The Handmaid's Tale

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is not an entertaining read. It is classic sci-fi, classic dystopia. It is not brain candy.

The story follows Offred, a woman who is caught in a society where fertile women are enslaved as "handmaids." The world is a patriarchal society which has descended into a corruption of Biblical values. Women are possessions. They are used as trophies, mistresses, prostitutes, and breeders. Offred is a breeder.

The book is written like a diary. It reads like an inner conversation, going between the present and flashbacks. Offred is trying desperately to deal with her situation both on an emotional and physical level. There are tricky relationships to navigate with the Commander, his wife, her own husband who is presumed dead, her lost daughter, the other handmaids and house staff. All the while she struggles to keep her moral values while seeing the hypocrisy in the society, which requires her to behave amorally.

Because it is a diary, the plot is simply a look into Offred's life and her struggle. It concludes with an epilogue which is a transcript from a conference in the far future. The speaker addresses Offred's diary as an historical artifact, examining its authenticity and her situations within the confines of the world as it then was. The story never really concludes; we, as well as the conference audience at the end, are left to wonder what became of Offred.

This book is both difficult and beautiful to read. It cannot be rushed; Atwood's writing is so poetic and tragic. It is everything that everyone has said about Atwood - beautiful language, horrific situation. In a word, brilliant.

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