The Handmaid's Tale

by

Mass Market Paperback, 395 pages

English language

Published Dec. 13, 1991 by Fawcett Crest.

ISBN:
978-0-449-21260-8
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OCLC Number:
751034567

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4 stars (3 reviews)

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 valued only if their ovaries are viable.

Offred can remember the years 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... everything has changed. --back cover

47 editions

reviewed The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

Well written, disturbing

3 stars

This work was well written. I would say I liked it three stars. Definitely left me feeling uneasy, and honestly quite hopeless. In part I think that is what the author was going for. A speculative fiction work based in a North American society that has taken Calvinist fundamentalism to the extreme. Including, but not limited to, forbidding "baren" wives from fornicating with their husbands, instead forcing a "hand maid' to move in in which they have a breeding ceremony once a month to try to impregnate her with everyone watching. Its been said that when Atwood only put things in here that already existed somewhere in the world in 1980s. Maybe in Iran? I'm not sure. Seems far-fetched even for such repressive regimes. I was disappointed that the story kind of just ended. Nothing resolved, and it certainly wasn't happy (or maybe it was, we really don't know). The …

reviewed La servante écarlate by Margaret Atwood

Not so speculative fiction

5 stars

I was warned this book is not a fun one. Indeed it is not.

You get to see the omnipresent fear and violence of a patriarchal surveillance state. You get to see how it got there, little by little, and how it got accepted. The disturbing part is that it is very much believable...

I hadn't seen since Orwell's "1984" the effect of a totalitarian system on an individual so well described, especially at an individual level. You get to see how a single mind resists or breaks when faced with such overwhelming brutal and oppressive environment.

It is definitely worth reading, especially when you keep in mind the fact that Atwood has been censored in several US states.

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rated it

3 stars