Book Thoughts: The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is the second time I have read this book, but the first time in about 15 years (which, among other things, makes me feel old). I think this Atwood tale is somewhat well-known, and creates a distinctive, memorable, and impactful dystopian society tied to religious fundamentalism. There is the destruction, through terrorism and acts involving nuclear weapons, of the leaders of government, which lead to the suspension of elections and the rule of law, and the eventually establishment of a theocratic government based on a strict reading of gender roles based on the Christian Bible. As a result, women are subjected - not able to own property, forbidden to read - among other tragic and, truly, evil scenarios.

The narrator of the book is a women who is unnamed, and has the role of a handmaid in the new society - a position that perversely has a significant purpose, but is used as chattel in the worst of ways. Her flashbacks to her life before are both important in remembering what was lost and making the reader feel the pain of what was lost, but also in driving home Atwood's message of how easily and swiftly subjugation can occur.

The book, from a purely ease of reading perspective, is well-written with good pacing. Sometimes, a book that contains flashbacks in time (as this does from the narrator), can feel disjointed. But Atwood's writing results in those flashbacks, those little nuggets of information, becoming means of pushing the pace of the book ever forward.

If there is one drawback from the work, its that there's not a neat or resolved ending for the reader. But I think that's only a drawback if, for lack of better wording, the reader wants to be told what to think. Instead, I think Atwood's goal (which should be pretty obvious) is to make her readers think. The book easily accomplishes this, and remains one of the most thought-provoking works of fiction I have read.

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