Feb
Books to Read: The Handmaid’s Tale
When I was five, my twin brothers were born. The chaos was such that I truly don’t remember much of the next three years, aside from an occasional, wispy memory of school. The story in our family is that I was the gopher, running for diapers, bottles, blankets, clothes, and anything else my freakishly frazzled parents needed. But when I could escape, I holed up in my basement bedroom, away from the noise and madness, and I read.
From then on I was voracious, reading everything I could get my hands on. I made my way through our elementary school library and the public library, eventually moving on to books way beyond my maturity level. I dove into Stephen King and Dean Koontz by 4th and 5th grade, understanding some but mostly just titillated by the scandalous subjects. Upon rereading these books years later, I was almost always disappointed. But one book didn’t disappoint. Around the age of 10 I found Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. Dark and dreary, with hints of topics I could only pretend to understand, I was hooked.
Since then, I’ve read and reread the book, finding more and more to the story as I grew older, discovered politics, studied the perils of organized religion, came into my own feminist awakening, and became a writer myself. It’s an infinitely rich story, and one I highly recommend.
The Handmaid’s Tale, written in the midst of Reagan-era conservative heaven, posits a future where environmental catastrophes have resulted in sterile women. Simultaneously, a fundamental religious sect stages a violent coup over portions of the US, and sets up a strict patriarchy. Even more disturbing, women found to be fertile (or suspected to be) are taken from their homes, indoctrinated in camps, and sent out to rich government homes to serve as slave surrogates. The book describes this utterly foreign world, but also demonstrates how it’s not too far away from possibility. With each re-reading, particularly in the last decade, the relevance of this book has only increased.
The power of books like this, quality, well-written science fiction with dystopian elements, cannot be overestimated. In fact, a recent column in Wired advances the idea that only in sci-fi are we seeing truly important and powerful literature. Through these books, a powerful “what if” is asked, one which dispels the shadows in those corners of society we don’t like to think about, which asks what we are doing for the future, and can encourage us to, at the very least, think about our world.
What sci-fi novels do you enjoy?
