The Handmaid's Tale

[kb2]

I read this book recently, and it really needs a thread on FJ.

[Kitty]

It's freaky, and can't believe the parallels.

Serena Joy has actually inspired several of my own characters- powerful women oppressing other women.

[xDreamerx]

Read the book in 12th grade and really enjoyed it. (The only Atwood book I like). There's a movie adaption.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099731/

I haven't seen it though.

[kb2]

I have to say, my belief was not as suspended as it was for 1984. In 1984, it's assumed that rights have been gradually worn away under threat of war and financial uncertainty, but it in Handmaid's Tale society changes from mid-1980s culture to complete dystopian society within a year.

And Serena Joy was my favorite part of the story. How miserable would all of the fundie elite be if they actually had to shut up and stay home?

[FakePigtails]

I read it recently too and thought it was very good, if scary of course. The movie's on youtube if anyone wants to see it:

[AMedievalistKnits]

I remember reading it when I was 15. I had already been exposed to the Duggars, and all I thought was, "this is their idea of Heaven." I wanted to be a nun back then, so:

the bit about the new Handmaid, the former nun, made me sick. It was just like, Jesus Mary and Joseph, you're raping a bride of Christ, all so you can make babies for Gilead, er, Jesus....

The culture shock may have been too fast, but I thought it was somewhat plausible in light of panic-induced restrictions on rights (throughout history and cultures).

[Sister Mary Savage]

I think of the Duggars and their like families whenever I read the title. It's really sad that Quiverfull women find themselves being valuable only as long as they can reproduce. Michelle does kind of seem like Serena Joy IMO.

[FJismyheadship]

Someone mailed me this book. I think my dad has it right now. I loved it!

[AnnieC 305]

Read the book in 12th grade and really enjoyed it. (The only Atwood book I like). There's a movie adaption.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099731/

I haven't seen it though.

I saw the movie well after I read the book. It was okay, not that great, except for Robert Duvall. OMG that man was amazing in that part, he's the creepiest thing ever!

[xDreamerx]

Thanks for the YouTube link. I will definitely watch at some point.

[contrary]

This book was an assignment in college, and i dont remember enjoying it especially, but i re-read it recently (due to all the obvious parallels to our shared obsession here at FJ), and really enjoyed it (in a horrific, 'this could so easily happen if the QFers succeed in their mission" sort of way.)

and santorum is leading the polls. urgf.

[xDreamerx]

I watched the movie. It was pretty good. I didn't like it nearly as much as the book, though. In the book Kate was someone who resisted more and who really wanted out. So much of her story was inner thoughts and inner monologue. The movie misses that. In the movie she reads more as clinging to Nick for an escape for an escape, with a lot less agency.

[Confused_by_religion]

I love Handmaid's Tail (especially the keynote from the conference in the beginning of the book that shows that Gilead has been overcome by a more egalitarian culture). What about "Oryx and Crake" and "The Year of the Flood"? Still dystopian, but here the religious fundamentalists don't run the show, the big corporations do? Has anybody read that?

[MrsKay]

I think Michelle would rather be a handmaid than Serena Joy. She gets to get pregnant, give birth, nurse for a few months, and then hand the baby over and get back to breeding. That sounds right up her alley!

[katniss]

I loved Handmaid's Tale (and Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood and 1984.. you get the idea).

Reading it was very surreal because it was easy to see parallels to things that are happening. Not on such a wide scale but nonetheless.

I am fascinated with dystopian and post-apocalyptic literature and was seriously considering it for my thesis. (didn't work out in the end)

[FireIsCatching89]

I read this when I was 17, I think. It scared me more than 1984. I think the most disturbing scene was when the handmaids went to that hanging, and there were all the different women, the Commanders' wives, the econowives, the young girls about to go into a group wedding...eeeeeagh.

Been meaning to re-read it recently, actually. Spring break, maybe?

And I think Kate's name in the book was actually June, but I could be wrong. I remember reading that somewhere...

[nomi]

SUCH a good book! That was my first Atwood book and I must admit that I am now an avid reader of hers. My second favorite book by her is Cat Eye, for anyone bullied, it's really one you can identify with.