Anyway, The Testaments, the sequel to The Handmaid's Tale nobody actually saw coming. I'd heard so much about this novel already, from reviews and interviews and analyses of why there were two Man Booker winners, that it felt like I already knew what it was going to be about. Added to that, The Handmaid's Tale has become a tv series (or rather; internet series, in my case) which must have influenced the novel in some way. Maybe not for Atwood while she was writing it, but at least for me while I was reading it. So I knew I would be travelling back to Gilead, the dystopian future-USA where after a coup by religious extremists society has been turned upside down.
I also already knew that the novel consisted of the writings of three females from after the events of The Handmaid's Tale, and that one of these women was the dreadful Aunt Lydia. Now in the tv series Aunt Lydia is more horrendous than she is in the novel, at least in my memory, for in the novel there are more named Aunts. So I thought she would be an interesting character to find out more about; why her beliefs had led her to become who she was and act the way she does. Sadly, none of that. We find out (spoiler alert here) that Aunt Lydia doesn't even belief in all the Gilead social rules. She isn't a founding member, or even a convert. She just wanted to save her own skin.
That made me really sad. This way, the character is on the same side as the reader, which deprives us of understanding how that society came to be. Why not delve into the minds of some one who really believes these actions, these social constraints, the foundation of this society? Of course, women aren't considered very capable in these circles, but the tv series solved this by having one of the Wives as one of the founding members, who really stood for her beliefs, and was slightly horrified but also accepting when she discovered what that did to her own position in society. I can see how Atwood wanted to keep her story as her own and not copy the tv premise, but having Aunt Lydia as a sort of double agent, working her way to bring about the downfall of Gilead, is just a cheap act to save yourself from writing someone truly evil. (Incidentally, I read in an interview with some crime writers that they never write a fully evil person, as readers don't want to see someone who is evil without a justifiable cause. So there always has to be a bad childhood experience or other external factor that causes someone to become evil. Same goes for Aunt Lydia; she suffered at the outset of Gilead and that turned her against her fellow women to save her own skin. As I said, a missed chance). This way, the whole Gilean society remains as unplausible as it was in 1985.
The other two 'writers' are two younger women, one living in Gilead and one in Canada. Their stories are very exposition-heavy, combined with teenage voices and thoughts. The one in Gilead was somewhat interesting, because she actually bought into the whole social system (not having a lot of other options since she was born there), until she found out what it would mean for her life as a Wife. With the added elements of peer pressure, group dynamics in adolescent girls, and her genuine surprise at the hypocricy of Gilean high society made her story quite interesting. The Canadian girl was a typical teenager, far less believable, mostly because she was as flat as a board. She had no personality and functioned mainly as an outside-in view of Gilead, until events took over and she actually became a playing piece for the plot to move forward.
Ah, the plot. More than any other Atwood novel, this one is very plot driven. Actions are set into motion, most of them deliberately by Aunt Lydia, and they propel towards an inevitable end. This plot focus feels at odds with the form of the novel, the written personal accounts. Personal accounts, I might add, which in two of the three characters describe actions that happened some time ago. Because the writings date from after the action, we already know they are going to survive the main part of the story. Again, not a smart choice in a novel that is so focussed on what is happening and tries to build some kind of suspense in the outcome. I didn't feel that suspense once; we already knew a happy ending was on its way.
I finished the novel over a week ago, but put off writing this review hoping that I'd find some second thought, some extra layer or depth of meaning to add something to the experience of reading it. Sadly, there isn't really one. Sure, this is a feminist novel with some pretty strong female characters, and the message is crystal clear, but that's about it. The characters are flat and uninteresting, the plot is unrealistic and uninspired and there are no deeper questions or insights into the how, or why a society like Gilead ever came into being. Readers will feel relief at that it eventually ended, but if that is the main reason for awarding Margaret Atwood a Man Booker prize, I can think of some other novels that should have gotten one too, starting with Harry Potter and the Deadly Hallows.
So maybe we should think of this as the Man Booker making up for the fact they didn't give her one for The Handmaid's Tale, a novel that shows far more depth of character, psychology and society. Since that is still one of the best novels from the last 50 years (one that didn't need a sequel at all, mind you), I'll grant Atwood that. But let's forget about this unnecessary, blown-out-of-proportions sequel as fast as we can.
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