Book Review: The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood
I read this book as part of my summer of reading, but in reality I had to put it down halfway through and let it sit for a few weeks before I could take it back up again.
I found it powerfully written and profound and deeply disturbing.
Of all the books I said I was reading, this one probably provoked the most interest.
“What did you think?” “It’s an example of …” “It is a powerful argument for…” “It shines a light on…”
So much has been said about the book and the story that I feel ill equipped to add anything new to an already charged conversation. But, I will tell you how it affected me and what was rolling around in my brain as I consumed and digested it.
I know it’s true art when it stays with me. When it haunts. When it changes me.
And this work did that.
(On a personal note, I love that this is physically based near me in Cambridge around the great intellectual hotspots of Harvard and MIT – further highlighting the juxtaposition –the corruption and death of intellectualism)
Atwood is undeniably a skilled writer. The prose and pacing are like being slowly digested in an inescapable and awful stew. It’s not that the content is intentionally horrific or pointed. It’s that it is so awfully mundane, and so uncomfortably close to a possible reality. That closeness to reality makes it incredibly disturbing.
As a whole, you might say, “Well this is an alternate future that could never happen.” And “We as a society would never let this happen.” But, the insidiousness of the story is that everything in there has already happened and, god help us, will probably happen again.
The book is not pro-anything or anti-anything, it just is. That’s the art. That’s the point. The story is so uncomfortable because it shines a light on us. What we are capable of. Who we are.
We are caught, guilty, in that spotlight, knowing that we as a species, as a culture are flawed and there is nothing we can do about it except watch the wheel turn. We, like Offred are trapped. Our freedom and life withheld like being slowly smothered.
That’s the power of this work. It is not a polemic to demonstrate the evil mankind is capable of. It is not a political pamphlet for us to wave at our cultural enemies. It is a statement of fact about what we, you and I, are personally capable of and how fragile the things we hold dear are in this world.
Don’t read this to be entertained.
Don’t read this to be enlightened.
Read this to be changed.
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