“Better never means better for everyone... It always means worse, for some.”
Rating: Tyler Hansbrough
I decided to start my summer of Atwood with the only Atwood book I've ever read, The Handmaid's Tale. If any book was ever to be branded as having Tyler Hansbrough's "Psycho T" intensity, I think it's this book. Atwood builds an unbelievably creepy yet realistic world where the society is based literally from the book of Genesis. It's a book that makes your skin crawl, to see how what was once America had been demolished into this rigid society where Catholics, abortionists, and homosexuals are put to death as traitors to the regime.
That being said, I had forgotten that not a lot actually happens in this novel. Yes, Atwood is an amazing writer, and yes, the world she builds in dementedly beautiful, but there's not a lot of plot. The plot mainly consists of subterfuge and scheming, which is interesting, and necessary in order to let the reader see the level of corruption and dissent in this supposedly "Biblical" society, but it gets a bit tedious after a while. I wanted something big to happen in this novel, and instead it's just tiny events that lead up to an ending where nothing happens. The ending is left up to your interpretation, and the "epilogue" that's added is set in the future and talks about what's written in the manuscript, but still doesn't answer any of the questions that Atwood leaves you with.
I might have a limited imagination, but I like books that have a concrete ending. I don't like to conjecture and wonder about what could have happened. I like for everything to be wrapped up in a tight square little package by the time the book ends, and Atwood doesn't do that here. I'm not sure if that will prove to be typical of her books, but at least in The Handmaid's Tale I needed some more closure. It felt unfair to leave an open ending in a book where nothing happens. I needed some sort of resolution instead of being left feeling that I had been hoodwinked into reading 300 pages of build-up only to be dumped with nothing to show for it.
I'm not sure if this will be one I'll pick up again. Twice might have been my limit.
