Even though it’s been a few weeks since I finished Margaret
Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, I see
Offred’s story in my mind still, like a ripe tangerine split open and glossy in
the midsummer’s morning. I see her, in
her red burka like outfit, white wings as blinders on her face. She’s tragic.
Defeated. Her loss is
gut-wrenching. How she once had a life—a
Life—so normal, just like everybody else.
Married. A daughter. A job.
Happy. But all of that was in a
time before the overthrow, before the government was decimated, before the
regime took control and installed a patriarchal society. Women’s rights were gone.
Just like that.
Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s
Tale is a classic dystopia that is devastating for its simplicity. As often is the case in this genre, specifics
aren’t exactly forthcoming, but there is enough worldbuilding put together to
discern what’s happened. The book is a
quasi-stream-of-consciousness novel chronicling the life of an unnamed Handmaid. The plot slowly reveals information about her
life before she became a Handmaid, and much of this book is melancholic in
recollection.
The way the sun would shine and cast a reflection on a man’s
hair and send her spiraling backwards, remembering the way he looked in his
mundane world. How he sounded. How he smelled. And pages and paragraphs disjointed but
connected, a weird juxtaposition that works well, especially as the frame
becomes more aware.
Interestingly enough, the Handmaid’s tale never grows stale,
and that’s largely due to Atwood’s superior skills as a writer and
storyteller. The language is
powerful. The imagery is rich. (I really liked what she did with colors in
this book.) The message is a touch
heavy-handed (it’s satirical) and required some strong suspension of disbelief
on my part (I’m a Realistic altruist to a certain degree), but her point was
well made. I was affronted by the male
portrayal throughout the book on many occasions, but her point is conceivably
possible.
So what exactly is The
Handmaid’s Tale? It’s a simple story
about a woman’s struggle to survive in the world. She wrestles with past mistakes, with guilt,
with a constant fear of death, with God, with many things most of us can relate
to. It’s a bleak picture of what America
could become if things went absolutely cat-whiskers crazy. It’s an absolutely makes-you-wanna-bawl kind
of book if you have a two year old daughter (like I do). It’s a funny kind of novel that elicits the
occasional chuckle.
Honestly, The Handmaid’s Tale is novel that’s both striking and
entertaining. I believe Atwood was more
concerned about the moral of the story than the actual plot, but both were well
done. The Handmaid’s Tale is a modern classic that may seem uninspired in
this modern world of dystopias, but it’s a book that deserves its accolades
and, at least in my opinion, deserves a read.
Boldly recommended.
