The Handmaid's Tale

Hardcover, 350 pages

English language

Published Nov. 21, 1986 by Jonathan Cape.

ISBN:
978-0-224-02348-1
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4 stars (8 reviews)

Offred is a national resource. She is a handmaid; viable ovaries make her a precious commodity in the Republic of Gilead, where the birthrate has plummeted to dangerous levels. Assigned to a Commander whose wife cannot produce, Offred's purpose is onefold: to breed.

Dressed in red from veil to shoes, apart from the white wings which cover her face, Offred walks in silence each day past the Guardians of the Faith, who man each barrier. She exchanges tokens for food. She visits the Wall, where gender traitors and war criminals hang for atrocities, once legal, committed in the time before.

At night in the bare room, Offred remembers: quaint, outdated customs such as gossiping, using paper money, jogging. Illegal thing: women having jobs, reading, her real name, love. Love used to be central to everything. Now it is irrelevant.

Margaret Atwood, who has shown her formidable insights into the complexities …

56 editions

Not so speculative fiction

5 stars

I was warned this book is not a fun one. Indeed it is not.

You get to see the omnipresent fear and violence of a patriarchal surveillance state. You get to see how it got there, little by little, and how it got accepted. The disturbing part is that it is very much believable...

I hadn't seen since Orwell's "1984" the effect of a totalitarian system on an individual so well described, especially at an individual level. You get to see how a single mind resists or breaks when faced with such overwhelming brutal and oppressive environment.

It is definitely worth reading, especially when you keep in mind the fact that Atwood has been censored in several US states.

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5 stars

Content warning Spoilers de “El cuento de la criada”

Meh

2 stars

I read the Handmaid's Tale yesterday, finally. I'm disappointed. I did not like the writing style at all, there was no real story, just descriptions. And then it just ended. No conclusion or anything.

My best guess it's because the TV show was so intense and well made (at least the earlier seasons), and the book was... Not? Episodes would stay with me for days, but I'm struggling to recall the book.

Maybe the book is supposed to be unsatisfying to go with the theme. Nothing much happened after Gilead was created, every day just kinda goes by. Sure there was some torture and death, but... Eh.

Maybe I was expecting too much after all the praise it got. It's my first Atwood book, and way way outside of my usual genre (fantasy, scifi, horror).

reviewed Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood (The Handmaid's Tale, #1)

a classic

5 stars

I read this classic just two years ago. It felt more relevant to the present than it may have been when it was written. This book is a revolutionary milestone in speculative fiction and probably feminist literature as well, but I found equally interesting that the text is based on progressive loss of innocence. The final chapter is incredible and left me very satisfied.