Let's talk about The Handmaid's Tale. Nowhere, and I mean absolutely nowhere, is there a picture associated with this book that does not strike you right in the kisser with it's unforgettable imagery. Every cover, every movie or tv still is bright and iconic. Once you've seen the red dress and the white face covering, you do not forget it or it's horrifying significance. When choosing online which cover I'd purchase for myself - because I did not want to borrow a version, I could tell that this would be a book to keep - I found the prettiest one I could find, as that's the kind of magpie I am. There's something so wrong, I'm realising after the fact, about finding the prettiest picture of female oppression you can find, but that's often what we do as women, to discount our own experience, to make our suffering seem less serious because of how much opposition we face in simply being believed. I don't really want to whip out a lesson in equality during this review, but suffice to say that this book makes you think about the state of things both politically and in your interpersonal relationships with other humans, and if it doesn't, IT ABSOLUTELY THE FUCK SHOULD, PLEASE GET YOURSELF A REALITY CHECK. When I begin a book I am drawn in. This likely happens in the book store, the cover strikes me visually or there's a little recommendation on the shelf. Often the genre will makes promises enough, but the opening pages are the most important. Some begin with wit, some with outlandish description, pulling you into a world unlike your own. The Handmaid's Tale begins slowly, quietly, every page calm, but underwritten by a mysterious element that takes almost too long to figure out. There's something not quite right from the outset. The realisation after meeting more handmaids - their names are ownership titles.. "Of" combined with a mans name. Offred. Ofglen. Ofwayne. Ofwarren. I'm not sure how I feel about that at this stage, only a few chapters in. I know the significance but not the reason, and the first chapters are scattered with such curiosities. This the first Margaret Atwood book I've ever picked up and I feel as though I'm in for a brain workout. Needless to say, as a woman this book was particularly horrifying. The Republic of Gilead, a dystopian future where the government is taken over by un-named militia, and the first thing to go? Women's bank accounts, women's jobs, finances, security, bodily autonomy, freedom. Women become property again, too quickly, too easily. However, there is such a hazy quality to Offred's experience that we are lulled into a sense of passive confusion. We are given only the details she can recall, and her real name is never revealed. She is never given an identity, only a past and a present. There is no guarantee as to her future. Only in the end do I come to understand a few things about the depicted events. Some sort of biological warfare is waged alongside the overthrowing of the current government. Men suffer from varying degrees of sterility and the birth rates across the country plummet. Handmaids are women plucked from many places, unmarried, un-wealthy, unlucky... broken and reformed as incubators. Their job is to bear children to the important men of the Republic of Gilead, to be surrogates to the barren wives of the new world leaders. Once a child is born, though many are deformed, she is reassigned to another leader for the next round, to see if she can do it again. Some still remember freedom, their old lives. Some choose to opt out of this bleak future with suicide, sabotage or escape. Some fully embrace the state of thing, as they recognise the complete brutality of the regime and the blatant futility of trying to resist. Hangings are common, no one is truly safe. Handmaids who stray from their masters, wives who kill the handmaid in her home out of jealously, or spite, doctors, scientists, nuns who refuse to abandon celibacy. There is little choice in life anymore. Only fear and duty. "I feel angry. I'm not proud of myself for this, or for any of it. But then, that's the point." When I come to the end of the book, Offred's tale is cut off at the climax. I yell into the quiet air of my empty house. "WHAT." It is not even a question. I don't understand. What follows after this blatant full stop and blank page is a section called "Historical Notes", dated the year 2195. As a charming speaker brings up this document, this tale, to a convention of well-to-do scholars, it becomes so very real where it simply wasn't before. Everything Offred describes along her journey is woven with quiet, safe shades of grey, despite the bright red iconography of everything that makes up a handmaid. Survival tones and warning lights. There's a quality of numbness that keeps back a sure panic about the state of things, ensuring that we drift with her, disassociated from the actual events as she recalls them in a mostly matter of fact way. No conversations, simply words recorded on a page as a transcript, emotionless. She does describe how she's feeling, an awful lot, don't get me wrong, but the overall tone of the construction makes it difficult to do much but experience with her and wonder in horror at how things could have reached such an awful state. Cutting off her recollection right at the most real moment when all eyes are suddenly on her, this shift in time and perspective made me finally slam on the breaks. I broke through the surface of that numbness and suddenly I was possessed by a need to be back with her in that mute place, to see her through whatever comes next. To experience the sheer terror of having nothing of your own, no way to fight back, no safe way to hold onto a rich, free past. "You are a transitional generation. It is the hardest for you. We know the sacrifices you are being expected to make. For the ones who come after you, it will be easier. They will accept their duties with willing hearts." It becomes apparent with the way the "document" is analysed at the end, that Offred has somehow managed to record her tale, that somehow... she escaped. The relief I feel at this discovery is minuscule. I am afraid of how easily this future could become reality in present day. Part of the appeal in reading this was the current political state of the world - anywhere you look this book is being touted as highly relevant in Trump's America. I don't want to call it Trump's America. It is not his, and he's doing a REALLY good job of fucking things up. Having read it, I can see the parallels, the possibilities, the potential for segregation, degradation, iron rule over women's bodies... This is a think piece that will probably always be sadly relevant. Title: The Handmaid's Tale Author: Margaret Atwood Published: 1985 Genre: Dystopia Pages: 479 Finish Date: 17/05/2017 The following online stores all have free worldwide shipping You can buy it here at Fishpond.com You can also buy it from Book Depository For UK based companies there's Wordery and Books Please This is a solid 9, folks. Put it in your eyes and your To Be Read piles.
