Offred is a national resource. She is a handmaid; viable ovaries make her a precious commodity in the Republic of Gilead, where the birthrate has plummeted to dangerous levels. Assigned to a Commander whose wife cannot produce, Offred's purpose is onefold: to breed.
Dressed in red from veil to shoes, apart from the white wings which cover her face, Offred walks in silence each day past the Guardians of the Faith, who man each barrier. She exchanges tokens for food. She visits the Wall, where gender traitors and war …
Offred is a national resource. She is a handmaid; viable ovaries make her a precious commodity in the Republic of Gilead, where the birthrate has plummeted to dangerous levels. Assigned to a Commander whose wife cannot produce, Offred's purpose is onefold: to breed.
Dressed in red from veil to shoes, apart from the white wings which cover her face, Offred walks in silence each day past the Guardians of the Faith, who man each barrier. She exchanges tokens for food. She visits the Wall, where gender traitors and war criminals hang for atrocities, once legal, committed in the time before.
At night in the bare room, Offred remembers: quaint, outdated customs such as gossiping, using paper money, jogging. Illegal thing: women having jobs, reading, her real name, love. Love used to be central to everything. Now it is irrelevant.
Margaret Atwood, who has shown her formidable insights into the complexities of contemporary woman in Life Before Man and Bodily Harm, now turns her vision to the future. Through the eyes of Offred, we are shown the dark corners behind the calm facade of the Republic of Gilead: a regime which takes the Book of Genesis absolutely at its word, with bizarre consequences for women, and for men as well. Brilliantly conceived and executed, this powerful evocation of 21st-century America under post-feminist totalitarian rule gives full rein to Margaret Atwood's devastating irony, wit, and acute perception. The Handmaid's Tale confirms her reputations a major novelist. --front flap
Tapa dura, 350 páginas
Idioma English
Publicado el 6 de noviembre de 1986 por Jonathan Cape.
Je ne savais rien de ce roman – je n'avais pas vu la série – si ce n'est que c'était une dystopie. Et j'ai été impressionné par la qualité et la profondeur de l'écriture. Ça confirme ma conviction qu'il vaut toujours mieux lire un livre avant d'en voir une adaptation.
I read the Handmaid's Tale yesterday, finally. I'm disappointed. I did not like the writing style at all, there was no real story, just descriptions. And then it just ended. No conclusion or anything.
My best guess it's because the TV show was so intense and well made (at least the earlier seasons), and the book was... Not? Episodes would stay with me for days, but I'm struggling to recall the book.
Maybe the book is supposed to be unsatisfying to go with the theme. Nothing much happened after Gilead was created, every day just kinda goes by. Sure there was some torture and death, but... Eh.
Maybe I was expecting too much after all the praise it got. It's my first Atwood book, and way way outside of my usual genre (fantasy, scifi, horror).
