Maybe this is Atwood telling us also how quickly a thing can just snowball out of control and take on a life of its own and there comes a threshold point where trying to back out is no longer possible. This would be an aspect of social lying. The kinds of lies we tell because we feel we need to keep up appearances, like when you ask Mormons if they drink alcohol and they say "Goodness, no. Never. We're Mormon." but if you pilfer through their trash you'll find bottles of Jack Daniels. If you remember, the Wife, Serena Joy, was also clearly just going through the motions. She didn't have any actual faith in whatever it was they were supposed to believe in. When it was clear that Offred wasn't getting knocked up via the Commander, she's pretty quick to point at Nick's apartment above the garage and figuratively say "Go get you some while I watch the door." She doesn't actually care. She just wants that baby, and who can blame her. She's stuck in a messed up cycle of "only with a baby are you anyone" herself. She's only really got marginally more agency than Offred, if you think about it. As to the Commander, Atwood does give us some conversation concerning the Commander's feelings of no longer being needed, that men were no longer needed in a traditional male role, and I'm not sure how to engage this, if this is Atwood being critical or if this is Atwood being non-partisan in the feminist dynamic. Part of me leans to the latter only because I feel the underlying thread in this story that Atwood is telling us that everything comes from somewhere, it's all a chain of events, and to pretend that a thing doesn't have an antecedent is to hopelessly fail to ever understand it.
I honestly never read the book as a criticism of Christianity itself, or really focusing on Christianity at all. I saw it as a criticism of fundamentalists and of people who are willing to manipulate Christianity (or whatever other religion) to their own ends. It's a political novel, not a religious one, in my reading.
BTW, the mention of the Mormons was a thing I studied in undergrad anthropology. The Tucson Garbage Project is a famous, well-studied, oft-cited midden study (trash heap treasures). One of the things that was done during that project was that two neighborhoods in the Tucson area that were almost exclusively Mormon were polled, door to door, concerning consumption of alcohol. At the same time, their garbage was segregated before it arrived at the dump. Their garbage told a very different story concerning how much they drank compared to the resounding teetotaler answer they pretty much all gave.
I don't think it's a critique on Christianity. Rather, a dystopian scenario of a country that's taken over by religious zealots who are willing to use a religion as means to an end. ETA: Apparently that was what @BayView said above. Of course, if you read THT now, it can be easy to see the parallels to Christian politicking in particular. Just yesterday one Finnish MP was frothing in the news about the recent legalization of same-sex marriage. The law was passed, but this guy and a bunch of other MPs from conservative and Christian parties put together another vote to overthrow the law because "it's against God's will" and "it erodes good, moral values". Of course they lost the vote because most of the parliament actually want to ensure equal rights, and this guy was so pissed about it, he decided to switch his wedding ring to his right hand for 40 days as a symbol of resistance. Another politician tried to push a change to adoption law because in her opinion straight couples had to be at least prioritized in the process over same sex couples. Because the Bible and "good old Christian values." In a democracy, bad ideas tend to get smothered and pushed away while good ideas flourish -- just like in the case of neutral marriage law. But Gilead wasn't a democracy, bad ideas had made it into politics and gained a strong foothold, resulting in a nightmare. We need to be careful that we don't invite this nightmare any further in -- that's why I mentioned Pence and Trump -- and THT (or the upcoming TV show) could serve as a small wake-up call to action. I think that's pretty cool someone has created a novel with that kind of power.
