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The Handmaiden’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
I actually went through a dystopia phase in late high school, having read 1984, Anthem, Brave New World and a couple of others all around the same time. I missed this one, and it’s been sitting on my shelf for years waiting for me to correct that.
Atwood’s writing is poetic practically to a fault and reads beautifully as a memoir being dictated. The unreliable narrator is a trope for a reason, and she uses it beautifully to establish the uncertainty of the world and how Offred’s life feels, regardless of the truth of it. The kidnappings, the executions, the “security”, any and all of the news—it could all be fabrication. Gilead’s government could be having actors snatched off the street three times a day in a dozen different areas; or they could be randomly rounding up people in a Paranoia-esque “everyone is guilty of something” manner. Or Offred could be showing off her own paranoia by imagining these things are happening, though that seems unlikely. Or the Eyes could actually be as aware as Offred thinks they are, but that seems even more unlikely—it’s an implausible use of resources and it’s totally unnecessary.
There are plenty of bits that betray the politics of time this was written and Atwood’s personal (not necessarily realistic) concerns. The plan by which the “Sons of Jacob” seize power being foremost; Offred wouldn’t necessarily know who had the “real” power in American politics at the time, but if the official story of a governmental massacre and militia coup weren’t accurate (and it’s really hard to believe), the epilogue should have mentioned that. The fears of an evangelical Christian takeover of the US government aren’t unwarranted, even today, but most of their real power comes from an uneasy alliance with disgustingly rich people who want to stay that way--and who aren’t stupid enough to not know what destroying our current capitalist society would do to their wealth. Murdoch and the Koch brothers know what happens to their businesses if women stop spending.
Likewise, you can play these military dictatorship games and paranoia-policing in a tiny country after only a couple of years, but the US is gigantic and insanely diverse. Somebody’s going to get this new system set up and accepted in Utah, sure; and Alabama maybe, if they got the megachurches behind them. But New York? Vermont? California? The “it happened in Germany” rationalization doesn’t work because Germany is tiny compared to the US, and the relative size of the “undesirables” in the population was much smaller. Conquering America requires a much longer period of creeping control: First you come for the gays, then the Jews, then the trade unionists, etc etc.
There’s also a bit of an issue with the motivation of the men at the top and those just below them: The system is all too clever, too different-from-the-old and obviously constructed to be the work of fanatical true believers. But why would the architects of Gilead set up this system, if not to slavishly follow biblical precedents? Offred would never know, of course, but the reader is left thinking that most of the men are doing it for the evulz. The fundamental principle of writing a good villain (they must think they’re the hero) gets lost in favor of, “Yeah, most guys just don’t see women as people.” That works as political rhetoric, but as the reality is much more complicated, it makes for lousy world-building.
The epilogue fills in some holes and gives the whole thing a vaguely happy ending (in that Gilead has fallen and is referred to in past tense and with some derision), though it leaves open any real details about the gender and sexual politics of the far-future world. And Atwood clearly had a realistic view of the self-destructive tendencies of a society like Gilead’s. You can only keep people in a boiler of backstabbing paranoia with wildly uneven power before it explodes and then devolves into a land-grab. (There’s also the issue that religious fanatics inevitably kill or drive out all of their scientists and doctors—which Offred notes—and that tends to go very poorly in the long term.)
Oh, and there’s the common-sense problem of the lower-class men who likely won’t see any kind of sexual release ever, but get to carry around guns. Which makes the fact that Gilead has lasted for years super-impressive.
But another thing that struck me is that the epilogue generally confirmed the scale of Gilead (in that it basically replaced America), when I think the story would have been stronger without that. Offred sees the same half-dozen people over and over; her story presents a small, insular community in what (I’m guessing) was Boston. Gilead could encompass the US; or even more, given that we’re not given much in the way of details about Canada and Mexico; or could just be a couple of towns in Western Massachusetts and everything else is an elaborate lie. (Indeed, that would explain things like the difficulties getting seafood or various fruits: They don’t have access to the parts of the country that produce them, so they make up lies about pollution or wars.) Offred’s story is the same regardless. Her world is Gilead and hope of escape is nebulous, so what does it matter if it’s a mile or a thousand miles away?
