Just finished reading The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood. Yikes, that's stong stuff. Like a drain cleaner. I do not recommend combining it with the other stuff I've been reading: The Clinton Wars by Sidney Blumenthal (in serial form, courtesy of Salon) and the Objective Ministries website (with jaw dropped, courtesy of Riley Dog). I feel strange. Like I combined ammonia and bleach. Like I should carry cash. Like I should flee to Canada while there's still a chance. (Oh, wait....)
Truly, though, A Handmaid's Tale is compelling, and wonderful sentence by sentence, but I mostly feel used by it. Ambushed. Though there were people I was interested in, and people I felt sorry for, there was no one I loved. It was not, in a word, compassionate. I know compassion is not everyone's favourite virtue in writing, but it's mine. So I feel a bit -- stiff.
(Come to think, novels often leave me feeling sore and bruised. Whereas poetry -- even depressing poetry, even Celan, even Simic (Night Picnic in the knapsack just now) -- doesn't do that to me. Why not, I wonder?)
I may have to hold off on Orxy and Crake, while I try to get my balance back. Next up, Pratchett's The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents. That should make the world flat again. And then maybe some nice Alice Munro. I finally turned up a used copy of Hateship Friendship Loveship Courtship Marriage, and I'm looking forward to that. It's like knowing you've got chocolate in the cupboard.
Ghirardelli. Raspberries with Grand Marnier.
I remember the first time I read The Handmaid's Tale. I came out of it thinking that is was just as well I didn't get more involved with the characters or I'd be out clubbing rightwingers and antifeminists.
Trust me, stay up there!
You Canadians always manage to put out some great literary stuff (Anne Carson is another favorite of mine). I actually loved the Handmaid's Tale, but I read it many many years ago and my memory of it may be different if I read it today. There is a movie that was made from that--there is a chance that I might have seen it first and that is what got me to check out Atwood in the first place, but that was back in the mid 80s if so and I was a teenager. I don't remember the movie much at all, but the book sticks with me.
Atwood always surprises me...none of her novels are really like any of the other ones. Orxy and Crake is on my wishlist and my birthday is around the corner, so if I manage to read it first I'll let you know how it is. :)
Chocolate, raspberries, Grand Marnier--sounds like a kindred spirit to me!
Found it...I must have read the book first because I know I was still in high school and the movie came out in 1990. Was an ok movie if I remember right. But well, that was 13 years ago that I saw it, I'm sure. :)
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0099731
I know what you mean about feeling used and bruised from some longer fiction, whether novels or movies. Maybe because they are structured to manipulate more than show; they get can their claws in like a soap opera, a bit of sugar, a bit of beauty and a dash of rancour and bad karma. And it's closer to life with more characters rather than one voice.