The snowballing reminds me of Nazi Germany - I bet no one thought it could ever get as bad as it did. The planned night club actually reminds me a little of what Hitler had planned for the Jews. A friend told me that Hitler had planned to build a museum of the Jews in Prague - it's why we have Jewish town and all the synagogues are still intact, utterly undamaged by the Nazis. When I asked why, my friend said he thinks it was Hitler's way of saying, "These people existed and they are no more. See what I destroyed. See how weak they were." Interesting logic to want to exterminate a people just to commemorate them in a museum. (I never did verify this piece of history yeah so if it's wrong... let me know lol. I just assumed my friend knew what he was talking about because he's a Jewish missionary who, obviously, is intimate with Jewish history and culture) Anyway, the night club could be similar to this kind of strange, warped logic - exterminate sexual freedom just to plan in a controlled outlet. If it's sanctioned by the state, then it is still under the control of the state - comes back to that illusion of freedom as illustrated by Moira. I always thought it so cruel to rip the baby away from the handmaids. I don't remember the birthing scene in detail now, but wasn't there some story regarding the mother? I don't know how I'd react to a society like that. I'm too vocal, too impulsive, but not quite as brave as Moira. I might have left earlier. But then I wonder how late Offred left it before she decided to flee? It might have been still early on in the regime, considering they still had property, still had a cat, still had a car, and Luke was still with her. It's like a trap that's closed over them and they didn't realise till it's too late. This is kinda scarily real these days, with America and Russia... In the Czech Republic during the communist era, there was one year when the borders were opened - looking at Wiki now it's actually more like 8 months - before the Russians invaded to clamp down on reforms. That was the Prague Spring and one of my friend's husband, a Czech obviously, left the country to study I think at exactly that time. Then he found his country invaded while he was still out and never returned - his family suffered for it. I wonder how many Czechs might have left during those 8 months if they'd known Russia would come for their throats. The Prague Spring was in 1968 and then 1969 there was a famous protester, Jan Palach, if you've heard of him, who set himself on fire and died in protest. The government tried to undermine his actions by calling him mentally unstable and when his mother tried to get the true reason why he'd burnt himself to death out, the government tried to institutionalise her. The spying on people too during communism (Czechs still have the habit of "people watching" from their windows btw) - reminds me of the handmaids being put in pairs, that eerie moment when Ofglen was someone else, yet with the same name. I'm just reading up on names in Handmaid's Tale now and it says neither Luke nor Moira were their real names either? Is that true? I wish I knew what'd happened to Luke. Speaking of names - Offred, Ofglen etc - the suffix -ova that follows a woman's surname means "belong to". Bakalar is my husband's surname and technically I should be Bakalarova - belonging to Bakalar. Strange to see real world parallels with the Handmaid's Tale, but the idea of being named after a man isn't really so strange. The idea of Offred being called thus is so offensive to us and yet we don't bat an eyelid when we tell women to lose their family names once they marry - and there are still men who insist their wives should drop their own names because it "means so much" to them. I wonder if the Aunts really believed the system - or perhaps they made themselves believe because it was better to be an Aunt than to be sent to the nuclear wastelands, as well as retain some power and autonomy, as opposed to the Handmaids. Interesting twist that the most valued commodity should also be the most oppressed, although I suppose that is only natural because whatever is precious must be controlled tightly.
And I think the fact that the reader doesn't get informed how this all happened is evidence of skillful writing on Atwood's part. She's very careful not to give in to authorial intrusion. We know only what Offred knows. And it would seem Offred was living a very typical, "every-person" life in the 'burbs. Important to remember that this book was written before the advent of social media and the constant flood of information and disinformation via the internet. It was easier to just not know things in the 80's, for your world to be as big as just a few blocks, and our training at that time was so very focused on consumerism, it makes perfect sense to me. I was as oblivious as Offred at that time, and she and I would seem to be contemporaries. The baby that Ofwarren has is taken quickly and given to the Wife. The Wife is tucked into bed, with the baby, just as if it had been her who had just given birth. I would have died quickly in Gilead. I like fellahs too much and I'm not a bad-looking guy. I've never had any trouble getting bedtime companionship. I would have gotten sloppy and eventually been caught and hung as a gender traitor. No doubt about it. Gilead, for me, would be a death sentence. At the very end of the book the narrative suddenly switches and we're no longer being spoken to by Offred. In that last bit we are made to know that we've been reading the transcript of tapes that were found somewhere in Maine. It's a kind of sociological or anthropological (or both) symposium. The professor giving the lecture does mention that it's very probable that Offred gave false names in her recordings to safeguard people. It's not really known, but it is postulated as possible by the professor who is speaking. An interesting side-note as regards that part of the book: The professor, in the course of his lecture makes reference to "what was once Canada", so we know that something happened to Canada too, but not what. I would say that this is Atwood caveating the indictment and the warning that liberty is in peril anywhere complacency sets in, not just America. I would think that an Aunt in Gilead would be the most imperiled class of woman. She doesn't offer a service like a Martha, or make babies like a Handmaid. She's not secure as a Wife or an Econowife. Even the prostitutes in the club have something they are offering. An Aunt has only her sheer will to be strict and do as an Aunt is meant to do, else, as you mention, be sent to the Colonies. No security at all. It think of all the woman, an Aunt has the most reason to make herself buy into the scam.
