/lit/ - Literature

>le evil Christian theocracy reducing women to breeding machines

Are we supposed to pretend women don't get hysterical over this only because of the Christian (i.e. egalitarian) undertone? If it were some Aryan eugenics program where only the top females were selected, they'd be proud to be part of it, even envious if they weren't chosen. They'd probably even revolt about being left out.

But in that universalist Christian context where the masses are equal as long as they're baptized, they'd all get to pretend as being equally valuable. So, obviously, to make the dumb plot work, they had to throw in that cheap cliche of the hostile environmental factors that made most women infertile.

So, this is just 1984 for roasties?

So, it's basically the USA under a Christian version of Sharia law?

The Handmaiden’s Tale
Published 1985
Yw

What was the message?

Is this the most dishonest book in modern literature?

The Handmaid's Tale felt really anime.

This has probably already been asked plenty of times but I want sometime to seriosuly explain it to me. What's so good about the Handmaid's tale? The writing style is clunky and confused and the characters leave no room for emotional investment. Am I just too dumb?

>I've just read an incredible article where "The Handmaid's Tale", a sub-par piece of science-fi trash, is defended by its author. The author, who rightly should be apologizing for her execrable prose, not only defends it but calls it "timely". The book has been made in to some sort of cable mini-series. I'm Canadian, so had to suffer through this book as a young person. It's one of those cheap, dystopian tracts. The difference with this one is it has a deeply paranoid feminist look into the future. The story is as impossible as most of these " frightening looks into the future". But to call it timely, when the possibility of this fiction ever becoming fact even more of a joke, is just a cynical cash-grab.
>One might not like the premise, the meandering non-plot, the ugly themes, the subliterate dialogue and the dull fillibustering.
>I would say "unpublishable" would describe her style.
>I don’t hate Margaret Atwood. I hate bad writing. It isn’t her fault and I’d never have anything but pity for the talentless. But the Canadian school system makes you read her.
>It is nauseating to consider that through shameless self-promotion someone like Margaret Atwood could care consider herself Munro’s peer. Unlike Munro, Margaret Atwood is incapable of writing a novel, yet churns out chum at an alarming rate. Munro is the greatest writer Canada has ever produced but feels herself incapable of writing a novel. On the flip side sits Margaret Atwood.
>What do I care if it's well-regarded. I have eyes to read. Everyone but me is welcome to love it. But I am right. Content-free.

Margaret Atwood completely and unequivocally blown the fuck out.

After having read The Handmaid's Tale, I came to the conclusion that the dystopia illustrated by Atwood is very unrealistic and at the same time a jab at conservatism in general. I also noticed the discrepancy, in more than one aspect, between Atwood's interpretation of a dystopian novel and that of Orwell's or Huxley's to just name a few. I suspect that Atwood's pretentiousness (in the form of her political ideas) has driven her to write The Handmaid's Tale. So my question is to what extent could Atwood's personal ideas and her desire to push her anti-conservative agenda have affected the novel (particularly in terms of themes)?

>>6475049
>marriage is for chastity
>must establish paternity
>sex is for reproduction

i fucking hated the handmaids tale. the whole point of a dystopian novel is to write a terrifying future that you could honestly believe would happen. however a situation like the handmaids tale could not happen in even the most desperate of nations. why would they kidnap and brainwash a couple of women. that wouldn't lower the population in the slightest , a majority of women and all men are free to breed. that future could never happen from a practical point of view as it would solve no problems and only create a few more. if it had taken a cultural stand point and said that in the future all women everywhere had to be house-keepers for their husbands that would make a bit more sense, but even then it would not be that believable as there is no strong stigma to make women be house-keepers. am i missing a point here or was this book just a butt-hurt feminist failing to try and imagine a unlikely scenario where any of the bullshit that she constant spewed had any relevance at all.

books that bored you to tears?