The Handmaid's Tale
by Margaret Atwood
Reviewed by Ted Gioia
Every so often, a sci-fi scenario finds its
way into the serious fiction shelves. The
Handmaid’s Tale is one of those works.
So even if the name of the author is
Atwood, don’t expect to find it next to
Asmiov on the bookstore racks. You will
have better luck looking adjacent to Jane
Austen.
Why are most of the high lit sci-fi novels
based on dystopian future societies? If
you look at 1984 by Orwell or The Road
by Cormac McCarthy or Brave New
World by Aldous Huxley, they all build
their emotional force by painting the future in dark, foreboding
tones. The Handmaid’s Tale is much the same, and it is not out of
place when considered alongside these classics of the genre. And
not just for the gloomy totalitarian nature of the world it depicts.
Atwood is a forceful, nuanced writer, and mostly avoids the clichés
and banalities associated with fiction of this sort.
Her novel presents a Taliban-type society in which a centralized
theocracy controls all aspects of day-to-day life, and is especially
oppressive in the restrictions it imposes on women. Imagine the
type of political and social structure most anathema to subscribers
to Cosmopolitan or viewers of the E cable network and you will have
some idea of what Atwood is conceiving. In other words, this is a
world in which old issues of Vogue magazine are contraband,
makeup is strictly prohibited, high fashion non-existent and sex
limited to the needs of procreation. . . . Well, maybe not completely.
There are still some kinks in the process, and the world’s oldest
profession has adapted to the new world order.
What ushered in this new era? Atwood is sketchy on the details, but
in a prescient passage she mentions that the ruling powers used the
fear of Islamic extremists as justification for its own theocratic
extremism – a fairly interesting detail from a book published in
1985.
Atwood is adroit in structuring her narrative, using flashbacks and
shifts in chronology, and mixing first and third-person accounts, in
constructing her tale. Her writing takes on an ascetic tone that is
well suited to the subject matter, but she adds just the right dose of
metaphor and poetry, while never getting too flashy in a story that
requires a certain amount of starkness in order to set the right
mood. A surprising epilogue adds a satirical element that contrasts
effectively with the main thrust of the narrative.
As with Orwell, the political angle her is obvious at every turn in this
novel. But this book never collapses into mere polemic. And
Atwood’s characters often surprise you, rising above the cartoonish
good-guy versus bad-guy structures of so many dystopian novels.
This is no Atlas Shrugged. Hence, in a book focused on the
oppression of women, Atwood takes time to offer some insightful
details on how the patriarchal structure controls the men in society
as well. Even the most successful participants in the system are
forced into hypocrisy and subterfuge.
All in all, this is a first class novel which has held up with the passing
years, and has well earned its status as a modern-day classic. When
Atwood wrote this book, many would have seen class differences as
the main driver of future global conflicts, and may even have
envisioned a day when theology no longer figured much in current
events. But the oldest belief systems have proven to be the most
persistent and deadly. By focusing instead on theocratic impulses
and religion as a channeling force for tyranny, this author has
created a work that is still highly relevant today.
by Margaret Atwood
Reviewed by Ted Gioia
Every so often, a sci-fi scenario finds its
way into the serious fiction shelves. The
Handmaid’s Tale is one of those works.
So even if the name of the author is
Atwood, don’t expect to find it next to
Asmiov on the bookstore racks. You will
have better luck looking adjacent to Jane
Austen.
Why are most of the high lit sci-fi novels
based on dystopian future societies? If
you look at 1984 by Orwell or The Road
by Cormac McCarthy or Brave New
World by Aldous Huxley, they all build
their emotional force by painting the future in dark, foreboding
tones. The Handmaid’s Tale is much the same, and it is not out of
place when considered alongside these classics of the genre. And
not just for the gloomy totalitarian nature of the world it depicts.
Atwood is a forceful, nuanced writer, and mostly avoids the clichés
and banalities associated with fiction of this sort.
Her novel presents a Taliban-type society in which a centralized
theocracy controls all aspects of day-to-day life, and is especially
oppressive in the restrictions it imposes on women. Imagine the
type of political and social structure most anathema to subscribers
to Cosmopolitan or viewers of the E cable network and you will have
some idea of what Atwood is conceiving. In other words, this is a
world in which old issues of Vogue magazine are contraband,
makeup is strictly prohibited, high fashion non-existent and sex
limited to the needs of procreation. . . . Well, maybe not completely.
