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thucydides_groupie 's review for:
The Handmaid's Tale
by Margaret Atwood
*snorts* Wow, so this wasn't good
The suspension of disbelief made the exposition almost laughable. We're seriously supposed to ignore the fact that the entire US society changed overnight and everyone just accepted it? The fact the US was the only country impacted by this strange change of gov't makes everything even more bizarre. The rest of the world would not be unaffected by such a drastic change. I know Atwood wanted to make connections to the regime change in Iran during the late 1970s when women lost all rights, but Iran itself is a small nation. It would've been more impactful of a comparison if she'd written about a society comparable in size. Using a country as huge as the US doesn't make sense. (For comparison, Iran's population in 1979 was roughly 37 million. The US's 1979 population was roughly 225 million.) The economic implications of removing every woman from the American workforce (half the working population!!) is far too drastic to even fathom.
People claim this is some oh so great work of feminist literature, but how? Atwood acts as if her sex is some fleeting unimportant aspect of society -- that's the conclusion she insinuates when that's exactly how the entire US population reacted to this change in regime. When a book where the main plot point focuses on a woman desperate to run off and hook up with a man is supposed to be a glowing example of feminist literature, then what has feminism come to?
I'm also annoyed to no end that Offred at one time had a husband and a cHILD, and yet not once does she show interest in being reunited with her loved ones. Completely disregarding her former life does absolutely nothing for the exposition. If anything, it just makes it more confusing.
A final point I'll bring up is Atwood's apparent pride is having no knowledge of Christianity or its history. She heavily implies that this alternate US gov't has beliefs rooted in Christianity. In the process she disregards the fact that the Puritans were supporters of divorce and against domestic abuse; she disregards Quakers who were radical for their time with their beliefs in women's rights and abolitionism. If Atwood is simply against religion, I have no problem with that; but it's the way in which she tries so desperately to point the finger in this prose that (by extension) causes the entire plot to become hindered. It was in poor taste and it was badly done.
The suspension of disbelief made the exposition almost laughable. We're seriously supposed to ignore the fact that the entire US society changed overnight and everyone just accepted it? The fact the US was the only country impacted by this strange change of gov't makes everything even more bizarre. The rest of the world would not be unaffected by such a drastic change. I know Atwood wanted to make connections to the regime change in Iran during the late 1970s when women lost all rights, but Iran itself is a small nation. It would've been more impactful of a comparison if she'd written about a society comparable in size. Using a country as huge as the US doesn't make sense. (For comparison, Iran's population in 1979 was roughly 37 million. The US's 1979 population was roughly 225 million.) The economic implications of removing every woman from the American workforce (half the working population!!) is far too drastic to even fathom.
People claim this is some oh so great work of feminist literature, but how? Atwood acts as if her sex is some fleeting unimportant aspect of society -- that's the conclusion she insinuates when that's exactly how the entire US population reacted to this change in regime. When a book where the main plot point focuses on a woman desperate to run off and hook up with a man is supposed to be a glowing example of feminist literature, then what has feminism come to?
I'm also annoyed to no end that Offred at one time had a husband and a cHILD, and yet not once does she show interest in being reunited with her loved ones. Completely disregarding her former life does absolutely nothing for the exposition. If anything, it just makes it more confusing.
A final point I'll bring up is Atwood's apparent pride is having no knowledge of Christianity or its history. She heavily implies that this alternate US gov't has beliefs rooted in Christianity. In the process she disregards the fact that the Puritans were supporters of divorce and against domestic abuse; she disregards Quakers who were radical for their time with their beliefs in women's rights and abolitionism. If Atwood is simply against religion, I have no problem with that; but it's the way in which she tries so desperately to point the finger in this prose that (by extension) causes the entire plot to become hindered. It was in poor taste and it was badly done.