Astrid Hawk
[Read #3, July 2025]
I didn't note my thoughts down on this book the first 2 times I read it - once as a teenager, and then later as a young adult.
As a teenager, I loved dystopian stories for the secrets; the system-taken-as-fact that is clearly so dysfunctional to the reader's eyes but just the way of life for the narrator; the protagonist's slow journey to revelation, waking up to the fact that their world is full of wrongness. I enjoyed the emotional arc of such stories - the build of discomfort as more and more “wrongness” is revealed, then the increasing sense of danger as the protagonist starts pulling back the curtain and is thus in danger of being a victim of the regime, and finally the victory of truth over lies, humanity over machine, emotion over transaction. Looking back, I suppose it's ironic that I enjoyed dystopian stories in the same way that any of those stories' regimes' propaganda might have tried to mis-represent my own life, but I never applied what I read to current life.
The Handmaid's Tale is a bit different from the formula I enjoyed as a kid - our protagonist and narrator, Offred, grew up to adulthood during “the time before”. She's under no illusions about what's wrong with the system she lives in, about what's been taken from her. She spends long paragraphs reminiscing, in a sort of detached way that indicates how the process has psychologically wounded and changed her, about everyday things she remembers. There is a constant, explicit contrast in the book between Then and Now, and she's under no illusions about the regime she lives under, from its euphemisms to its violence. On the one hand, it robs me of teenager me's favorite part - the slow, horrifying reveal and then the triumph of truth and knowledge. On the other hand, with all the regime's dirty secrets known up front, at allowed me to consider an aspect of regime changes like this that I didn't as a teenager: the psychological impact of simultaneously holding the knowledge that unspeakable acts have been committed against you, and having accepted life as it is.
When I read the book as a teenager, I was more interested in things like how the rules worked, the contrast between the Before and After, and what would happen to the characters. In fact, I don't remember much about that first read, probably because I didn't even understand most of the euphemistic or oblique references to sexual acts, and some of the terms for classes of men and women that had their roots in real-life cultural issues that I didn't pay attention to.
When I read as a young adult, I understood things a bit better, but looking back, I still lacked a lot of human experience and awareness of the world outside myself. I was hyperfocused on out-performing at my first real professional job and kickstarting my career. I'd had some relationships, but my generation wasn't yet old enough to have dealt with divorce, abortion, having children (at least not in my personal sphere). I'd given up religion by then, but still felt like it was just something you could leave and ignore, failing to understand the political ramifications and pressures it creates (outside of the history I'd been taught, which all felt very remote). Although I knew the basics of women's suffrage history, women's reproductive rights history, separation of church and state, etc - this was during the Obama years in the US. All those issues felt like solved history, and I was too caught up in my own career and ambitions to realize that they were still very much relevant and in danger.
And now, today. 2025. This whole story feels pretty dated at this point in the details, but more relevant than ever in the large. It references real political actions that occurred in the '70s and '80s as if they were just a couple years ago - and while people are certainly still taking to the streets on foot with hand-printed signs and slogans, the slogans and the tone are different. The technology references are a mix of '80s technology plus a vague assumption of where fintech might go in the near future - and of course today the systems that people rely on on a daily basis are far beyond anything Atwood might have envisioned with the Compubank. (Arguably, with today's systems, people are even MORE vulnerable than they would have been with the fictional Compubank.). Much of the regime feels like it was combined from the worst bits of popular understanding of fundamentalist cults and soviet/communist regimes of the 1970s - it has an antiquated tone to it. And yet, there are loud voices on TV and social media today calling for very similar measures.
I appreciated, too, a lot more of the meandering stream-of-consciousness prose of the book. It is less a linear story as I remembered, and more of a revelation of a person undone. I appreciated more of Atwood's prose, mixing the blunt and mundane with poetic metaphor and mild sarcasm. The narrator frequently interrupts herself to reflect somewhat self-mockingly on old phrases she used to use (some of which we still use today) - for example, at one point she wryly reflects, while nervously waiting, that there is a difference between “what are you waiting for?” (meaning - don't wait) and “for what are you waiting?” (meaning - what are you anticipating?). At times it's disruptive, but it really gives the reader a clear view into the narrator's mind.
Offred isn't like the heroic protagonist of my favorite stories as a kid. She's broken; not resisting in any meaningful way, but in only small symbolic ways only noticeable to herself. And even then, her resistance is not noble, in the name of truth and love, but just in the name of making her existence slightly more bearable. Even when she starts engaging in more significant illicit behaviors, she does so at the compulsion of others - not in the name of undermining the regime or bettering life for anyone else. On the one hand, it's disappointing - I WANT her to be clever, using matches and butter and stolen dried flowers to somehow piece together a way to communicate with the resistance group, to be a force for knowledge and clarity and freedom. And she's definitely not that. On the other hand, the message is so much more powerful for all the things she doesn't do, and all the questions that go unanswered.
So... now that there's a sequel... should I read it? Or should I leave the mystery? The unanswered questions, leading vaguely into a dissatisfying future that probably looks a lot like our present? (I have very little self control when it comes to books... I'll probably read it. At least I've taken this moment to reflect, so Gilead-before-the-sequel is firmly memorialized.)