@KaTrian - what you said about that Finnish MP with the ring reminds me of some American couple I read about online once, who said they were gonna get a divorce if same sex marriage was legalised. I think in this sense Christians, like everyone else, are merely human and, according to Christian doctrine, we are all sinners, fallen from holiness. I get the logic with pushing Christian principles into law - if God is perfect and all that he decreed is perfect, then pushing Christian law into secular society isn't about pushing your faith onto anyone else. It's actually about pushing what is simply good and right, trying to shape society into one that is good - in the same way those who pushed for legalising gay marriage also wanted their society to be closer to one that is good and right, because in the end it's not about same sex marriage. It's about equality and the freedom of individuals to be able to love whomever they wish and for gay couples to be accorded the same privileges as anyone else. It's a moral issue, where one believes there's an objective morality. Non-Christian society sees it as a question of equality while the typical Christian society sees it as a question of, I guess, ultimately, the spiritual meaning and purpose of marriage, which is supposed to be symbolic of the relationship of Christ and His people - thus getting this symbol "right" is a big deal. Anyway I keep writing and writing and seeing how complex this whole thing is, and I'm not sure I'm making any sense anymore so I'll stop here. @Wreybies - I have a question re Offred. Considering how conditioned her thinking and even her speech is - the way she speaks in a very detached manner, keeping much of herself private, using pseudonyms etc, the fact that she's telling the story at all - do you think she ever really "escaped" Gilead? I never read the Historical Notes section, but given what you've told me re the Professor finding these tapes, it's clear Offred most likely managed to leave Gilead in the end. But it seems emotionally and mentally, she's still as trapped as ever before. Perhaps that she never finds out what happened to Luke, what became of Moira or perhaps knowing she's still inside, and knowing her own daughter is still inside - perhaps all these were Atwood's attempt to "trap" Offred and thus the reader in Gilead, kinda illustrating how such a society conditions you. How just because it's over doesn't mean it's "over". Again I'm thinking of Czech Republic's communist era - you can still see and feel the effects of communism and it's very much still in everyone's psyche and in the culture. Whenever you mention that the Czechs seem really gloomy, every Czech's response will be: it's because of communism. If you have any complaints about the country, it's always because of communism. And there are still people from the communist era who are alive and working now and you can see their bitterness, the way they try to wield what little power they still have in order to make your life hell, because they were the ones who benefited from the system and now the system is no more. The regime might be over but it's like some people are still in it. You're never really free because what's been imprisoned is your mind. Considering the discovery of the tapes though and the study of the material, I guess Atwood implies Gilead fell in the end. What happened to Ofwarren in the end? That's so harsh that the baby just gets tucked in with the Wife. After all that pain of childbirth and not even the joy of holding your own baby I think didn't Ofwarren try to get the baby back or something? I wonder how Ofwarren felt towards the end of the pregnancy - there must have been such dread. The diary of a pregnant Handmaid would have been very interesting to read. I have often wondered - what happens to the girls born into the system, or children taken into the system, like Offred's daughter? Do they all graduate into Wives and Handmaids become obsolete, since I am assuming these girls would be fertile? Wouldn't the Econowives simply die out, since I think they don't have the luxury of having a Handmaid assigned to them? The lack of names got me thinking of the Commander - like the women, they kinda also don't have names. Offred is more of a title and the name Fred is never used on the Commander. Combined with how men were no longer "needed", how they are equally unfulfilled, even if they had the outlet of the night club, it could be said that the men were equally invisible.
