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The Handmaid's Tale
Margaret Atwood (Twitter) (Facebook)
Anchor (1998), Trade Paperback reprint (ISBN 978-0-385-49081-8) (original publication date 1986)
Fiction (speculative), 320 pages
Source: personal copy
Reason for reading: re-read spurred by current events
Opening lines: “We slept in what had once been the gymnasium. The floor was of varnished wood, with stripes and circles painted on it, for the games that were formerly played there; the hoops for the basketball nets were still in place, though the nets were gone. A balcony ran around the room, for the spectators, and I thought I could smell, faintly like an afterimage, the pungent scent of sweat, shot through with the sweet taint of chewing gum and perfume from the watching girls, felt-skirted as I knew from pictures, later in miniskirts, then pants, then in one earring, spiky green-streaked hair.”
Book description, from the publisher’s website:
In the world of the near future, who will control women's bodies?
Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead. She may leave the home of the Commander and his wife once a day to walk to food markets whose signs are now pictures instead of words because women are no longer allowed to read. She must lie on her back once a month and pray that the Commander makes her pregnant, because in an age of declining births, Offred and the other Handmaids are only valued if their ovaries are viable.
Offred can remember the days before, when she lived and made love with her husband Luke; when she played with and protected her daughter; when she had a job, money of her own, and access to knowledge. But all of that is gone now....
Funny, unexpected, horrifying, and altogether convincing, The Handmaid's Tale is at once scathing satire, dire warning, and tour de force.
Comments: I’ve been wanting to re-read The Handmaid’s Tale for awhile, and now that I have, I believe it’s even more timely, relevant - and terrifying - than it was when it was originally published 25 years ago. Other than a few off-note details mostly related to technology - when reading older books that tried to imagine a not-too-distant future, it can be interesting to note how far off the mark they were in how they thought some things would progress - the
