Mild Spoilers Ahead
Is anyone else screaming like me??!
Of all the books that I expected to get sequels, I would never have guessed The Handmaid's Tale. I know, I know. This is a pretty late review considering the book came out ages ago and I actually read it ages ago. But it's a long time coming! Better late then never!
For those of you who are unfamiliar:
The Testaments is the sequel to Margaret Atwood's original 1985 novel The Handmaid's Tale. It is set 15 years after the original and follows the testimonies of three strangers, Aunt Lydia, a character we are introduced to in the first book, Agnes, a young woman born in Gilead and Daisy, a spunky teenager in Canada.
The Handmaid's Tale is a dystopian tale set in the fictional country of Gilead - a totalitarian Christian society which overthrew and abolished the United States of America. Combining styles of 1984 by George Orwell and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley - Gilead is a country riddled with horrific atrocities, misogyny and espionage. In this world, men and women are becoming increasingly infertile, unable to give birth or giving birth to dead or radiation-diseased babies. The Handmaid's Tale follows the story of a handmaiden called Offred - a fertile woman whose sole purpose in Gilead is to give birth to healthy babies through ritualistic rape.
If you haven't read it already, I highly recommend it. It is an instant feminist classic deserving to last through the ages.
Atwood's original novel was dark and claustrophobic. It felt like a dark vacuum that sucked all hope, light and joy from the world. Its narration was unreliable at times, unclear and blurred the lines between right, wrong and what makes us human. It also echoed a disturbingly familiar narrative that we are experiencing in the world today. It has never been so important than it is now for women who understand the power that they hold in themselves - and just how easily it can be taken away.
In 2016, the novel experienced a revitalisation through the election of Donald Trump and of the Hulu / Channel 4 TV series. There is a resurgence of younger, excited and politically charged fans. Fans who don the oppressive white hat and red cloak of the handmaidens and march for women's rights and freedoms across the world. The novel has greatly transformed the way in which we view feminism and the power governments and politics have on us if we are complacent. Every day it seems as if the horrors of Gilead are inching their way closer to reality.
But what about the The Testaments?
It's clear as fans we all had really high expectations for The Testaments. The sequel answers a lot of readers' hungry questions about the formation and operations of Gilead. We get a deep insight of how the first generation of Gilead suffered when this "utopian society" was created. It's vulgar, explicit and terrifying.
In the first novel we are introduced to the Aunts, a rank of women who teach, order and condition the terrified first generation, as well as the generations after, of women into becoming subservient subjects of Gilead. I remember just how horrified I was when I read the first novel, about how the Aunts so easily betray their gender and dignities for Gilead. The Testaments give us that answer in the form of Aunt Lydia's testimonies.
Aunt Lydia is originally introduced to us as a callous and worshipable figure. A woman that all Gileaden women should aspire to be. As we go further on in the novel, we start to see just how "rotten" Gilead truly is through Aunt Lydia eyes. We pity her, sympathise with her - through her memories we see that a lot of these women who became Aunts had no choice. But the novel makes it's explicitly clear while Aunt Lydia suffered brutal conditions of torture, she is no victim. Nor a villain. The rest of the Aunts are pretty clear-cut, some of them worship and adhere the rules of Gilead, while others just try their best to survive and keep their heads down.
Aunt Lydia is neither - she's a manipulative, intelligent and jaded character who commits terrible atrocities to other women in order to survive - or to save the ones we felt worth saving. It make you wonder - would you ever make the choices that she did? Would you sacrifice others, and their freedom, in order to save yourself?
Atwood has said she felt like writing a sequel all these years later because of our increasingly turbulent political and environmental climate. But I felt as if the purpose of the novel was a little lost. What is The Testaments trying to tell us? What is it really trying to say?
Criticisms
While the novel was eye-opening, fascinating and kept my heart racing, I felt that there was something missing.
At the end of Atwood's first novel we are just as unsure as Offred to whether she is being led to her doom or salvation. It was this famous cliffhanger that kept Atwood's novel revered as a feminist icon for decades. It was the unreliability, the claustrophobia of it which made it such a breakthrough novel for its time. Readers were just as trapped as Offred, felt just as hopeless. It was a gripping novel which portrayed a broken society based on real-life fears and events.
The Testaments alluded to a far more optimistic ending for our characters. Not happy - just optimistic. It felt strange for an Atwood novel. It seemed that her lust for jaded, unhappy or tragic endings has left her. The point of Offred's story was that the women in Gilead had no closure. No future. No present or past. Just like so many women today.
The Handmaid's Tale stood for decades as a bleak cliffhanger of a novel, and while it's satisfying to see more of it, it also felt as if she was handing us a little bit of fan-service. A little ray of light to shine in our bleak times. Maybe she's trying to say that despite all the horrors we may be subjected to, life finds a way to balance itself out in the end. Giving the readers what they wanted. Closure.
Overall, I loved it. I am a sucker for happy endings. Atwood is a fantastic and amazing writer as she's always been. So check it out, it's worth the read.
What did YOU think of The Testaments? Leave a comment and we can start a discussion down below!
P.S. If you didn't already know, The Handmaid's Tale has already been adapted on Hulu, it already has TWO seasons! I've watched a tiny bit of season one and it's incredible! If you're not up to reading the novel, watch the series!! Just be warned, around the second season mark, the series diverges wildly off of the novel.
P.S.S. Trigger warnings for the series: rape, pedophilia, distressing and disturbing scenes and themes, mature content. Please watch carefully.
P.S.S.S. The Testaments takes place AFTER the series. I've heard rumours they're considering adapting it as well!
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