CBR #10 - The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood

I first read this novel many moons ago when I was about 18 years old. My eyes are so different now.

Many people know the basic story. It's a semi post-apocalyptic story where the civilization of Gilean has instituted martial law. Women have lost all rights. They can't have jobs, control money, or survive on their own. Not only that, they have been reduced to their reproductive potential. Wives are generally married to important men and barren, Martha's are women who are useful but can't reproduce and take care of homes, handmaids have viable ovaries and have sex with husbands trying to give barren wives children. Creeptastic. The women have little if any communication with one another, resentment is rampant, and everyone is afraid. It's only been four years - all of these women remember the time before.

Offred, the protagonist, is a handmaid in the home of a Commander (of what she does not know) who clearly remembers her life before. The story vacillates between her current day horror and the year or so leading up to marital law: the day her accounts were frozen, the day she lost her job, the day she and her husband tried to run with their daughter. As I sit typing this, reeling over "criminal miscarriage" legislation, it's creepier than ever.

This book does an amazing job of many things. One is, it demonstrates the loneliness of all the women, cut off from each other, reduced to function, in a way that is heart breaking. Imagine the relief in speaking in full sentences in your normal tone of voice. Can you even. Or imagine having, after four years, to make yourself think about spelling again. Atwood's portrayal of how basic skills are lost with disuse is mind boggling and probably true. Atwood's protagonist spends most of her time trying not to think, concentrating on the simplest things: a fingernail, a cloud. Without even thought to keep you company, the world is very lonely place, even in close quarters.

Offred eventually gets an opportunity to expand her life a little. The Commander involves her in life outside the house - either as an act of mercy or one of control, your reading may vary - and Offred begins to want again. To feel what it is to have power, no matter how limited. She takes risks, albeit calculated risks. Most importantly she starts to think again. Not just remember, but process, create in her mind, plan. I guess that's suppose to be the uplifting part.

There are a lot of moments in this book that suck the wind out of you and not all of them are what you'd expect. The sex act in this culture is it's own special kind of sickness must it's not the most sickening moment, at least not for this reader. There are many others, in the women who help to control other women, the betrayal among those who have no choice but to trust, etc etc. The most frightening moment for this reader though, comes in the middle of the narrative, Offred is remembering the early days when things began to change - she is bereft, afraid, already losing herself and in a moment of clarity that changes everything, she realizes her husband doesn't mind. What, if anything, can a subjected population do if even their allies are complacent?