The Nature of Things

I'm not sure why it took me so long to read this book. I think it had something to do with my reaction to the television show based on The Handmaid's Tale . I watched the first season and found it interesting enough, but then as the second season veered away from the book, I couldn't take it anymore and I stopped watching. Thus, my mind just wasn't ready for a sequel to the book, especially if it was going to be anything like the television show. But finally, I guess curiosity got the better of me, so here we are. The Testaments comprises the statements or testimony of three women: Aunt Lydia; a young woman called Agnes Jemima who grew up in the nightmarish misogynistic authoritarian state of Gilead; and another young woman who was born in Gilead but whose mother managed to smuggle her out of the country and into Canada where she has been raised. We eventually learn about the connections between these three women. Aunt Lydia's testament is in the form of a memoir t...

In the beginning of this book, we meet a character called Snowman. In an earlier life, which we hear about as the story proceeds, he was called Jimmy. But now he's Snowman and he may be the last human survivor of a great apocalypse. The cause of the apocalypse is not clear to us at first, but it is gradually revealed as having been a quick-acting plague. Moreover, the plague was caused by a virus created at a place called the RejoovenEsense Compound. The character known as Crake (Glenn in his earlier life) worked in a high research position at this compound and he had brought his childhood friend Jimmy/Snowman on board to write ad copy and press releases for RejoovenEsense's products. When Glenn and Jimmy were growing up together, they engaged in all the usual activities of male adolescents, including watching a lot of porn, often porn featuring children. There was one young girl featured in the films that Jimmy became particularly obsessed with. Years later, when he went to wo...

For inventiveness and creative thinking, Margaret Atwood has few peers in the world of modern literature, or, for that matter, in historical literature. One perhaps springs to mind: William Shakespeare.  How appropriate then that Atwood should have been chosen to participate in the Hogarth Shakespeare series of modern writers rewriting and adapting the Bard's stories for the modern world. Hers is the fourth book in that series. For her part in the project, Atwood chose what must be one of the more difficult plays to set in modern times, The Tempest . But then, again, it's utterly appropriate that she should give herself such a challenge. She is most definitely up to the task. I was completely blown away (Forgive my little "tempest" joke!) by Atwood's adaptation. It is an intrepid, no-holds-barred interpretation and it manages to give full recognition to the writer's stated desire for literature to be able to reach everyone, as well as remaining true to the ori...

My rating:  4 of 5 stars This is another of those books that my daughter has been nagging me for years to read, but I could never quite get in the mood for it. However, now seemed a particularly relevant time to make the book's acquaintance, what with Texas and other states that are controlled by tea party Republicans doing everything in their power to limit or roll back women's rights. I found it to be a powerful, disturbing, and affecting story. The book was published in 1985 and is a dystopian vision of the near future in a place called Gilead. Gilead used to be known as the United States of America. The president and all the elected representatives in the Senate and House of Representatives were assassinated in order to overthrow the government and set up this new state. The purpose of this new theocratic and totalitarian state seems to be to return society to an ideal that supposedly existed in the distant past. This "ideal state" is a place where men are complet...

My daughter, the classicist, is always recommending to me books that are based on ancient texts. She is also a huge fan of Margaret Atwood.  The Penelopiad  then combines two of her main interests and she eagerly passed this short book along to me. It could be read at one sitting, although I read it over a couple of days. It was a pleasurable read, for Atwood is an excellent writer. The story of Odysseus is well-known from Homer's  The Iliad  and  The Odyssey . The story of Penelope, the faithful and long-suffering wife to the unfaithful Odysseus, is less well-known. Her story is tangential to the adventures of the trickster and hero Odysseus as related by Homer. Here, Atwood undertakes to tell of the events of Homer's epics as seen through the eyes and experiences of women - namely, the faithful Penelope and twelve of her maids. The story is told by Atwood in modern times. We find Penelope, nearly three thousand years after the facts of her story, in Hades, alo...