There are still some kinks in the process, and the world’s oldest
profession has adapted to the new world order.
What ushered in this new era? Atwood is sketchy on the details, but
in a prescient passage she mentions that the ruling powers used the
fear of Islamic extremists as justification for its own theocratic
extremism – a fairly interesting detail from a book published in
1985.
Atwood is adroit in structuring her narrative, using flashbacks and
shifts in chronology, and mixing first and third-person accounts, in
constructing her tale. Her writing takes on an ascetic tone that is
well suited to the subject matter, but she adds just the right dose of
metaphor and poetry, while never getting too flashy in a story that
requires a certain amount of starkness in order to set the right
mood. A surprising epilogue adds a satirical element that contrasts
effectively with the main thrust of the narrative.
As with Orwell, the political angle her is obvious at every turn in this
novel. But this book never collapses into mere polemic. And
Atwood’s characters often surprise you, rising above the cartoonish
good-guy versus bad-guy structures of so many dystopian novels.
This is no Atlas Shrugged. Hence, in a book focused on the
oppression of women, Atwood takes time to offer some insightful
details on how the patriarchal structure controls the men in society
as well. Even the most successful participants in the system are
forced into hypocrisy and subterfuge.
All in all, this is a first class novel which has held up with the passing
years, and has well earned its status as a modern-day classic. When
Atwood wrote this book, many would have seen class differences as
the main driver of future global conflicts, and may even have
envisioned a day when theology no longer figured much in current
events. But the oldest belief systems have proven to be the most
persistent and deadly. By focusing instead on theocratic impulses
and religion as a channeling force for tyranny, this author has
created a work that is still highly relevant today.
The New Canon focuses on
great works of fiction
published since 1985. These
books represent the finest
literature of the current era,
and are gaining recognition as
the new classics of our time. In
this installment of The New
Canon, Ted Gioia reviews The
Handmaid's Tale by Margaret
Atwood.
great works of fiction
published since 1985. These
books represent the finest
literature of the current era,
and are gaining recognition as
the new classics of our time. In
this installment of The New
Canon, Ted Gioia reviews The
Handmaid's Tale by Margaret
Atwood.
| The New Canon |
| The Best in Fiction Since 1985 |
The New Canon
Home Page
Gabriel García Márquez:
Love in the Time of Cholera
David Foster Wallace:
Infinite Jest
Margaret Atwood:
The Handmaid's Tale
Toni Morrison:
Beloved
Jonathan Franzen:
The Corrections
Don DeLillo:
Underworld
Zadie Smith:
White Teeth
Roberto Bolaño:
2666
Mark Z. Danielewski:
House of Leaves
Cormac McCarthy:
Blood Meridian
Philip Roth:
American Pastoral
Jonathan Lethem:
The Fortress of S0litude
Haruki Murakami:
Kafka on the Shore
Edward P. Jones:
The Known World
Ian McEwan:
Atonement
Michael Chabon:
The Amazing Adventures of
Kavalier & Clay
Philip Roth:
The Human Stain
Mario Vargas Llosa:
The Feast of the Goat
Marilynne Robinson:
Gilead
David Mitchell:
Cloud Atlas
José Saramago:
Blindness
Jennifer Egan:
A Visit from the Good Sqad
W. G. Sebald:
Austerlitz
Jeffrey Eugenides
The Marriage Plot
Donna Tartt:
The Secret History
Michael Ondaatje:
The English Patient
Saul Bellow:
Ravelstein
A.S. Byatt:
Possession
Umberto Eco:
Foucault's Pendulum
Cormac McCarthy:
The Road
David Foster Wallace:
The Pale King
J.K. Rowling:
Harry Potter and the
Sorcerer's Stone
Arundhati Roy:
The God of Small Things
Roberto Bolaño:
The Savage Detectives
Paul Auster:
The New York Trilogy
Per Petterson:
Out Stealing Horses
Ann Patchett:
Bel Canto
Ben Okri:
The Famished Road
Joseph O'Neill:
Netherland
Haruki Murakami:
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
Marisha Pessl:
Special Topics in Calamity
Physics
Jonathan Franzen:
Freedom
Colm Tóibín:
The Master
Denis Johnson:
Tree of Smoke
Richard Russo:
Empire Falls
Alice Munro:
Runaway
Martin Amis:
London Fields
Mark Haddon:
The Curious Incident of the
Dog in the Night-Time
John Banville:
The Sea
Chuck Palahniuk
Fight Club
Jeffrey Eugenides:
Middlesex
Junot Diaz:
The Brief Wondrous Life of
Oscar Wao
Aravind Adiga:
The White Tiger
Tim O'Brien:
The Things They Carried
Irvine Welsh
Trainspotting
Tobias Wolff:
Old School
Tim Winton:
Cloudstreet
David Foster Wallace:
Oblivion
Oscar Hijuelos:
The Mambo Kings Play
Songs of Love
More to come
Recommended Links:
Great Books Guide
Conceptual Fiction
Postmodern Mystery
Fractious Fiction
Ted Gioia's personal web site
Ted Gioia on Twitter
American Fiction Notes
LA Review of Books
The Big Read
Critical Mass
The Elegant Variation
Dana Gioia
The Literary Saloon
The Millions
The Misread City
Page-Turner
Page Views
Disclosure note: Writers on this site and its
sister sites may receive promotional copies of
works under review.
