dystopia

The Handmaid’s Tale

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by Margaret Atwood
ages: adult
First sentence: “We slept in what had once been the gymnasium.”
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I read this book in my early 20s, sometime soon after I finished college. I remember thinking that this was a Great Warning; plausible enough to become true, and thus making it that much more powerful to me. I was moved to anger by the treatment of women as objects, and considered this one of the Best Books I’ve Ever Read.

This time around — 15 years later — I am still moved by it, but in a completely different way. The basic plot, for those who are unfamiliar with this dystopian classic, is that the U.S. falls apart after an attack which kills the president and Congress. The country is put into a state of emergency, which evolves into this warped religious state. Offred, our main character, is a handmaid: a woman whose sole purpose in life is to have babies for the Commanders. She is told that it is her religious duty to do so; the Wives and Marthas (the maids and cooks) tolerate her presence because her “duty” is so important. Offred — we never learn her real name — longs for her former life: the one where she had a job, money, husband, child. And it’s all she can do to put one foot in front of the other in her life.

I found this all monstrous. I’m thinking of it in a different light — I could very easily be Offred — and it’s monstrous what Attwood has dreamt up. Not only for the handmaids, but for the wives and commanders, too. (Maybe those books on polygamy are influencing my reading of this, too, because there are definite parallels there.) And I was depressed by it. I don’t think we — as a country — would ever head that way (though there was this one passage that struck me because of its similarities to 9/11 and the Patriot Act), but it’s depressing that there is that awful potential in people to control other people in that way. There are also Taliban similarities, as well — something which wasn’t even on the radar when I read this the first time around — that saddened me.

I can’t imagine — more like, don’t want to imagine — a world where women are treated as nothing more than the sum of their bodies, where men get excused for their behavior because of their position, where women hate and loathe each other because of their roles. Wait… that, too much, describes what our world is like now. Without the religious framework, without the robes, without the martial law, there are elements of this world around us.

And that really depresses me.

Specials

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I finally got around to reading the third in the Uglies Trilogy by Scott Westerfield. And, like Pretties, I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as I did Uglies, though I thought Westerfield did a good job tying up all loose ends and giving the story a decent punch at the end. (At least there’s no cliffhanger at the end of this one.) I’m not even going to try and review this book without spoilers. So if you are even remotely interested in reading this one, and you have a problem with spoilers… stop now.

I really disliked Tally for a great deal of the book. Like at the beginning of Pretties, she was completely controlled by what she had become, in this case, one of the Special Circumstances. At one point, though, I realized that I was supposed to dislike Tally. Or rather, I was supposed to dislike what Tally had become, what Dr. Cable had made her in to. Once I made this realization, I could deal with Tally: her snobbery, her insecurity, her need to be “icy”. (Though she did get better as the book went on.) But, I also disliked Shay. Was it just me, or did anyone else see parallels to drug use in this book? Shay was addicted (like a drug user) to cutting herself and very controlling of the people and situations around her. (She’d get really mean if things didn’t go her way.) Her friendship with Tally was superficial and controlling as well. The problem was that I disliked her so much that I wasn’t entirely convinced by her change and remorse in the end. Why would Tally even consider giving Shay yet another chance? How do we know that Shay’s change is real, complete? We don’t; and because of that, I distrusted it.

Speaking of change and remorse, Dr. Cable completely threw me for a loop. I’d been expecting some of it; she’s been the “bad guy” all along — controlling the town to extreme ends. I didn’t expect her to attack another city, though I suppose it wasn’t completely far-fetched. (I did like the line which went something like — I couldn’t find it to get it exactly — “All cities had given up war; it’s just that some cities had given it up more than others). But, I found it really hard to hate her because she had been lurking in the background for most of the books. As a result, the final confrontation between Tally and Dr. Cable at the end just completely fell flat. And after that… well, I understand it, but just because I understand it doesn’t mean I thought it made sense.

Which brings me to the ending. It was… okay. I guess I couldn’t have expected much better; how do you fully resolve a story like the one Westerfield created here? But, it kind of fell flat. After all the struggling Tally did in all three books — against the way she was brought up and against the subsequent operations — what more did I want from her? I don’t know. So, to quietly slink off into the wild with her first love is probably the best ending anyway. I just wasn’t fully satisfied by it.

All that said, though, Westerfield has created a very interesting and very compelling world. Uglies is a brilliant book, and the other two are still good, if flawed, reads. And since I did enjoy myself with these three, I’ll be picking up Extras as soon as the library gets a copy.

Uglies

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Typically, I shy away from books with pictures of girls on the front that have tag lines, especially if those tag lines read: “In a world of extreme beauty, anyone normal is ugly.” I’d seen this book around, but every time, I looked at it and thought “Ugh. Chick book. Not my thing.” And walked on.

And then Inkling read the trilogy and was fascinated by it. And usually, when Inkling takes something seriously, it has to be good. (Since, as I’ve discovered over the years, she and I have similar tastes in books.) Still, it took me a while to get around to it, because every time I looked at it, I couldn’t get past the cover and the tag line.

Well, I’m glad it did, finally. Scott Westerfeld has written not only a good sci-fi/dystopian story, but a smart and thought-provoking one as well. The basic plot (the back cover blurb makes it sound like some dumb chick book): in the future, there are three types of people: littlies (those under 12), uglies (12-16), and pretties. When a person turns 16, it’s assumed that you’ll leave Uglyville (both literally and figuratively), and get the surgery that will turn you into a fun-loving, free-wheeling, extremely beautiful Pretty. Tally, with all her heart, want that. Until she meets Shay. Who doesn’t want to be pretty. She knows of a place — the Smoke — where you don’t have to become pretty, where you can stay ugly. Tally doesn’t understand this: who doesn’t want to be pretty?! But, Shay runs away, and then Tally is forced to make decisions that will change her life.

Really, it sounds silly, typed out like that, but if you knew the whole plot, it would ruin the point of the book.

Still, in addition to romance and adventure and typical end-of-the-world stuff (I loved all the descriptions of the Rusties), Westerfeld has some interesting observations about beauty and society. In fact, the whole book plays with our notions of what is and is not beautiful.

There was a certain kind of beauty, a prettiness that everyone could see. Big eyes and full lips like a kid’s; smooth, clear skin; symmetrical features; and a thousand other little clues. Somewhere in the backs of their minds, people were always looking for these markers. No one could help seeing them, no matter how they were brought up. A million years of evolution had made it part of the human brain.

Or this:

Back in the days before the operation, Tally remembered, a lot of people, especially young girls, became so ashamed at being fat that they stopped eating. They’d lose weight too quickly, adn some would get stuck and would keep losing weight… Some even died, they said at school. That was one of the reasons they’d come up with the operation. No one got the disease anymore, since everyone knew at sixteen they’d turn beautiful. In fact, most people pigged out just before they turned, knowing it would all be sucked away.

Fascinating stuff.

Still, it’s probably a bit predictable, and maybe even a bit done-before (when I was telling Hubby about it, he said it reminded him of Lois Lowry’s Gathering Blue). But for all that, it really was an excellent book.

Now I’m off to read Harry Potter. One week left…