Overall: Atwood is a magnificent writer who paints a very vivid story with the emotion-based paint set. It remains a very good reminder not to let the anti-feminist religious nutjobs get power, though the worldbuilding has some significant holes when you really dig into it.
Atwood’s writing is poetic practically to a fault and reads beautifully as a memoir being dictated. The unreliable narrator is a trope for a reason, and she uses it beautifully to establish the uncertainty of the world and how Offred’s life feels, regardless of the truth of it. The kidnappings, the executions, the “security”, any and all of the news—it could all be fabrication. Gilead’s government could be having actors snatched off the street three times a day in a dozen different areas; or they could be randomly rounding up people in a Paranoia-esque “everyone is guilty of something” manner. Or Offred could be showing off her own paranoia by imagining these things are happening, though that seems unlikely. Or the Eyes could actually be as aware as Offred thinks they are, but that seems even more unlikely—it’s an implausible use of resources and it’s totally unnecessary.
There are plenty of bits that betray the politics of time this was written and Atwood’s personal (not necessarily realistic) concerns. The plan by which the “Sons of Jacob” seize power being foremost; Offred wouldn’t necessarily know who had the “real” power in American politics at the time, but if the official story of a governmental massacre and militia coup weren’t accurate (and it’s really hard to believe), the epilogue should have mentioned that. The fears of an evangelical Christian takeover of the US government aren’t unwarranted, even today, but most of their real power comes from an uneasy alliance with disgustingly rich people who want to stay that way--and who aren’t stupid enough to not know what destroying our current capitalist society would do to their wealth. Murdoch and the Koch brothers know what happens to their businesses if women stop spending.
Likewise, you can play these military dictatorship games and paranoia-policing in a tiny country after only a couple of years, but the US is gigantic and insanely diverse. Somebody’s going to get this new system set up and accepted in Utah, sure; and Alabama maybe, if they got the megachurches behind them. But New York? Vermont? California? The “it happened in Germany” rationalization doesn’t work because Germany is tiny compared to the US, and the relative size of the “undesirables” in the population was much smaller. Conquering America requires a much longer period of creeping control: First you come for the gays, then the Jews, then the trade unionists, etc etc.
There’s also a bit of an issue with the motivation of the men at the top and those just below them: The system is all too clever, too different-from-the-old and obviously constructed to be the work of fanatical true believers. But why would the architects of Gilead set up this system, if not to slavishly follow biblical precedents? Offred would never know, of course, but the reader is left thinking that most of the men are doing it for the evulz. The fundamental principle of writing a good villain (they must think they’re the hero) gets lost in favor of, “Yeah, most guys just don’t see women as people.” That works as political rhetoric, but as the reality is much more complicated, it makes for lousy world-building.
The epilogue fills in some holes and gives the whole thing a vaguely happy ending (in that Gilead has fallen and is referred to in past tense and with some derision), though it leaves open any real details about the gender and sexual politics of the far-future world. And Atwood clearly had a realistic view of the self-destructive tendencies of a society like Gilead’s. You can only keep people in a boiler of backstabbing paranoia with wildly uneven power before it explodes and then devolves into a land-grab. (There’s also the issue that religious fanatics inevitably kill or drive out all of their scientists and doctors—which Offred notes—and that tends to go very poorly in the long term.)
Oh, and there’s the common-sense problem of the lower-class men who likely won’t see any kind of sexual release ever, but get to carry around guns. Which makes the fact that Gilead has lasted for years super-impressive.
But another thing that struck me is that the epilogue generally confirmed the scale of Gilead (in that it basically replaced America), when I think the story would have been stronger without that. Offred sees the same half-dozen people over and over; her story presents a small, insular community in what (I’m guessing) was Boston. Gilead could encompass the US; or even more, given that we’re not given much in the way of details about Canada and Mexico; or could just be a couple of towns in Western Massachusetts and everything else is an elaborate lie. (Indeed, that would explain things like the difficulties getting seafood or various fruits: They don’t have access to the parts of the country that produce them, so they make up lies about pollution or wars.) Offred’s story is the same regardless. Her world is Gilead and hope of escape is nebulous, so what does it matter if it’s a mile or a thousand miles away?
Overall: Atwood is a magnificent writer who paints a very vivid story with the emotion-based paint set. It remains a very good reminder not to let the anti-feminist religious nutjobs get power, though the worldbuilding has some significant holes when you really dig into it.