In the Historical Notes section of the book, it's mentioned that it's not known whether Offred actually escaped or not. The tapes were found in Maine, which would have been part of Gilead. I agree that it would seem hard for anyone subjected to what Offred dealt with to be able to shed it. I mean, just to survive she had to take it in at some level, to be able to pass unnoticed. Oh, yes. It's stated explicitly in the Historical Notes that Gilead did not last. Incidentally, the lecture or symposium of which the Historical Notes is comprised happens at least 200 years after the time of Offred. It's worse. The baby, first thought to be perfect and a success, turns out to be a "shredder" in the end. I cannot imagine a more horrific term for Atwood to use, "shredder". Offred's gal-pal, Ofglen let's her know about it since the two of them were miffed at Ofwarren's smugness at having gotten preggers when it seems that it's actually a pretty rare event. They never say what's wrong with the baby. At a "Prayvaganza" they see Ofwarren, thin, drained, and lifeless. No idea. I think Offred doesn't know so we don't get to know. Agreed. It's a pretty bleak existence all around. They're all slaves to the concept of Gilead in one way or another. In the Historical Notes, the Professor postulates as to who the Commander could be, assuming "Fred" was his real name, and be it the case, we learn that one of the possible candidates for who he was was executed in one of the "purges" that took place early on in the history of Gilead.
Just read an interesting interview with Atwood in which she addresses at least some of the issues we discussed here... https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/10/books/review/margaret-atwood-handmaids-tale-age-of-trump.html
I read this for the first time last week. I thought it was excellent but a bit disappointing at the end. One of those books that really didn't have much of a plot, so as I read and the remaining pages dwindled it became clear that since there was not much going on there would not be much to resolve, and hence no payoff. Sadly this became true. And the "historical notes" resolution where some academic was addressing a crowd 150 years later to fill was one of the lamest denouements I've ever read in a book of this quality. To me, that was almost a "fuck you" from Atwood. Like she was admitting that none of what she wrote was historically believable. but here's a cheesy book report in case any of the readers have questions. That took the book from masterpiece to merely excellent in my opinion. Two thoughts here. 1. Atwood's scenario as described was not believable for all the reasons @Steerpike mentioned (and a shitload more I won't bore anyone with). 2. But it didn't hurt my enjoyment of the story or the world in the least. I really don't think she put much thought into how the revolution happened, as evidenced by the shooting of the president and Congress as the only real explanation. And that was smart because if she spent any more time describing it it would have fallen apart fairly quickly. A 1984 style deconstruction of society would not have worked for her purposes. I feel like she envisioned a world where women had been commoditized and debased to their barest biological functions and that was enough. It was enough for me too because the premise was totally believable. The details of how we got there were unimportant to her and to me as well. Until I started thinking about it later. The religious conflation was underdone and a little lazy in my opinion. Like, how in the world did religious sects acquire sovereignty or a military style institutional organization? The devolution of women seemed to follow a direct Nuremberg/Jews path (disenfranchisement, expropriation of property, banishment from the workplace and later society) , but whatever. It's literary fiction. If the prose doesn't hook you nothing else will. And again, had she gone too far explaining this it would've gone splat. She could have made a top-down revolution in America possible (which is why people fear Trump), but it's clear she had no desire to put the work in there. And that's fine. The United States is essentially revolution proof in the classic torch and pitchfork bottom-up sense. Even in fiction. Great, great job by Atwood driving attention away from the plot hole. If you can write around that you write around anything. I'm assuming this book took place in Cambridge, Mass and the Citadel style fortress was on the campus of Harvard University? She mentioned Boston and Mass Ave. somewhere and a "city across the river," so that said Cambridge and Harvard to me. Nice touch. A bit over the top, but still cool. I haven't been to Harvard in a bit but she seemed to get the geography right, though I did have a little chuckle when the lecturer mentioned Bangor, Maine as one of the underground railroad stops on the way to Canada. I suppose that's possible if one wanted to head a few hundred miles out of their way from Boston to Canada, or if in Atwood's version of 'Murica Bangor was large enough to actually hide people in. Or was much closer to the Atlantic Ocean than it is in reality. It was difficult not to compare THT to The Road and 1984, and one major problem that didn't occur to me until I'd thought about it for a few days was where's the hope? Where's the humanity? And where was Offred's agency? The Road tears your fucking out because the characters retain hope and some semblance of humanity. Ditto for Winston in 1984. These characters have goals and desires. They cling to humanity in the face of dystopia. What does Offred have? Survival for the sake of survival? Reuniting with her daughter (it was clear from the beginning that that was never a possibility)? I understand that the idea was to portray her as a passive entity kept alive only to lay on her back, and sure she reaches out to Moira, Nick, and the Commander to some extent, but she seemed to move from chapter to chapter without any desire to control her own life anymore. Ditto for the