The Testaments by Margaret Atwood


The Testaments by Margaret Atwood



I’m going to cut right to the chase. This book is well written but we didn’t need it. I expected more. I wanted more and this fell flat. I’ve read The Handmaid’s Tale, more than once, and I genuinely enjoyed it. The single narrative of Offred lent itself to the story well and it was genuinely a terrifying society. I watched the first two series of the show and though I have my reservations about it, I still thought it was a good show. It does a great job answering questions that the book could not because of its singular narrative. It filled out the world.

This book revolves around three narratives: Aunt Lydia, who we know had a helping hand in stripping women of their sense of self and molded them to be controlled by the men of Gilead; Agnes, raised in Gilead with a Commander as father, privileged and set to marry well; and Daisy, a teenager raised in Canada hating Gilead and the abuses women endured that she’s learned about since she was a young child. It takes place 15 years after The Handmaid’s Tale and these three narratives are all testimonies of the three women.

The Testaments feels like a continuation of the show and not the book. This is important in quite a few ways. I guess if you love the show, you’ll fall easily into this but THE SHOW COMPLETELY ERASES THE ASPECT OF RACE IN THIS SOCIETY, SOMETHING THE BOOK ORIGINALLY HIGHLIGHTED. If you’ve only watched the show, you would be blithely unaware that Gilead is an all-white society, something that this book ignores. It is never mentioned throughout the entire text. Let me repeat that, the fact that Gilead is an all-white society is not mentioned at all in The Testaments. How is that possible? How is it possible to ignore that extremely relevant point in an entire book? This is where things get problematic for me, because the show has been criticized and rightfully so for the way it handles race. It completely ignores and only highlights the fact that women have lost all autonomy. They aren’t able to read (except for the Aunts), they have no say in their life choices, and handmaids are raped repeatedly because birth rates have plummeted. In the context of the first book, The Handmaid’s Tale, it’s white people fighting their declining birth rates trying to make a purely white society. The show completely changed this making it a world wide problem, with a multiracial group of men now in control of Gilead, with a multiracial group of women tied to their wills.  

Context matters. And The Testaments addresses none of this. Leaving the context of race unacknowledged in this book makes it easy to believe that this book, follows the same strategy as the show. This is so irritating. Agnes attends a protest where many signs only address the harm being done to the women of Gilead and climate change but never address the white supremist society. She never contemplates about how she lives next door to a society of white people, even when she meets Pearl Girls, women sent to convert women to living in Gilead.  It becomes even more problematic when you consider that the smuggling network that gets women out of Gilead is referred to as “The Underground FemaleRoad,” a blatant reference to the Underground Railroad used for Black people to escape slavery. (Deep negro spiritual sigh) If you’ve read the first book, then this is a glaring and dare I say it, bullshit move by Atwood. You made it a point to create this world and specify the racial implications in the first book. Why in the hell would you ignore it in the second?!

I’m annoyed. Can you tell? Let’s keep going…

*Spoiler Alert*

I’m not here for ridiculously contrived redemption arcs. I’m just not. And if one person doesn’t deserve a redemption ARC its Aunt Lydia! The person who helped construct this world and ruin the lives of other women feels remorse and wants to take it down knowing she’ll go with it.

Sure, Jan.

Especially knowing she could have taken a way out, from the very beginning and chose power. Knowing that she helped mastermind the system. It’s too late now. The blood is literally on your hands. The playbook was written by you. Her role in all of this is what made Gilead what it is. I don’t care about her backstory and why she chose to do what she did. I never rooted for her. I genuinely never cared. She seems petty throughout this book. The whole arc was a waste.

Then there’s the plot twist at the end, which if you’ve been following along and realize it’s been 15 years since The Handmaid’s Tale, and especially if you’ve watched the show, is obvious. And a nice neat tidy way to wrap everything up. Fate’s are sealed since the beginning of the books since these two women are writing from the future. The only one whose fate is left in the balance is Aunt Lydia and if I haven’t made it obvious yet I could care less either way.

In closing, I’m not recommending this. I said what I said and I mean it. This book feels like it was written for the 53% in a way that questions nothing but looks to be a game changer. The Handmaid’s Tale in comparison is raw. The characters are daunting, threatening and all too real. This is cookie cutter. This is a shadow. It challenges nothing and simply sits on the story presented in the show, to a detrimental point. I’m giving it 1 out of 5 stars.

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