A brief interlude...The Testaments by Margaret Atwood

Goodness! What a week or two it has been in the world of books. After a very long wait, it's finally here. The Testaments. At long last The Handmaid's Tale has a sequel. And so, to commemorate this momentous...erm...moment, I'm sidestepping away from the only-just-begun never-ending book story for this post because I simply couldn't wait to read this! I tried watching the live midnight launch in London on Instagram but I gave up pretty quickly. There was far too much screaming going on. Screaming? At a book launch? I ask you! Well, I suppose fans can be forgiven. It's not every day this kind of thing happens. Even London's Southbank was lit up green to mark the occasion.

And the view from the critics is pretty much saying it is really well worth the fuss. It was longlisted - and then shortlisted - for the Booker before publication. The Guardian say that to read it is "to feel the world turning". The Telegraph said "it races along like a spy thriller written by Charles Dickens". All sounding pretty positive. Some reviews have been a little more lukewarm. But the overwhelming majority have been admiring and magnanimous.

My local Waterstones opened early (not at midnight - sadly!) so that eager readers could claim a copy before heading to work or school. So the school run was a rather more swift and regimented affair, I can tell you. I nearly rolled down the hill in my haste to finally get hold of it. To my surprise, it was very quiet on the high street and I was somewhat deflated to learn that, at about 0835, I was so far only the second customer to have bought a copy. Not to worry - any customer purchasing the book before 9am was entitled to a FREE coffee in the cafe. I commenced reading immediately.

And what a pleasure to read it is. I am happy to say that it's as good as everyone is saying - and more. Don't worry, I won't give anymore detail than is already out there - no spoilers! I have to say that it is quite a bit different to what I was expecting. I'm glad I re-read The Handmaid's Tale before starting this. It certainly helped to re-immerse myself in the world and workings of Gilead. There's no Offred here so if you're expecting to find out in detail what happened after she climbed into the back of the van then I'm afraid you might be in for a bit of a disappointment. You can always watch the TV series if you want that (Series 2 onward covers what takes place beyond the end of the novel). The Testaments takes place about 15 years after the events of the first book and continues to be presented as evidence of the crimes of the Gilead regime. The novel ends - like the Handmaid's Tale before it - with notes from the symposium on Gileadean Studies where the evidence contained within the novel is being presented to academics and historians studying the rise and fall of the regime. 

In this novel there are three narratives: one is from Aunt Lydia herself, another from the perspective of a girl who has grown up in Gilead as the daughter of a Commander and his Wife (rather than as a Handmaid) and the third voice is that of a girl who has escaped the clutches of the regime and is now residing in Canada. Obviously, I can't and won't say too much as it's only just over a week since the book was published. I have to say that I like the Aunt Lydia sections the best. It is thrilling to get to spend so much time with her. What is revealed about her over the course of the book is simply staggering. But the whole book is, in my view, a total masterpiece. It is gripping and unputdownable and also, of course, highly intelligent. Atwood is a class act and really knows how to drive home a point with a killer sentence: History doesn't repeat itself but it rhymes. How easily a hand becomes a fist. I very much like the way that some of the events played out in the TV series have clearly been accepted as 'canon'. The show covers what might have happened in the years between the two books and reference is made to these events within The Testaments. Something I really enjoyed about the TV series was the filling in of some of the backstory regarding the rise of Gilead. We see how women's credit cards were suddenly stopped and they were sacked from their jobs with immediate effect. We also saw a glimpse of Aunt Lydia's former life. Here, in The Testaments, Aunt Lydia gives more detail about what happened to her when it all began, how she had taken for granted democracy, freedom and basic human rights. Before she really susses what is going on, she's rounded up and put into the back of a van. She recalls:
"To pass the time I berated myself. Stupid, stupid, stupid: I'd believed all the claptrap I'd soaked up at law school...You pride yourself on being a realist, I told myself, so face facts. There's been a coup, here in the United States, just as in times past in so many other countries. Any forced change of leadership is always followed by a move to crush the opposition. The opposition is led by the educated, so the educated are the first to be eliminated. You're a judge, so you are educated, like it or not. They won't want you around."
For me, this is one of the most interesting and successful elements of the book. It all seems frighteningly real and terrifyingly possible. Aunt Lydia also gives a brilliant description of what it is like to live under the Gileadean regime:
"So peaceful, the streets; so tranquil, so orderly; yet underneath the deceptively placid surfaces, a tremor, like that near a high-voltage power line. We're stretched thin, all of us; we vibrate; we quiver, we're always on the alert. Reign of terror, they used to say, but terror does not exactly reign. Instead it paralyzes. Hence the unnatural quiet."

I don't think I want to say too much more or I'll get carried away and start spoiling it. Now that I've finished the book, I'm rather tempted to listen to the audiobook (I never listen to audiobooks!). It's read, in part, by Ann Dowd who plays Aunt Lydia so spectacularly in the TV version. Here's a link to an extract from the very beginning of the novel:

I urge you to read this though. It's a definite 10 out of 10 from me. I hope it wins the Booker. One final point you may not know and that's the fact that everything contained in the books or the TV series has happened in one way or another somewhere in the world. Atwood didn't want to be accused of having an evil imagination so all events are based on reality. Quite a chilling thought, isn't it?

I'll sign off now but please do get in touch with your thoughts on my post and your thoughts on The Testaments. I'd be really interested to hear what you think. Please also subscribe to - and share - my blog if you like what you've read so far.

Next post will be back to the never-ending book story proper and my views on The Last by Hanna Jameson.