Home Page
Gabriel García Márquez:
Love in the Time of Cholera
David Foster Wallace:
Infinite Jest
Margaret Atwood:
The Handmaid's Tale
Toni Morrison:
Beloved
Jonathan Franzen:
The Corrections
Don DeLillo:
Underworld
Zadie Smith:
White Teeth
Roberto Bolaño:
2666
Mark Z. Danielewski:
House of Leaves
Cormac McCarthy:
Blood Meridian
Philip Roth:
American Pastoral
Jonathan Lethem:
The Fortress of S0litude
Haruki Murakami:
Kafka on the Shore
Edward P. Jones:
The Known World
Ian McEwan:
Atonement
Michael Chabon:
The Amazing Adventures of
Kavalier & Clay
Philip Roth:
The Human Stain
Mario Vargas Llosa:
The Feast of the Goat
Marilynne Robinson:
Gilead
David Mitchell:
Cloud Atlas
José Saramago:
Blindness
Jennifer Egan:
A Visit from the Good Sqad
W. G. Sebald:
Austerlitz
Jeffrey Eugenides
The Marriage Plot
Donna Tartt:
The Secret History
Michael Ondaatje:
The English Patient
Saul Bellow:
Ravelstein
A.S. Byatt:
Possession
Umberto Eco:
Foucault's Pendulum
Cormac McCarthy:
The Road
David Foster Wallace:
The Pale King
J.K. Rowling:
Harry Potter and the
Sorcerer's Stone
Arundhati Roy:
The God of Small Things
Roberto Bolaño:
The Savage Detectives
Paul Auster:
The New York Trilogy
Per Petterson:
Out Stealing Horses
Ann Patchett:
Bel Canto
Ben Okri:
The Famished Road
Joseph O'Neill:
Netherland
Haruki Murakami:
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
Marisha Pessl:
Special Topics in Calamity
Physics
Jonathan Franzen:
Freedom
Colm Tóibín:
The Master
Denis Johnson:
Tree of Smoke
Richard Russo:
Empire Falls
Alice Munro:
Runaway
Martin Amis:
London Fields
Mark Haddon:
The Curious Incident of the
Dog in the Night-Time
John Banville:
The Sea
Chuck Palahniuk
Fight Club
Jeffrey Eugenides:
Middlesex
Junot Diaz:
The Brief Wondrous Life of
Oscar Wao
Aravind Adiga:
The White Tiger
Tim O'Brien:
The Things They Carried
Irvine Welsh
Trainspotting
Tobias Wolff:
Old School
Tim Winton:
Cloudstreet
David Foster Wallace:
Oblivion
Oscar Hijuelos:
The Mambo Kings Play
Songs of Love
More to come
Recommended Links:
Great Books Guide
Conceptual Fiction
Postmodern Mystery
Fractious Fiction
Ted Gioia's personal web site
Ted Gioia on Twitter
American Fiction Notes
LA Review of Books
The Big Read
Critical Mass
The Elegant Variation
Dana Gioia
The Literary Saloon
The Millions
The Misread City
Page-Turner
Page Views
Disclosure note: Writers on this site and its
sister sites may receive promotional copies of
works under review.