The Handmaid's Tale | Review

4.24/5.00

Published: 1985

Genre: Dystopian Fiction

Goodreads

“Nolite te bastardes carborundorum. Don't let the bastards grind you down.”

If you want an essay on this book, there are many who have written one far better than I could. It’s been done often enough, and if you are familiar with my work here, I try not to bother just adding noise to more noise or repeating what’s already been said multiple times.

You’ve heard of “The Handmaid’s Tale,” right? The book and show are quite popular. Atwood takes us to Gilead, a horrific, dystopian theocracy that takes hold of a fertility issue and builds a nightmare for women. We follow Offred’s experience in this world without even knowing her name.

I enjoyed the subtlety, the uncertainty, the not knowing in the story. I get that some might find it frustrating, the sort of drop off ending like in “The Giver” or “Fahrenheit 451,” the crescendo towards a climax, then ending just as it is reached. I understand how the “restructuring” might frustrate some. However, a part of me tends to like the uncertainty, the different takes on a scene. It better resembles reality.

“Better never means better for everyone... It always means worse, for some.”

The primary criticism I have is that the entire book seems to be world building. It is interesting and well-written (if you can handle commas frequently being used where periods would be more suitable), but it seems like most of the action happens for the sake of showing the reader what this world is like and how it got there. It’s normal life in Gildead, which yes, is terrible, but to me, that’s the entire plot. Is it enough? Yes, clearly. I still strongly recommend giving it a read. Even if you watched the show, it deviates quite a lot from the book.  

“We were the people who were not in the papers. We lived in the blank white spaces at the edges of print. It gave us more freedom. We lived in the gaps between the stories.” 

Margaret Atwood is a Canadian writer who although best known for The Handmaid’s Tale, has penned multiple novels, shorter fictions, poetry, and TV scripts. A full bio can be found on her website.