But since 1985, when The Handmaid’s Tale was first published, readers have hearkened to the book’s most striking warning — that every society carries within itself, like an unfertilised egg journeying to the womb, the possibility of dystopia. Advertising“Nations never build apparently radical forms of government on foundations that aren’t there already,” wroteAtwood about the Gilead she had imagined in The Handmaid’s Tale. In The Testaments, Atwood reveals the machinery of Gilead, the nuts and bolts of its systematised oppression, and the ugliness where it is coming apart. In The Handmaid’s Tale, Aunt Lydia was a cartoon figure of pure ruthlessness, terrifying and one-note. The Handmaid’s Tale is, undoubtedly, the superior work of the two — The Testaments, by its very structure, exchanges an expansive, plot-driven narrative to the former’s brooding, punch-in-the-gut brilliance.

Source: Indian Express October 19, 2019 19:18 UTC