Homer's Travels: Book: Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale"

Sunday, June 25, 2017

Book: Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale"

After reading the depressing "Dark Money" I decided to switch to fiction for my next book and maybe lighten up the mood a bit.  That's why my next book was Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale".

I jest of course.  "The Handmaid's Tale" is a dystopian novel set in a world when a patriarchal theocratic authoritarian regime is in control of the United States after a coup.  The world they live in is devastated by environmental pollution.  Chemical and radiological contamination along with new diseases have resulted in large scale infertility and birth defects.

Women who have been married more than once (against the law in the theocracy) and have had children are forced into becoming surrogates (handmaids) for the powerful patriarchs who pulled off the original coup.

The misogynistic world created by Atwood is dark and empty of hope.  It also has elements of the society we live in today.  It is scary how prescient the author was when she wrote this book in the 1980s.

The story is written in a rather low key style letting the dystopia speak for itself.  This just makes the story even more poignant.

I gave this book four stars on Goodreads.  It is a cautionary tale we all should heed as we go about our lives in the ... odd ... times we live in.

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