I don’t often get swept up in the excitement over new book releases, especially in fiction, but so many people couldn’t resist pre-ordering Margaret Atwood’s sequel to “The Handmaid’s Tale”, “The Testaments” that I got into the whole thing, too. It’s publication day today and I’m eagerly awaiting, etc., but even though I a) am self-employed and can arrange my work to an extent, b) read fast, I won’t have a review out before Thursday at the earliest. However, having believed myself not to have re-read “The Handmaid’s Tale” for a while, here’s my review of my re-read of my dear and battered old copy (complete with post-it note inside: “Liz’s, please return” AND “Liz Broomfield English II” in faded ink inside the front cover!
Margaret Atwood – “The Handmaid’s Tale”
(1990)
Here’s a confession. I was convinced I had re-read this before, between my first reading aged 18 and my reading now, aged 47. But if I had, it certainly hasn’t been during the lifetime of this blog, or the book review journals that stretch back to 2007. I remembered the central premise, the idea, but not really many of the scenes. So maybe I hadn’t.
I remember when I first read it and why. I was taking Peggy Reynolds’ Women and Literature in the 20th Century course at university, an optional D period course in my second year. I have always had it rather fatally mixed up with Angela Carter’s “The Passion of New Eve” (which I’ve tried and failed to re-read recently: too MUCH!) and of course the landscapes of both would mesh together. I can only assume we had a week on dystopias.
Anyway, my goodness, if I’ve only read it at 18 and now, what a gulf separates those two reads. I knew so little of the world, its ways and its troubles then, though we were in the middle of the AIDS crisis and starting the First Gulf War. Then, if I’d imagined myself into the book, I’d have thought of arranged marriages or assignment to a sterile wife and her Commander husband to try to produce a child. Now, childless at 47 (although in a first marriage, white and of Christian birth, not as bad off as some), where would I be in that book? I dread to think.
We probably all know the premise – in a warring and fragile state, the birth-rate has dropped and women such as our heroine, ‘Offred’ are assigned to live with married couples and copulate coldly with the husband, hoping to produce a baby. She remembers the time before, her husband and daughter (and pet: oh dear. Be careful at Chapter 30), and their attempted escape from the increasing privations of the regime, as women are slowly denied money, jobs, freedom, and she hopes there is an underground force at work, resisting. She remembers the wonderful, testing Moira, her best friend (please please please let Moira pop up in the new book) and longs for even a few words to read. When her Commander makes an odd request, what is she to do?
It was the very small details that bothered me this time. Women have taken to the old handicrafts. Plastic has been banned and groceries are once again wrapped in paper. It’s well-known that all the details Atwood put in had happened somewhere in the world (by 1985!!!) and those just seemed too familiar. The rounding up and sending away of first the “Children of Ham” and Jewish people and then the concentration on anyone who wasn’t a white Christian in a first marriage screamed at me of that poem “First they came for …”
A powerful and of course sublimely well-written book. Unlike some modern dystopias, the violence is usually off-screen. I love the epilogue featuring a conference paper on the reliability or not of the narrative – something I’d forgotten.
I can’t wait to read “The Testaments” and can only hope it comes up to the hype.
Have you re-read “The Handmaid’s Tale” recently and are you waiting by the door for the new one to drop through?
Jules_Writes
Sep 10, 2019 @ 12:50:05
I’m just listening to the audio book now 🙂 before I pick up The Testaments. Good review.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Liz Dexter
Sep 10, 2019 @ 13:48:41
My husband has been listening to the audio book of Handmaid’s Tale and The Testaments has arrived in his account – that will certainly be an interesting experience.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Jules_Writes
Sep 10, 2019 @ 15:06:03
I’ve got the audible version with Elizabeth Moss narrating and she is wonderful! I hope he’s enjoying it 😁
LikeLiked by 1 person
Liz Dexter
Sep 10, 2019 @ 15:10:11
Yes, he’s very much enjoying it and looking forward to the multi-narrator second one!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Rebecca Foster
Sep 10, 2019 @ 13:24:07
I don’t think I will read the sequel, but this is a very helpful recap to have just in case. I’ve wondered how Handmaid’s would stand up to a reread.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Liz Dexter
Sep 10, 2019 @ 13:49:25
It really does stand up very well, but very differently. I’m surprised, though, as I always think of you as someone who reads all the new books!
LikeLike
Rebecca Foster
Sep 10, 2019 @ 13:57:10
I’m wary of sequels in general, and I haven’t liked Atwood’s speculative/dystopian stuff much compared to her more realist fiction. (I get turned off by hype easily as well.)
LikeLiked by 1 person
Liz Dexter
Sep 10, 2019 @ 14:02:04
Ah, yes, I don’t like sequels by other people, myself, and I’ve not read her sci fi trilogy, though Matthew has, and that might prove interesting. But I had to make an exception here …
LikeLike
Rebecca Foster
Sep 10, 2019 @ 14:15:51
I read the whole MaddAddam trilogy, but it didn’t need to be any more than one book.
LikeLike
kaggsysbookishramblings
Sep 10, 2019 @ 15:16:28
Glad to hear that the book stands up to a re-read – because I was knocked out by it before, and I would hate that to be messed with. Oddly it’s the small details I recall too – like how they disempowered the women by blocking their credit cards…
LikeLiked by 1 person
Liz Dexter
Sep 10, 2019 @ 15:19:41
Yes. I think I saw a film or something once when the first thing to go was access to your bank account and I always have that moment when I put my card in the machine. And of course they got rid of cash first, cleverly. Do re-read if you fancy it, as it does work again, older and more experienced.
LikeLiked by 1 person
heavenali
Sep 10, 2019 @ 17:07:58
Re-reading THT is so powerful, I was blown away by my re-read a couple of years ago. It’s a book that bears re-reading. My copy of The Testaments is here. Off to the live cinema event tonight, then I will start it in bed later.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Liz Dexter
Sep 10, 2019 @ 17:14:47
Yes, still so powerful. Enjoy the cinema event and the read! Can’t wait to discuss it with you!
LikeLike
Thomas
Sep 14, 2019 @ 02:06:36
Oh yay, finally a book that I’ve also read 🙂 Great review, glad you reread this one before the sequel. I am wondering whether the sequel was created based on a financial incentive from Netflix picking up the original book, though I feel a little icky chalking it up to finances like that. I really appreciate you naming some of your privileges in this review, such as being white and of Christian birth. I hope we can all keep working to help create a world where the dystopia presented in this novel does not become a reality.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Liz Dexter
Sep 14, 2019 @ 17:10:20
Well, to be honest, I’ve read a few things written by and about Atwood and listened to an interview with her and I really do not think that was the case. It looks like she was writing it before the Netflix series, and also people have been crying out for a sequel since Handmaid’s Tale was published. I don’t think she needs the money and it feels like she wrote it from pure motives. She’s great in interview, too. And yes, I hope we can do. I am always happy to turn my privilege to use to support anyone on a lower privilege level and boost them, protect them if I can and give them a hand up. It was very interesting to me thinking about where I would be in that society now and when I first read the book, and The Testaments had me considering what I would do in the position of various people in the new book. It was all I wanted it to be, by the way. Review coming possibly Monday.
LikeLike
Book review – Margaret Atwood – “The Testaments” #amreading | Adventures in reading, running and working from home
Sep 19, 2019 @ 17:12:19