Here's a sequel nobody asked for - here's a sequel everybody asked for. Apparently.
I can't remember why I picked up The Handmaid's Tale in the first place - I think it was a title that kept cropping up over time, and once I decided to find out what it was actually about (and discovered it was a dystopia) I had to have it. You know how I am with dystopias.
Precisely because The Handmaid's Tale (first published in 1985) was so good, so readable, so claustrophobic, so horrific, I felt conflicted about a sequel. It's been a while since 'the first' book (I refuse to call it that except ironically). My boyfriend was born and raised, for example. There was also a god awful TV series loosely based on the book. Could the Canadian queen revisit this tale after so many years and create a similarly gripping piece of work?
What did I like about it?
My answer is no. There were things I liked: for example, obviously, Margaret Atwood is still a literary queen, and her writing doesn't falter for a second. It's gripping, page-turning, exciting stuff that reads like the best YA thriller. There is also her usual sarcasm - "All that was necessary was a law degree and a uterus: a lethal combination." - but I would have loved more of this.
It was also a gripping story, packed with action. Despite myself, I couldn't help read it as fast as I could, always onto the next point of action, always onto the consequences. It was nice to read something that made me turn off the TV and spend the evening reading instead. That is power.
But now onto the second section, which, for what is probably the first time, will be longer...
What as I not massively fond of?
What people are calling a sequel feels to me more like a distant cousin. In no way does this book relate to The Handmaid's Tale in my mind. It might be set in the same universe but, as if holding up a curved mirror, all the power of THMT gets lost in this piece - none of the dark, terrifying, just-about-realistic-enough horror remains, none of that feeling of absolute and utter helplessness, where every step you take might cost you your life. This is a lax, loose, easy universe, where blasphemy can be casually overlooked and be done with by a blush. Just like the TV series, the rules are bent and loosened, and through these gaps all the power of the original story seeps through and disappears.
It is, of course, nice to see inside the head of Aunt Lydia, a figurehead of THMT in maintaining, promoting and educating on Gilead order. One of three story lines, hers is probably the most powerful one - if only in the beginning while we find out her backstory - but unfortunately falters, like the others, towards the end to become a simple action-packed thriller with no real depth in my view. It's all about the action, without any of the subtlety.
Of the other two story lines and narrators, one starts out promisingly: it's the story of someone who grew up within the regime and actually guards fond memories of her childhood, despite the hardships and rigid rules. When this story ties in with the third narrator's though, it once again loses its power: and the third story line, an unashamedly young adult story of a genuinely annoying teenager, had nothing to give me. It was that of a depthless, cliché character.
I could talk about how everyone seems to be able to become an aunt in Gilead nowadays; I could talk about how suddenly the Eyes are much less observant than in THMT; I could complain about how the book seems to have taken some elements from the TV show, which to me is an absolute no no. But instead I'll mention the biggest opportunity that I think was missed here: I never really accept how Aunt Lydia becomes Aunt Lydia. This would have been the perfect opportunity to be nuanced in demonstrating how a rigid system comes into being with the support of those who may have once opposed it ferociously; how the oppressed become the oppressors without realising. But here, there's only square one and square two as far as I could see.
Not to mention a strong hint at a happy ending, which is, quite frankly, a bit disappointing.
Overall...
It was this Guardian review that really put a finger on the problem for me: it points out that in THMT, one of the most powerful forces was that of not knowing things:
"There is no doubt that Atwood is on top form here. But still it feels as if something crucial is missing.
Or perhaps not missing enough, for didn’t the strength of the first book lie precisely in its daring ambiguities, its unapologetic refusal to elucidate? Surely one of the reasons Gilead managed to be so spookily convincing was that Atwood cunningly chose to leave so many of its edges blurry. Interiors, furniture, food, clothes, linen were described with all of the deft shadow and gleam of a Dutch painting – and the same, incidentally, is true in this book – but beyond that, we only had the vaguest hints of how the larger world worked. The most trenchant and exciting fiction almost always amounts to an act of conjuring – and in Atwood’s gracefully necromantic hands, Gilead’s regime didn’t seem to require much explanation or justification."
Offred was kept in the dark and could only really show us, the readers, what she could see - the uncertainty that resulted from this was overwhelming. It was brilliant.
With The Testaments though, we see and hear all, much like the aunts; and although for them, it's a virtue, as a reader it doesn't provide nearly as much enjoyment as following a handmaid.
I'm so sorry that the combined efforts of an appalling TV adaptation and ridiculous hype have ruined any enjoyment I could have gotten out of The Testaments. Not to mention the fact that no part of me, not one percent, agrees that this should have won the Booker prize.
I'm sorry Margaret. I'll keep to your earlier stuff instead.
3/10