rest of the characters. There was no humanity left anywhere. No reason for us to get too invested in any of them because it was painfully clear that nothing would end well. Not that shit ended well in 1984 or The Road either, but at least the reader had some characters to root for. Offred can't even root for herself and that hurt my engagement with her to a certain extent. Not that I couldn't identify or feel bad for her, but at no point did I want to rescue her because I sensed she was done for already. In fact, the more I read, the more I wished that Moira was the MC because her journey and motivations were far more compelling. Or Ofwren or the commander's wife. Honestly, I found Offred to be the least compelling character in the book, and that's not the look you want for your MC. Things happen to her. The others seem to make things happen, and I found all of their stories far more interesting. Also, kudos, fist-bumps, and big-ups for @Wreybies Mievelle reference to "unseeing". The City and the City was playing in the back of mind as I read this. Specifically that it took about half the book for me to realize what the hell was going on. When I finally figured out what Mievelle's gimmick was I had to put the book down for a few days just to wrap my head around the premise. THT wasn't quite as mind-blowing, but it was close. One of those book where figuring out the angles was almost as important the story itself. I'd highly recommend The City and the City to anyone who hasn't read it. By far Mievelle's best work and one of the most cleverly executed books ever.
This assumes that there wouldn't be a rather different version of the hotel. I absolutely assume that there would.
As much as I loved The City and the City, Embassytown still remains my favorite of his books. I'm sure I'm prejudiced in this regard given that I work in a facet of the field of linguistics. But to relate TCatC to Handmaids's Tale, I think there is some comment here that can be made as regards the writing of a story. Both stories, when taken at surface value, have settings that are arguable as regards probability, especially TCatC. But does it really matter as regards the telling of these two particular stories? The Handmaid's Tale is a phenomenally successful book. You and I both know that TCatC is humbling in how awesome it is. Yet, countless threads in this forum and other writing forums where people concern themselves with creating a probable or believable setting and scrapping anything that seems like it could never really happen. In another writing forum, a good while back, a member posted a brainstorming thread about a story that takes place in a fictional country where the legal system practices a kind of law where punishment is literally of the an eye for an eye mentality. The other members poopooed her idea pointing out all the flaws in such a legal system. I thought it was a really interesting premise, and it seemed pretty clear to me that the meat of her story would be in the very flaws everyone was pointing out and saying "bad idea". Clearly Atwood and Miéville each had something very specific, very focused they were trying to say with their respective works. They each understood the why of their story. I think that's much more important, and in that way I was totally able to buy the un-buyable border between Besźel and Ul Qoma. It's not meant to be engaged as an actual geographic border. It's a border of the mind.
The Road spoilers below people - I'm talking about the film, not the book, but SPOILERS SPOILERS! @Homer Potvin - I haven't read The Road, but I saw the film. By "hope", you don't mean the horribly Americanised nuclear family with a dog right at the end that adopts the orphaned child, do you? Because I thought that was the most ridiculous ending ever. I don't know about the book, but the film was probably the most despairing film I've ever seen - for the first time I wished the characters would just die, because there wasn't even a shred of hope in it. You know from the start going to the coast would bring no fruit, and the dad goes and dies. I mean, c'mon. Hope!? That ending just felt like it was taking the mick - something completely not foreshadowed, and didn't make an ounce of sense. I find it hard to believe in a world where humans have turned cannibalistic and where one was utterly friendless because the person you're with might just eat you that there's now suddenly a random family who did not know this kid at all from the past would now adopt him - when it must have been hard enough to feed their own two children. And a dog on top of all this? I don't buy it. At all. It was absurd as opposed to offering any genuine hope - like it just took you through a heart-wrenching roller coaster and then stick a big fat middle finger in your face like Ha! Just kidding! Everything's all right really! I've never heard of The City and the City - what's it about? Anyway back to Offred - I'm not sure it's fair to say she was entirely passive and have let go of her own life. She's still fighting, in her mind, which is really the final battleground. You win the mind, you win the soul - and Gilead could never claim her. They could claim her body but never her soul. They could make her do what they wanted and never truly own her. She copes by submitting, and that's a survival tactic too. But I agree, I wish there was more of a resolution. I wish she did something to actually physically break out of the system. I wish she'd run down the street and taken her daughter in the middle of the night again - I wish there was a scene when they look each other in the eye and Offred sees that she remembers after all. I wish I knew where Luke was. But these things that I find make the book lacking is kinda part of the whole point of the story, so I'm not sure I can say it's a flaw so much as it's just not my kind of book. The book lacks any kind of drama - even the ending is anti-climactic almost. The monotony of the book bored me. I know it was all deliberate but yeah, not my kinda book.
