The Handmaid's Tale - meh?
The Handmaid's Tale - meh?
I read the Handmaid's Tale yesterday, finally. I'm disappointed. I did not like the writing style at all, there was no real story, just descriptions. And then it just ended. No conclusion or anything.
My best guess it's because the TV show was so intense and well made (at least the earlier seasons), and the book was... Not? Episodes would stay with me for days, but I'm struggling to recall the book already.
Maybe the book is supposed to be unsatisfying to go with the theme. Nothing much happened after Gilead was created, every day just kinda goes by. Sure there was some torture and death, but... Eh.
Maybe I was expecting too much after all the praise it got. It's my first Atwood book, and way way outside of my usual genre (fantasy, scifi, horror).
What did you all think of it?
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Imo it is always hard to go from a movie/TV show to the book. Books create a universe inside your head, but now you’re already going into it with expectations. And when it doesn’t meet expectations, it’s disappointing.
I read The Handmaid’s Tale back around 2016, when Trump was elected. I was actually stunned that he had won - because like many others, I had missed the warning signs of a wave of populism. To me, this set the stage for The Handmaid’s Tale to feel like a very real possibility - if this guy is now in power, then what next?
It was easy to insert myself into the rather basic world of The Handmaid’s Tale especially with the humdrum details of everyday life. This dystopian world does not always look like outright torture or murder. It looks like fear, distrust, and control that has been normalized.
And quite frankly, I found that the Handmaid’s sole societal purpose of being continuously raped and impregnated is disturbing to the core. In your post, you’ve accepted that this is just part of the narrative. The abuse of female genitalia and reproduction is often overlooked in depictions of a dystopian world, so I think we’ve sanitized this brutal reality from the realm of possibilities. And yet, this is still a lived-reality for girls and women across the world today.
You make a good point, abuse of women is normalised. I think in this particular case (book vs show), the show was a lot more visceral, whereas in my opinion it was kinda of 'glossed over' in the book. It might be part of the writing style - I usually read books in first person, so it's like you are the character. This story was written so detached, I didn't feel much for anyone.