Chapter Two - The Handmaid's Tale

Wow! You came back! Thanks so much. Have any of you treated yourself to a copy of How To Be Invisible after my last post? I really do hope so! 

You'll no doubt remember that the next step on my adventure was to re-visit The Handmaids Tale. I've been reading the glorious Folio Society edition. I'm very, very slowly (they are not cheap!!) building up a nice collection of Folio editions and they are a real pleasure to read. The paper feels so luxurious. And the illustrations are always interesting and add another layer to the reading experience. If you've never had a Folio Society book before, I urge you to treat yourself. They really are gorgeous books. Here, for your viewing pleasure, are some images of The Handmaids Tale:

From the off I should say that this blog is likely to feature spoilers. I'm also assuming you don't need to be given a summary of the plot. I think that's fair given it was published 30-odd years ago! 

I first read The Handmaid's Tale, like many people, as part of my A-Level English course. I'd heard of it as there had been a film version not too long before I had to read it. I always loved reading from a very young age. Often on a Saturday morning, my Mum would drop me at the local library and leave me to lose myself in the myriad pages of the children's section while she went to Budgen's to pick up a few bits of shopping and called in at the greengrocer's for some fruit and veg. Gosh - what a different world it was back then. People shopped at the greengrocer's and left their children unattended in the library! I read a lot of Choose Your Own Adventure books back then and soon discovered great writers like Nina Bawden, Ian Serraillier and Nigel Hinton. A few years on - I guess I would have been about 10 - I remember my Dad giving me his copy of Of Mice and Men to read. He realised I needed something a bit more challenging. I clearly remember being pretty shocked (and feeling rather grown-up) by some of the content and language. My Dad had to explain to me what as bastard was. 

But it was The Handmaid's Tale which really cemented my love of reading. I was amazed by it. I loved how dark it was, how it revealed a future I had never imagined could really be a possibility. It was so vivid and came to life off the page like nothing I had ever read before. Atwood herself says, in the introduction to my edition, that the book is very visual: "those who lack power see more than they say". The book is overflowing with stark imagery. I remember having to go through the book to pick out all the imagery of emptiness for an essay. There is a lot of it. Like the place in a face where the eye has been taken out. Emptiness is, of course, an important theme throughout the novel. Barren lives, barren women. It is shockingly bleak. 

My favourite section of the book is when Offred discovers the phrase nolite te bastardes carborundorum etched into the wall of the cupboard in her bedroom. It gives Offred so much strength and hope. It empowers her. She feels a kinship with the handmaid who had lived there before her in a world where friendship is not really allowed. In a world where she is not even allowed to read, these words she can secretly look at provide her with an act of defiance against the regime. It's such a poignant point in the novel when Offred finally discovers what the phrase translates as (don't let the bastards grind you down). These are entirely different bastards to those referred to in Steinbeck, though. The poignancy is increased by how she discovers the phrase's meaning. Her secret visits to Commander Fred's study have happened before. She is not a special case in this case. If your dog dies, get another.

I had forgotten how powerful the ending of the novel is. Offred is shaken to the core by the sudden disappearance of Ofglen and her apparent suicide. Her will almost breaks:

Dear God, I think, I will do anything you like...I'll empty myself, truly, become a chalice. I'll give up Nick, I'll forget about the others, I'll stop complaining. I'll accept my lot. I'll sacrifice. I'll repent. I'll abdicate. I'll renounce...I resign my body freely, to the use of others. They can do what they like with me. I am abject. I feel, for the first time, their true power.

And who could forget that amazing (almost) last line! Bleak but tinged with hope...And so I step up, into the darkness within; or else the light. Wow. 

As I write these words, the official launch event for the sequel, The Testaments, is taking place in London. The book is available from midnight. My local Waterstones is opening early in the morning to allow fans to pop in before work. I'll be joining the queue! I've tried not to read too much about it. I do know that it is set 15 years after Offred stepped into the back of the black van and into an uncertain future. The TV series has gone beyond the events of the book now and I read the other day that the same team will be adapting The Testaments for television. Interesting. I know Aunt Lydia features but I don't know if we find out more about what happened to Offred. Tomorrow we'll find out, I suppose! Do get in touch with your views on the new book once you've read it. 

I've started Twitter and Instagram accounts for The Never-ending Book Story. Please join me there, if you'd like to. I'll be able to let you know about new posts on the blog and will be posting about books in general, too. Please do feel free to leave comments here on the blog too.

And so, where to next on the never-ending book story??? Throughout my re-reading of The Handmaid's Tale I was, of course, struck by how - more than thirty years later - the book still resonates. And that's probably the case for a lot of novels set in a future dystopia. Especially given the times we live in now. I thought about reading something that had been written a long time ago. But it's not all that long since I read We by Yevgeny Zamyatin so I've kind of done that before. I'd really recommend this as 'further reading' if you aren't familiar with it. Brave New World and 1984 also sprang to mind. A bit obvious, maybe? Browsing in my local bookshop (you'll often find me there), my eye was caught by a new book. Its cover was bright red so immediately I linked it with The Handmaid's Tale in my mind. It's The Last by Hanna Jameson. It's a post-apocalyptic thriller set in a mysterious Swiss hotel just as the world is destroyed by nuclear war. It's described on the jacket as Stephen King meets Agatha Christie. Well, say no more. I'm in! Emily St. John Mandel, writer of the excellent Station Eleven (another post-apocalyptic tour de force) says it is "chilling and extraordinary". We shall see. Join me for the next chapter very soon. Why not see if you can find a copy and let me know what you think, too?!

By the way, since it is an event of such magnitude, I'm planning on an additional post to cover my initial thoughts on The Testaments just as little aside or footnote. Don't forget to keep an eye on my Instagram and Twitter feeds for updates.

Finally, before I bid farewell to Offred, I mentioned in the last blog that I loved the use of Cloudbusting in a recent episode of the TV version where the Marthas of Gilead did a rather splendid clean up job after Offred's somewhat eventful trip to Jezebels. Here, then, is that very scene for you to enjoy again!