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Here's the basic premise: it's 2044, the world is technologically advanced to the point where nearly everyone is living out their lives inside a virtual reality and spend most of their time plugged in regardless of social standing. The lowliest, the most poor, still have the ability to escape the awful state of the real world. The guy who built this virtual reality, the Oasis? Halliday dies unmarried and heirless at the start of the book, leaving his entire fortune and the legacy and control of the Oasis to the first person the find his easter egg. For those of you who don't know what an easter egg is, it's a hidden extra something placed in the background of a movie or a hidden portion of a game as a nod to the fans. Originally game designers weren't credited for their work and would often leave their own credit on a hidden screen somewhere. This is what the entire book is based around. As you can imagine, it's not just gaming enthusiasts or get rich quick schemers after the egg - big corporations with money to burn and scores of legal eagles are after it so they can have control over the most valuable commodity in the world. It gets intense, quick. This is truly a story about escapism, which is a firm favorite pass time of mine, but my tiny trials of life are so very trivial compared to the kind of world our protagonist Wade is living in. He spends his whole journey trying to run away from who he is in reality and trying to make a different name for himself in Oasis. Many of us hide behind screen names, avatars, particular visual angles and layer upon layer of filters, in 2017 we are in our infancy with this kind of pretending and by 2044 its entirely possible to believe that the reality Wade lives in could be our own future. Fossil fuel is running out, there's an energy crisis and society is in various states of collapse. With the rise of the Oasis, no one much cares who's running things in the real world - as you can imagine being plugged into a different reality, your earthly surroundings don't really matter any more. Half the time, you're reading an exciting and nerdy adventure about a nobody who works very hard towards something he's passionate about not only because of the money but because he feels he has so much in common with Halliday, the creator of Oasis, all the while hoping he prevails because Cline truly knows how to write an underdog. The rest of the time, if you're really taking your time to think about what's happening and why, it's actually a horribly depressing book. Now that may just be my natural tendency to see the darkness in things, but I like dystopian fiction because it reminds me of everything that could go wrong on our short time with this planet. To keep being accountable for the way I live my life. Watching Wade try to carve out an existence online is so hard because in real life his entire family is dead, his residence in the stacks of motor homes that make up the majority of the populations living quarters, has been destroyed by the corporations trying to force his skilled hand into revealing clues to the easter egg. He does not leave his hideout, has spent most of his schooling career online avoiding physical attack from people on the street who would rob him blind in a heartbeat... the future is bleak, people. I praise a book that will make me think. This is by no means a perfect narrative. The single female character is strong and clever and ends up never showing her true face because she has a port wine birthmark on her face and to her that means she's a hideous monster. What? The other female character is disguised as a man the whole fucking time just so she can receive the benefit of the doubt by the rest of the known world and not be looked down upon for her gender. Classic. All in all I'd say this sits somewhere around a seven out of ten. It's good. It makes you think. It's worth the ride, but having said that, I did get most of the references to old game systems, Dungeons and Dragons, 80's movies and sitcoms... I'm not sure how much someone would enjoy the read if they didn't. Give it a go, kids. |
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