The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

(Book Review)

Started: December 25, 2018
Finished: December 31, 2018

Why I Read This Book
So, this is another one of those books that has been on my reading list for forever.
It was first recommended to me back in my college days.  (Strange to reflect that this book was only published in 1986.  It was already being regarded as a classic in the mid-90s.)  I hung out with a political crowd back in those days, and this was a favorite book among the feminists I knew.

I put this book off for years, in part because I got the impression from my friends that this book was more preachy than fun.  But then a few things brought it back to my interest.
First, I read an excerpt from another Margaret Atwood book--The Blind Assassin --and was impressed by the writing style.
Secondly, although I've never seen any episodes of the Hulu TV show, I was nevertheless intrigued that the book apparently had enough plot and world building in it to justify multiple seasons of a TV show.  (It's been renewed for a 3rd season now (W)).
For the past couple years, I'd been hoping to do this as a book club book.  I kept suggesting it.  (It was in my list of suggestions HERE).  But no one else bit.  In large part, because everyone else in the bookclub had already read this book ages ago.
When my parents were in Saigon last year, my mom gave me her copy.  And I finally got around to reading it last month.

The Review
Given that this book is a feminist classic, I'm probably going to get a lot of people mad at me.  But I didn't understand what it was critiquing.

I don't know.  Maybe I'm missing the point.  (I'm probably missing the point.  What are the odds that everyone else is wrong about this book?)

As I read the book, I kept wondering to myself what the point of this book was, and what the point of a dystopian genre is in general.
This book is partly inspired by Orwell's 1984.  (Atwood actually started writing it in the year 1984).  Orwell wrote 1984 as a warning against a possible future.  But The Handmaid's Tale seems so far-fetched that it can't be taken seriously as a warning against a possible future.

...or at least that's my opinion.  Lots of other people think differently, apparently.  After finishing this book, I looked up several reviews of it to try to make sense of what the point of it was.  Many reviewers said something along the lines of "It's frightening how close this is to becoming a reality."

So, I guess I have to argue my case then.  Here are the reasons why I think this book is nowhere close to a realistic portrayal of a possible reality.
First, let me grant that there are elements in this book that are rooted in realistic concerns.  The most obvious one is the concern is that women are going to lose control of their sexuality.  The ability of women to have sex on their own terms for their own pleasure has always been precarious.  For much of world history, women had no control.  In the modern West, women have established some control over their sexuality, but it's only after years of struggle. And there are elements in society who want to take this control away from women.  In many other areas of the world, women even today have no control.
In fact, the idea of women losing control of their sexuality is so well established in history that this part of the novel wouldn't even need to be a dystopian future. It could just as easily be set 200 years in the past.  Or it could be set in modern day in the some other parts of the globe.

It's everything else about this world which confused me.  The whole system of handmaids, who were given out as baby-making slaves to infertile couples, seemed completely out of nowhere.
The inspiration does come directly from the Bible (the story of how Leah and Rachel used their handmaid's to get more children). But this can probably be classified as one of those crazy Old Testament stories that no one reads anymore.  To imagine any modern government in America, even a Christian one, using this as inspiration is stretching things quite a bit.
Secondly, even within the book, the justification for this new system is based on an infertility crisis.  So even by the book's logic, you couldn't argue that our current political climate is leading towards this system, unless there was also some mysterious infertility crisis that also occurred.
(And there's also a toxic environmental crisis going on somewhere in the book as well, which is used as another motivation. People do not to want to get banished to the colonies, and this also helps create a climate of dystopian control.  But arguably the environmental crisis is a minor plot point in the book?)
It also confused me how the repression of women's sexuality would lead to a 1984 style totalitarian government in which (among other things) women were hanged for reading.  We've had plenty of patriarchal governments before in world history, and none of them were this extreme.  1776 America was a patriarchy.  Classical Athens was a patriarchy.  Women didn't have rights in these societies, but nor were they rounded up and put in re-education camps, or hanged because they were caught reading.

Within the novel, it seems clear that the religious right is target of the critique.  There are references to the abortion debate and pornography debate, both of which were big issues of the religious right during the 1980s, when this book was written, and continue to be issues today.  There are multiple references to Christianity as an ideological justification for keeping woman in submission, including the infamous passage in 1 Timothy chapter 2:11-15:

11 A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. 12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet. 13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve. 14 And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. 15 But women will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.

A version of this passage is quoted in full by one of the characters on page 221.
I grew up in a religious community in which I knew a lot of people who took this passage seriously.  And if women are nervous about these kind of groups gaining power, then fair enough.
(Although I still think the idea of women being hanged for reading, or being enslaved as handmaids, is pushing things too far.  Not even the religious right would do that.)

...except, that in the 2017 introduction to the book, Margaret Atwood claims the book is not a critique of religion.  The regime is simply using Biblical ideology as a front:

The regime uses biblical symbols, as any authoritarian regime taking over America doubtless would; they wouldn't be Communists or Muslims. (Introduction, p. xvii)

and

So the book is not "anti-religion." It is against the use of religion as a front for tyranny; which is a different thing altogether. (Introduction p. xviii)

(Searching on the Internet, I've found Margaret Atwood has repeated this in other interviews.  She doesn't view the book as a critique of religion.)
But then, if the novel is not a critique of religion, what is it a critique of?  What other sectors in society does Margaret Atwood think wants to control women's sexuality?

The timing also seemed completely unrealistic to me as well.  (Although maybe arguing about the timing is a nitpick?)  The timeline wasn't 100% clear to me, but the main character is in her early 30s in the novel's present day, and she was in her 20s when the changes began to happen.  So presumably the world completely changed in about 5 years.
I'll grant that 5 years is enough time for one society to crumble.  But I don't think it's enough time for a new one to be established in its place.  And certainly not enough time for traditions and institutions to become normalized--as they are portrayed in this novel.  (I had the same criticisms of It Can't Happen Here and Anno Dracula).

In short, I thought the whole vision of the future presented in this novel was completely unrealistic, and I didn't buy into it for a minute.
...which wouldn't necessarily have been a deal breaker if the novel had been more exciting or more fast paced or less depressing.  But the novel was just so slow moving, and every passage was bent on making you feel the full depression of this world, and how dehumanizing it was to its characters.  But as I was reading it, I kept thinking to myself, "Why am I wasting my time with this?  What lesson am I supposed to be learning here?'

I don't know.  If someone can explain this book to me, I'm open to being talked into a more positive opinion.  But I just didn't get it.  And the book was too slow moving, and too depressing for anyone to want to read unless you thought it was critiquing something worthwhile.

Video Review
Video Review HERE and embedded below.  I talked for 30 minutes before the camera automatically turned off.  But I decided that I said most of what I wanted to say, so I left it as it was.



Link of the Day
about Education-Noam Chomsky