See now, The Robber Bride is probably my favourite Atwood book (I go back and forth between that and Lady Oracle.) But my connection to it is that it's set in Toronto during the time period I first started living here, so the setting is very alive for me. I also know who the character of Zenia was (allegedly) based on and found Atwood's take on her wickedly funny. If you don't have that connection, I can see why it wouldn't be as interesting.
As with our other book club posts, please save your off-topic comments for the real Open Thread, RIGHT HERE. Yr Friendly Neighborhood Comments Moderator will be fairly aggressive in flagging off-topic posts and asking you to take 'em to the Open Thread. No malice or marks on your permanent record; we just want to be sure this discussion is about Handmaid's Tale and Margaret Atwood -- and DO feel free to discuss her other works, as well as stuff you think makes good supplementary reading!
Religion, like nuclear power or genetic engineering, is neither good nor evil. Depending on the motivations of the men (and a few women) using its power, it can be used for one or the other. For a thousand years it has been used to prevent the poor from realizing they are being cheated by the rich, but not to worry, "for your reward will come in Heaven"
I finished reading before the last book club, and said what I had to say. To reiterate: It was a good book; I appreciated the wordplay, but it was not enjoyable. Too damned close to what's going on, especially considering that Boof Kavanaugh is on the SC and they're taking up the "admitting privileges" idiocy from LA. I reserved The Testaments from the library, but doubt I'll get it in time for book club.
That theme is the one that still sticks with me years after reading the book. The scene where Serena Joy confronts Offred with the evidence of her trip to Jezebel's with the Commander - IIRC, Serena says "How could you?", while knowing perfectly well that Offred couldn't have refused. But Serena can't confront her husband about it either - once again she's trapped by having to follow the rules she wanted to impose on other women, back when she was still allowed to be a public figure. Blaming other women for men's behaviour is not nearly as satisfying now that she has no choice.
In some ways, yes- think of the forced intimacy between the ruling class (the Commanders and their wives) and the enslaved; so very like that which obtained in so many slaveholding societies, yet with the old American puritanism layered on and the constant insistence of the rulers that they are not merely doing good but doing God's will. And with the sour-yet-delicious irony that one of the architects of this horrendous system (Serena Joy) finds herself a victim, in her own way, of getting what she wanted.
Atwood so well portrays Serena's conflicted psyche, at once a bulwark of the system she advocated for and benefits from and yet still a human being, feeling the jealousy natural to her situation of being supplanted as her husband's sexual focus and unable, as you say, to directly confront him.
I remember reading that some enslaved women prayed that their babies be born with obvious disabilities, so that it would be less likely that they would be sold away from them.
This is why totalitarian regimes are so prone to sudden collapse. Nobody at the top follows the rules and the people at the bottom eventually figure it out, get angry and start causing trouble. The government has to expend more and more resources keeping the resisters in line and finally something gives. What follows is not always better and often is worse, but any top-down system loses control eventually.
Atwood picked up the phrase Nolite te bastardes carborundorum when she was a Loeb Fellow at Harvard. Old Harvard saying.
I mostly don't get the references but old. I feel so proud of myself when I do get one!
See now, The Robber Bride is probably my favourite Atwood book (I go back and forth between that and Lady Oracle.) But my connection to it is that it's set in Toronto during the time period I first started living here, so the setting is very alive for me. I also know who the character of Zenia was (allegedly) based on and found Atwood's take on her wickedly funny. If you don't have that connection, I can see why it wouldn't be as interesting.
As with our other book club posts, please save your off-topic comments for the real Open Thread, RIGHT HERE. Yr Friendly Neighborhood Comments Moderator will be fairly aggressive in flagging off-topic posts and asking you to take 'em to the Open Thread. No malice or marks on your permanent record; we just want to be sure this discussion is about Handmaid's Tale and Margaret Atwood -- and DO feel free to discuss her other works, as well as stuff you think makes good supplementary reading!
Religion, like nuclear power or genetic engineering, is neither good nor evil. Depending on the motivations of the men (and a few women) using its power, it can be used for one or the other. For a thousand years it has been used to prevent the poor from realizing they are being cheated by the rich, but not to worry, "for your reward will come in Heaven"
I finished reading before the last book club, and said what I had to say. To reiterate: It was a good book; I appreciated the wordplay, but it was not enjoyable. Too damned close to what's going on, especially considering that Boof Kavanaugh is on the SC and they're taking up the "admitting privileges" idiocy from LA. I reserved The Testaments from the library, but doubt I'll get it in time for book club.
Yup -- and even in Handmaid, there are still hidden Quakers.
That theme is the one that still sticks with me years after reading the book. The scene where Serena Joy confronts Offred with the evidence of her trip to Jezebel's with the Commander - IIRC, Serena says "How could you?", while knowing perfectly well that Offred couldn't have refused. But Serena can't confront her husband about it either - once again she's trapped by having to follow the rules she wanted to impose on other women, back when she was still allowed to be a public figure. Blaming other women for men's behaviour is not nearly as satisfying now that she has no choice.
In some ways, yes- think of the forced intimacy between the ruling class (the Commanders and their wives) and the enslaved; so very like that which obtained in so many slaveholding societies, yet with the old American puritanism layered on and the constant insistence of the rulers that they are not merely doing good but doing God's will. And with the sour-yet-delicious irony that one of the architects of this horrendous system (Serena Joy) finds herself a victim, in her own way, of getting what she wanted.
Ha. The problem was she wanted it for other women, not herself. It didn't occur to her that she'd get lumped in with all the others.
Bows respectfully.
I've been a Good Rooster, lately. I'll try and keep it up.
"Nolite te bastardes carborundorum" was, if memory serves, a Hugh Hefner slogan...
Atwood so well portrays Serena's conflicted psyche, at once a bulwark of the system she advocated for and benefits from and yet still a human being, feeling the jealousy natural to her situation of being supplanted as her husband's sexual focus and unable, as you say, to directly confront him.
To me, the Quakers and the Unitarians are unique among religions in that they do not promote pushing other people around, even for their own good.
I remember reading that some enslaved women prayed that their babies be born with obvious disabilities, so that it would be less likely that they would be sold away from them.
This is why totalitarian regimes are so prone to sudden collapse. Nobody at the top follows the rules and the people at the bottom eventually figure it out, get angry and start causing trouble. The government has to expend more and more resources keeping the resisters in line and finally something gives. What follows is not always better and often is worse, but any top-down system loses control eventually.