It's a police procedural as regards genre. It's also Weird Fiction in that there are some elements of non-reality. It concerns the investigation of a murder. The non-reality comes in the form of the border between the two cities.
Hope in the sense that they have goals and do things to accomplish those goals despite the improbability of success. Basically they know they're fucked but retain human agency instead of laying down and dying. Try the book. Way more disturbing. The movie is almost PG by comparison. Good times!
The book also had that bit of fire that they always carried with them and had to maintain - linking that to "hope" seems pretty clear. I haven't seen the movie (the book was enough for me...)
Really, really good movie. Garret Dilahunt plays the guy the man shoots. He's on screen for maybe three minutes but it's one of the most frightening performances I've ever seen. Great actor. Great faccia!
@Homer Potvin - the film was horrific enough for my taste. I don't need the book too. I believe you that it's probably ten times more powerful - and I have no wish to feel despair at that level! Who's the guy the man shoots? That's probably the vaguest sentence I've seen in a while! For me, Mortensen's performance was great - that look of despair and desperation when he holds that guy at gunpoint and makes him strip down. Wow. Anyway, the improbability of success is probably what killed it for me - that I the viewer knows it's futile and have to watch these characters try so damn hard just so they can be disappointed. That's just cruel. Handmaid's Tale, on the other hand, doesn't give you this illusion of hope - for some reason I can tolerate that better. It's still horrible, but there's something cruel about The Road that just isn't in Handmaid's Tale. Handmaid was matter of fact - as I said, the monotony, oh the monotony of tone and events! - but it never tries to be something it isn't, never tries to reach for something that isn't within reach, never dupes the reader into thinking something could change when never will change, never asks the reader to watch the MC fail. I'm guessing The Road is probably a pretty darn good book... @Wreybies - that city city book sounds really interesting. I'm totally gonna give it a go.
Yeah, that'll happen when none of the characters have names, haha. The "man" (which is the character's official name) is Viggo and the "guy" is the one he catches taking a leak near them when that truck full of bad dudes breaks down... it's the only dude he actually shoots.
I started reading Hanan al-Shaykh's Women of Sand and Myrrh, and I'm getting strong Atwood vibes -- except it's not about a distant dystopia. It's present day (well, late 1980s but it's not like things have improved that much e.g. in Saudi-Arabia). It's suffocating, angering, and oppressive, just like the situation these women are in. It's like every time I close the book to take a break, I'm disoriented for a moment because the lives of these women linger in my mind. I guess that's the power of literature.
Just saw this article likening Saudi Arabia with Gilead: https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/05/24/opinion/why-saudi-women-are-literally-living-the-handmaids-tale.html Makes me wonder why i haven't seen any Ted videos or more books circulated about the abuses of Saudi women - by contrast there seems to be a much higher awareness of North Korea and its human rights violation. That N.K doesn't have any western allies and Saudi has America probably factors into how much we hear about each country's misconduct...
Just because a book is a mainstream classic, doesn't mean it should be disregarded. I suppose like everything else, there are some snobs that think something has to be obscure or heady to be good. Animal Farm may be a simplified version of Russian history for 9th graders, but the imagery of the pigs replacing the humans is a chilling idea that lurks in the back of my mind as an adult. A Brave New World or 1984 couldn't be more prescient and applicable to today's world. There is a reason why they are timeless classics.
And the resultant conversation in this thread wherein I held forth at length and repeatedly is evidence that I clearly agree with that.
