journaler for this copy...
I grabbed my first copy this book off a Salvation Army shelf for $.25; I believe the Never Judge a Book by Its Cover Challenge’s theme that week was “the color red anywhere on the cover.” I never did release that book for the challenge, mainly because the back cover blurb combined with remembered BookCrosser comments I’d read in the Book Talk forum urged me to sit down and read the novel.
I’m so glad I did! Atwood’s writing is brilliant. Offred’s haunting tale of her plight within a future society in an area once known as the United States is frighteningly real and the picture of that distopian, theocratic society is eerily familiar.
The ending (“Historical Notes”, a section I almost skipped!) is an interesting balance/counterpoint to Offred’s story. I read those few pages several times. At first I was relieved by the humor and the (don’t want to inject any spoilers) “hope”. In my second reading, I began to see some sarcasm and little jabs…
The entire book was extremely thought-provoking as well as being an emotional shocker. When I went into a bookstore looking for extra copies to give as gifts, I couldn’t find a copy. I looked in “fiction”—nothing. Since the novel is based in the future, I looked in “science fiction” –nothing. (It had to be ordered.) Online, I found an interview with author Margaret Atwood. She was asked if she considered the book to be science fiction. See question 1 below for her answer.
I also cut and pasted one of the other Atwood interview Q&A’s which I found fascinating.
1. Q: It's hard to pin down a genre for this novel. Is it science fiction?
A: No, it certainly isn't science fiction. Science fiction is filled with Martians and space travel to other planets, and things like that. That isn't this book at all. The Handmaid's Tale is speculative fiction in the genre of Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four. Nineteen Eighty-Four was written not as science fiction but as an extrapolation of life in 1948. So, too, The Handmaid's Tale is a slight twist on the society we have now.
2. Q: How would the creation of your imagined republic of Gilead be possible?
A: First of all, ask yourself the following question: If you were going to take over the United States, how would you do it? Would you say, "I'm a socialist and we're all going to be equal"? No, you would not, because it wouldn't work. Would you say, "I'm a liberal and we are going to have a society of multiple toleration"? You probably wouldn't say that if you wanted mass support. You would be much more likely to say, "I have the word from God and this is the way we should run things." That probably would have more of a chance of working, and in fact there are a number of movements in the States saying just that, and getting lots of dollars and influence. The society in The Handmaid's Tale is a throwback to the early Puritans whom I studied extensively at Harvard under Perry Miller, to whom the book is dedicated. The early Puritans came to America not for religious freedom, as we were taught in grade school, but to set up a society that would be a theocracy (like Iran) ruled by religious leaders, and monolithic, that is, a society that would not tolerate dissent within itself. They were being persecuted in England for being Puritans, but then they went to the United States and promptly began persecuting anyone who wasn't a Puritan. My book reflects the form and style of the early Puritan society and addresses the dynamics that bring about such a situation.
copy 2
I’m so glad I did! Atwood’s writing is brilliant. Offred’s haunting tale of her plight within a future society in an area once known as the United States is frighteningly real and the picture of that distopian, theocratic society is eerily familiar.
The ending (“Historical Notes”, a section I almost skipped!) is an interesting balance/counterpoint to Offred’s story. I read those few pages several times. At first I was relieved by the humor and the (don’t want to inject any spoilers) “hope”. In my second reading, I began to see some sarcasm and little jabs…
The entire book was extremely thought-provoking as well as being an emotional shocker. When I went into a bookstore looking for extra copies to give as gifts, I couldn’t find a copy. I looked in “fiction”—nothing. Since the novel is based in the future, I looked in “science fiction” –nothing. (It had to be ordered.) Online, I found an interview with author Margaret Atwood. She was asked if she considered the book to be science fiction. See question 1 below for her answer.
I also cut and pasted one of the other Atwood interview Q&A’s which I found fascinating.
1. Q: It's hard to pin down a genre for this novel. Is it science fiction?
A: No, it certainly isn't science fiction. Science fiction is filled with Martians and space travel to other planets, and things like that. That isn't this book at all. The Handmaid's Tale is speculative fiction in the genre of Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four. Nineteen Eighty-Four was written not as science fiction but as an extrapolation of life in 1948. So, too, The Handmaid's Tale is a slight twist on the society we have now.
2. Q: How would the creation of your imagined republic of Gilead be possible?
A: First of all, ask yourself the following question: If you were going to take over the United States, how would you do it? Would you say, "I'm a socialist and we're all going to be equal"? No, you would not, because it wouldn't work. Would you say, "I'm a liberal and we are going to have a society of multiple toleration"? You probably wouldn't say that if you wanted mass support. You would be much more likely to say, "I have the word from God and this is the way we should run things." That probably would have more of a chance of working, and in fact there are a number of movements in the States saying just that, and getting lots of dollars and influence. The society in The Handmaid's Tale is a throwback to the early Puritans whom I studied extensively at Harvard under Perry Miller, to whom the book is dedicated. The early Puritans came to America not for religious freedom, as we were taught in grade school, but to set up a society that would be a theocracy (like Iran) ruled by religious leaders, and monolithic, that is, a society that would not tolerate dissent within itself. They were being persecuted in England for being Puritans, but then they went to the United States and promptly began persecuting anyone who wasn't a Puritan. My book reflects the form and style of the early Puritan society and addresses the dynamics that bring about such a situation.
copy 2
