Margaret Atwood | Fiction
At first, I was chastising myself for not reading this 1986 classic sooner. And then I arrived at page 93, Chapter 16, when the Commander and the Handmaid have sex and I discovered that image had been carved by a wood burner into my memory. I realized I had read The Handmaid's Tale before. But I recalled little and was inspired to continue reading it again.
Briefly, the story — there has been a cultural and social revolution resulting in civil wars and a totalitarian society in Gilead. This is a dystopian novel of what happens to the women, especially, when roles are proscribed and freedoms removed and families broken up, and tolerance disavowed.
No surprise, Atwood’s writing is exquisite and powerful. Our narrator, one such Handmaid, whose primary job is to bear a child for her Commander and his Wife, weaves the story of her past into the telling of her present life. As with any dystopian novel, it caused me to wonder ... could we fall victim to such a regime; such a cultural shift? And to what extent have we already, without realizing it?
If you haven’t read this, you owe it to yourself. If you've read it decades ago, consider rereading.
And my burning question is ... have you seen the television series? How is it? Should I track it down?