Retro Review: The Handmaid's Tale
/When I started this blog, I had been posting reviews on Goodreads for about 6 months. In the interest of having all of my book writing in one place, I will post one of these old reviews every Friday. They weren't written with a blog in mind, so please forgive the lack of summary and off-the-cuff tone.
4 stars. What can be said about this book that hasn't already been said? It's awkward to even attempt an analysis - I doubt I could draw a unique conclusion from The Handmaid's Tale even if I spent years trying. Not only has this book been picked apart word by word since its publication, it's also a fairly easy book to analyze. The message is clear. The message is loud.
And yet ... one size does not fit all. The beauty of this book - of all books, really - is that every single reader can interpret something entirely different. What I found to be a deafening warning could be an ideal aspiration for another. Let's hope not, but it could be.
Rather than jump into all the pushing and shoving, instead of extrapolating comprehensively about the overarching themes of this book, I'll just point out a few things that stuck with me, with me personally, when I finished reading it.
First of all, men are barely in this book. We have male characters, and it would seem that a primary focus of the new society is the relationship between men and women. But our protagonist attaches much more significance to the actions of women. She observes more closely - and is much more critical of - the behavior of her female counterparts. This does not mean that she discounts the importance of men; she acknowledges her need and desire for them and also the fact that she is oppressed by them. But complacency comes in many forms, and the women of Gilead, under Atwood's eye, are guilty of oppression just as much as the men are.
Secondly, Atwood's choice of the color red is brilliant. Red symbolizes anger, lust, sin, sexual sin specifically, and adultery. It's also visually striking - the opposite of camouflage. It can be powerful and attractive and distinctive. It's intense. The color red, though, also symbolizes menstruation and fertility - holiness, in the eyes of Gilead's society. Here Atwood demonstrates the hypocrisy of this society's "ideals."
Lastly (and I know this isn't a particularly unique response - see first paragraph above), my reaction to this book was incredibly emotional. I suppose at the end of the day, upon finishing the epilogue, I felt ... hurt. My feeling were hurt. I know that seems lame and petty and like something a twelve-year-old would say, but I felt the accuracy of Atwood's forecast and I felt the fear and the pain and the idea of "wow, I can see this happening."
Disclaimer: I am extremely lucky and have been afforded a tremendous amount of privilege in my life. I do not mean to position myself as a victim. But I'm a woman, so I have faced and will always face the risk of being considered "less." Reading this book triggered a lot of feelings about that, but under all the anger and fury and resentment and determination, it just fucking hurt.
Remember when I said that there is pretty much no room for commentary on this book because it's so universally-analyzed? Whoops. Bottom line: this is one of the most important books of all time and everyone should read it.
