Overall Views

Hauntingly Beautiful. The tone was so bright and pretty. It never read like a dark grim dystopian book, always sunny, always pretty. This was in total contrast with the content of the book and it made up for a very unique reading experience. Also, everything felt so real and so 'now'. The disconnect between what is real and what is fiction was blurry and that is a scary place to be.

Context

UMass Amherst's archive has a box with the label 'Atwood's notes for Handmaid's Tale' which documents some of the history and culture she studied to write this book. She calls it 'Speculative Fiction' which is different from Sci-Fi because in speculative fiction, everything that has happened in the fictional setting we have the capacity to do today. Also, every exploitation or incident mentioned in the story has - in some form or the other - already happened in the past.

Parts I Enjoyed and Some Quotes

1. Nolite Te Bastardes Carborundorum. Sorta Latin for - Don't let the bastards grind you down.
2. How easy it is to invent a humanity for anyone at all. Such an available temptation.
3. Ignoring is not the same as ignorance. You have to work towards it.
4. pp. 83 - Each month I watch for blood. And when it comes, it means failure. ... I used to think of my body as an instrument of pleasure, of transportation, or an implement for the accomplishment of my will. ... My body was nevertheless lithe, single, solid and with me. Now flesh arranges itself differently. I'm a cloud, congealed around a central object, the shape of a pear, which is hard and more real than I am and glows red with its translucent wrapping. Pinpoints of light swell, sparkle and burst within it, countless as stars.
5. Whose fault it was, whose fault it was? Her fault, Her fault. Moment
6. pp. 81 - Janine telling us about how she was gang-raped at 14 and had an abortion...Her Fault, Her Fault, Her Fault.
7. 'Blessed are the meek'. But they never told us, 'for they shall inherit the Earth'