The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

A dystopic novel set in the 21st century USA. Rather than technological developments, the novel concentrates on the political and social changes. Due to low birth rates, the Government assumes a sexist policy deciding who can get married and have children and introduces a class (caste) system which is oppressive. Women can be 'Wives' only if they are 'worthy'; 'Handmaids' if they are capable of bearing children; 'Marthas' (ordinary house maids) if they are too old. They are forced to wear uniform-like modest dresses which give away their status and little else. Individuals have no choice within all these and love/passion are regarded as impure and punishable offences.

It is a chilling, depressing story; I expect especially so for women. Atwood delivers the story cleverly, slowly, always keeping in control of the mystery so that the reader is not a passive page-turner but also involved in the story by questioning, guessing, evaluating, sympathising till the very end. So much so that I was sad that the book finished; that it was not longer!

Perfect choice for a 'serious' reading: 9/10 KitKats!

Oh, I loved this one too!

So did I, I finished it about a week ago and it's still haunting me. I love the style because that made it so easy to read without detracting from the chilling word created. It's the best book I've read in ages.

Good review :) I could never get past the first few pages of The Handmaid's Tale, which was a surprise for me, considering I really enjoyed Oryx & Crake. May try again at some point.

I took it to be in the proverbial "not-too-distant" future. I've read somewhere-- perhaps in the NYRB --
Margaret Atwood conceived (no pun intended) the plot in partial reaction to the political inroads made by the Religious Right.(In the sense that that strangely-disturbing movie "V" is set in a not to distant Great Britain but written as a reaction to Margaret Thatcher's regime.) I took the setting of the novel to be the present-day United States, but perhaps expanded to include a larger part of NA, including Ms. Atwood's native Canada.

This was my first read of Atwood's, now she is one of my favorite authors.
This novel is especially excellent to read with some knowledge of the historical context, I discovered great things behind Atwood's semiotics and references after researching the political atmosphere of the 1980s.
Lovely review,Scher! :thumbs_up

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Originally Posted by brimstone

Good review :) I could never get past the first few pages of The Handmaid's Tale, which was a surprise for me, considering I really enjoyed Oryx & Crake. May try again at some point.

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Yeah..same here. I don't know why, the book seems really interesting. I hope I'll get to finish it during this upcoming year :D

I studied Handmaid for A-level, we had to compare and contrast it to George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. Whilst at times horrifying (as with the best dystopian science fiction, because you can see that it is just about feasible), it didn't hit me as hard as Orwell's work, maybe because Orwell's is older and I can see how far along that road we've actually come. In twenty or thirty years maybe someone will be saying the same about Handmaid, that's if anyone is allowed to say anything at all.

Aside: I had to read Atwood's The Blind Assassin the following year (1st Year English Degree), a much chunkier book but with its multi-layered plot a novel I enjoyed a lot more. Slow to start but once it builds up a head of steam it's a brilliant piece of work.

I'm currently studying Handmaid's tale. It isn't my usual kind of book but I do agree that it is very haunting, especially seeing how the women (and even men) suffer.

Although I respect the profound and despondent connotations, it didn't grasp me :(

I haven't read any of her other books, so I can't really compare. I'll have a search!

Ive given it a 4 rather than a 5 only because there was other stuff by her that I loved so much more. Her writing style is a dream... she just great!
:nod: :D

Sounds very interesting. Another book in my 'recommended books list'. Jeez the list is getting longer day by day!

I read this one years ago. I think Motherhubbard passed it on to me and I loved it.

I attempted to read it a while ago but found it to be utterly boring, so I pulled it down, which happens usually very rarely. I thought the writing style was too dry and pallid, which is certainly suitable for the story but was together with the slow-motion-like development of the plot too much for me to keep me interested.

I really enjoyed THT, but I like dystopian SFy-lit books. Indeed, I've bought 4 copies of THT over the years, because people won't give it back.

However, about matters of taste, there can be no debate.

Also, you may just not be at a point in your life where it resonates with you. A friend of mine was punishing herself, trying to make it through The Invisible Man because she felt that she *should.* Authors don't want you to slog through their books. Just put it down and try it again in a few years.

TK Kenyon

Atwood is a wonderful writer, and The Handmaid's Tale illustrates just how good of a writer she is.

I enjoyed reading the “Handmaid’s tale”, because it is a tale of a person, who is writing his real experiences down in a book so that everybody can read her real feelings and secrets. The reader can put himself in her place.
I think that futuristic books are always interesting to read, because they contains things that are inconceivably in our society. But one can always imagine such a situation nowadays. I try to put myself in the protagonist’s place and think about what I would have done if it was me who decide how to act.
I read the book till the end and it was an open end, because we don’t know what happened to Offred and where she was taken away. The man only sad it is “Mayday” but we don’t know whether it is good or bad for Offred. To be honest I don’t like open ends. I always want to have a happy or a sad end, it doesn’t matter which one.
As a rule it is better to understand if the book has a chronological order, Although the times in Handmaid’s Tale are always in a mess it doesn’t interfere the reader to understand the book.

I didn't care for this one, a tad too polemical.

So, while the Canadian Library Association says there is "no known instance of a challenge to this novel in Canada" an investigation has been launched by a school board in Canada, home to Margaret Atwood, one of our most esteemed authors who won the Governor General's Award for this novel when it was published, in 1985! :(

"Complaint spurs school board to review novel by Atwood": http://www.parentcentral.ca/parent/article/570616

"Atwood novel too brutal, sexist for school: parent": http://www.parentcentral.ca/parent/article/571999

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I read the novel several years and liked it a lot. I don't remeber finding it too brutal or sexist for being studied at school.

Signs of times...:sick:

I first picked up this book when I was about 17. It was on the reading list for our English course but after a few pages I put it away and chose Zadie Smith's White Teeth instead.

Las year I had to read it for a master's course on dystopic novels and ended up writing my final paper on The Handmaid's Tale. I'm actually glad I didn't read it in highschool because I really think I wouldn't have appriated it as much as I did now. The course really put the novel in the right context and I think this is a book which needs this kind of perspective.

I can't believe it's being challenged for exactly what it was pointing out. Handmaid's Tale is a feminist novel, written in the 80s. I mean women's rights in Canada is still questionable, but you can actually apply the story to something like... Afghanistan right now. Too graphic for you? Don't read it! No one should challenge someone else's art. And why would you even take a literature class if you were not expecting to learn about politics side by side with it. Rant aside! I voted 4.

Voted four, it's probably one of my favorite dystopian future books. I liked the open ending a lot, and I think it resounded with me a lot more than a simply happy or sad ending would have.

It was interesting and I got quite into it but the writing's so-so. It really bugged me when Atwood constantly wrote 'oh, this is how it used to be', as if she had to make the futuristic setting valid. The bits with Offred and the commander were by far the most interesting.

EDIT: Film's totally weird different! Made me appreciate book more.