[Read #3, July 2025]
I didn't note my thoughts down on this book the first 2 times I read it - once as a teenager, and then later as a young adult.
As a teenager, I loved dystopian stories for the secrets; the system-taken-as-fact that is clearly so dysfunctional to the reader's eyes but just the way of life for the narrator; the protagonist's slow journey to revelation, waking up to the fact that their world is full of wrongness. I enjoyed the emotional arc of such stories - the build of discomfort as more and more “wrongness” is revealed, then the increasing sense of danger as the protagonist starts pulling back the curtain and is thus in danger of being a victim of the regime, and finally the victory of truth over lies, humanity over machine, emotion over transaction. Looking back, I suppose it's ironic that I enjoyed dystopian stories in the same way that any of those stories' regimes' propaganda might have tried to mis-represent my own life, but I never applied what I read to current life.
The Handmaid's Tale is a bit different from the formula I enjoyed as a kid - our protagonist and narrator, Offred, grew up to adulthood during “the time before”. She's under no illusions about what's wrong with the system she lives in, about what's been taken from her. She spends long paragraphs reminiscing, in a sort of detached way that indicates how the process has psychologically wounded and changed her, about everyday things she remembers. There is a constant, explicit contrast in the book between Then and Now, and she's under no illusions about the regime she lives under, from its euphemisms to its violence. On the one hand, it robs me of teenager me's favorite part - the slow, horrifying reveal and then the triumph of truth and knowledge. On the other hand, with all the regime's dirty secrets known up front, at allowed me to consider an aspect of regime changes like this that I didn't as a teenager: the psychological impact of simultaneously holding the knowledge that unspeakable acts have been committed against you, and having accepted life as it is.
When I read the book as a teenager, I was more interested in things like how the rules worked, the contrast between the Before and After, and what would happen to the characters. In fact, I don't remember much about that first read, probably because I didn't even understand most of the euphemistic or oblique references to sexual acts, and some of the terms for classes of men and women that had their roots in real-life cultural issues that I didn't pay attention to.
When I read as a young adult, I understood things a bit better, but looking back, I still lacked a lot of human experience and awareness of the world outside myself. I was hyperfocused on out-performing at my first real professional job and kickstarting my career. I'd had some relationships, but my generation wasn't yet old enough to have dealt with divorce, abortion, having children (at least not in my personal sphere). I'd given up religion by then, but still felt like it was just something you could leave and ignore, failing to understand the political ramifications and pressures it creates (outside of the history I'd been taught, which all felt very remote). Although I knew the basics of women's suffrage history, women's reproductive rights history, separation of church and state, etc - this was during the Obama years in the US. All those issues felt like solved history, and I was too caught up in my own career and ambitions to realize that they were still very much relevant and in danger.
And now, today. 2025. This whole story feels pretty dated at this point in the details, but more relevant than ever in the large. It references real political actions that occurred in the '70s and '80s as if they were just a couple years ago - and while people are certainly still taking to the streets on foot with hand-printed signs and slogans, the slogans and the tone are different. The technology references are a mix of '80s technology plus a vague assumption of where fintech might go in the near future - and of course today the systems that people rely on on a daily basis are far beyond anything Atwood might have envisioned with the Compubank. (Arguably, with today's systems, people are even MORE vulnerable than they would have been with the fictional Compubank.). Much of the regime feels like it was combined from the worst bits of popular understanding of fundamentalist cults and soviet/communist regimes of the 1970s - it has an antiquated tone to it. And yet, there are loud voices on TV and social media today calling for very similar measures.
I appreciated, too, a lot more of the meandering stream-of-consciousness prose of the book. It is less a linear story as I remembered, and more of a revelation of a person undone. I appreciated more of Atwood's prose, mixing the blunt and mundane with poetic metaphor and mild sarcasm. The narrator frequently interrupts herself to reflect somewhat self-mockingly on old phrases she used to use (some of which we still use today) - for example, at one point she wryly reflects, while nervously waiting, that there is a difference between “what are you waiting for?” (meaning - don't wait) and “for what are you waiting?” (meaning - what are you anticipating?). At times it's disruptive, but it really gives the reader a clear view into the narrator's mind.
Offred isn't like the heroic protagonist of my favorite stories as a kid. She's broken; not resisting in any meaningful way, but in only small symbolic ways only noticeable to herself. And even then, her resistance is not noble, in the name of truth and love, but just in the name of making her existence slightly more bearable. Even when she starts engaging in more significant illicit behaviors, she does so at the compulsion of others - not in the name of undermining the regime or bettering life for anyone else. On the one hand, it's disappointing - I WANT her to be clever, using matches and butter and stolen dried flowers to somehow piece together a way to communicate with the resistance group, to be a force for knowledge and clarity and freedom. And she's definitely not that. On the other hand, the message is so much more powerful for all the things she doesn't do, and all the questions that go unanswered.
So... now that there's a sequel... should I read it? Or should I leave the mystery? The unanswered questions, leading vaguely into a dissatisfying future that probably looks a lot like our present? (I have very little self control when it comes to books... I'll probably read it. At least I've taken this moment to reflect, so Gilead-before-the-sequel is firmly memorialized.)