Please see Styx thread on the Registered Shipmates consultation for the main discussion forums - your views are important, continues until April 4th.

Heaven: September Book Group - The Testaments by Margaret Atwood

MiliMili Shipmate
edited August 2021 in Limbo
Here is the August Book Club thread. This is the sequel to The Handmaid's Tale, but is an enjoyable stand alone read if you have not read or seen the T.V. series of the first book (although I did find it helpful to read a summary online to understand a couple of the characters better). Feel free to join in the discussion if you have already read the book previously too. The more the merrier! Questions will be up around the 20th of the month as usual.

Comments

  • Should this be September?
  • I think this is the first time I've ever already read a book that has come up in these threads. I actually enjoyed this one better than Handmaid. I like a depressing dystopian novel as much as the next guy, but there was just a little bit more light at the end of the tunnel in this sequel.
  • MiliMili Shipmate
    Whoops! Lockdown is confusing my sense of time! I will see if I can edit the title
  • MiliMili Shipmate
    Hmm...I may need a host to change it. Can a Heaven Host please change the month in the title to September? Hope you have time to join in the discussion Jonah the Whale. I haven't read Handmaid or watched the T.V. series because it sounded a bit dark for me, but this book is really enjoyable so far. I haven't linked a review as a lot of them contain spoilers or give away too many plot points for my liking. I will leave it up to individuals how much you want to know before reading the book.
  • jedijudyjedijudy Heaven Host
    Glad to do so, @Mili
    jj-HH
  • SarasaSarasa All Saints Host
    When I've finished my catch up of Malory Towers I'll download this and join in. I've sort of read The Handmaid's Tale, but it was a bit on the dark side for me and few minutes of the TV series definitely was.
  • I loved The Handmaid's Tale in 1985 and ordered an expedited shipping option for The Testments and was totally entranced from page 1.
  • MiliMili Shipmate
    edited September 2020
    I am finding it pretty engrossing. I have already read more than half! I might read the first book afterwards. I learnt to read in 1985 so wasn't quite at reading level for 'The Handmaid's Tale' :) Also thanks for correcting the thread title jedijudy!
  • jedijudyjedijudy Heaven Host
    You're very welcome! :smile:
  • I read it as soon as it came out. I commend it. Part of my neck of the woods appears in the book.
  • SarasaSarasa All Saints Host
    Just finished it and really enjoyed it. I've red both last year's Booker prize winners now. I rarely read any of them.
  • MiliMili Shipmate
    edited September 2020
    I hope everyone enjoyed the book. I am posting discussion questions, but feel free to add more.

    1. Were there any benefits for women and girls living in Gilead society as opposed to modern western culture, as claimed by the Aunts and Commanders?

    2. Although extremely patriarchal, did Gilead provide a happy life for men?

    3. Was it realistic for Aunt Lydia to have survived so long without being caught and punished?

    4. Was Becca's sacrificial death necessary?


    5. If you could ask Margaret Atwood any question/s about the fictional world of Gilead what would you ask?

    6. Why was Canada (and presumably the rest of the world) seemingly unworried or unaffected by the population/fertility crisis that had caused major ructions in the U.S.A.?

    7. The book lacks ethnic diversity and is vague as to the genocide that has led to the U.S.A. population being almost totally white. Does this detract from the book as a whole especially given current events?

    8. Was the mostly happy ending too optimistic?
  • SarasaSarasa All Saints Host
    These are really interesting questions @Mili, and have really made me think about different aspects of the book.
    I did enjoy it, which is more than can be said of The Handmaid's Tale, but it did remind me of a lot of teenage dystopian fiction I've read, and I wonder if Atwood was overly influenced by fans of the TV series. The escape at the end, though exciting, was very televisual for instance.
    I can't see that it was a great society for anyone. Even those at the top were forever watching their backs. I do wonder if the lower orders had a better time of it. I can't see any immediate benefit for either men or women in this society. Murder seems to be the only way you can get ahead and every one, or at least most of those that we meet in this world are watching their backs.
    Ant Lydia was an interesting character. She was more intelligent than people such as Commander Judd so it is credible she could stay one step ahead of getting caught. Her pragmatic approach to work from within to destroy the society, while using any means available raises questions about whether the ends can ever justify means or not.
    I thought Becca was rather an under-written character, but certainly well on the way to sainthood. The fact that she decided you had to chose between God or the State could have been explore more I thought.
    As for the population crisis, I assumed there had bean some sort of localised nuclear accident that had caused it. I guess it doesn't need to be explained it's just there. My geography of the USA is hazy, so I wasn't sure how large it was supposed to be or exactly where it was centred. We hear about an independent Texas and and independent California but I wasn't sure about the mid-west or the rest of the south.
    I hadn't really noticed the lack of diversity in the characters, but then I don't think anyone was described in any great detail so maybe it was more diverse than we might imagine.
    The ending was one of the main things that made me think of teenage fiction. It really was a golden sunset ending wasn't it?
  • MiliMili Shipmate
    I had to do a bit of research to remember how I knew about the genocide. Apparently in the T.V. series Gilead is a multiracial society, but in the books it is an ethno-white state. This book only references international genocide charges against Gilead and that Gilead has a Certificate of Whiteness scheme, but I also read summary notes of "The Handmaid's Tale". In that book we find out that Jewish people and the "Children of Ham" have been 'resettled'. One of the books references these resettlements as camps on the outskirts of Gilead where people were left without any means of survival.

    From a couple of articles I read, some people criticise the books for conveniently removing non-white people and using the historical treatment of black slave women as a model for how the white handmaids are treated. Others think it shows how a white ethno-state would treat a genocide - writing it out of history and rarely referring to it after the fact, which does ring true historically.
  • SarasaSarasa All Saints Host
    That is interesting @Mili. As I said I don't know The Handmaid's Tale well, but it makes sense that a society that sees women as 'other' would see anyone from a different ethnic background the same way.
    It also makes me realise that I make assumptions about characters based on my own ethnicity which isn't a good thing and something to be aware of.
    I do wonder if Atwood decided that wasn't an avenue she was going to explore. Daisy/Jade/Nicole having been bought up in Toronto would be used to an ethnically diverse society, but I don't remember any comment on her about the whiteness of Gilead. Talking of her, I liked her as a character and her teenage fearlessness and convincement that she had the correct view of things was well done. It did play into the whole teenage dystopian novel thing though, like Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games and Tally Youngblood from Uglies.
  • I'm enjoying everyone's comments, and I enjoyed the book, Very compellingly written - I read it over a weekend.

    Here are my answers to some of the questions, and I'll have a go at the rest later.

    3. Was it realistic for Aunt Lydia to have survived so long without being caught and punished?

    Yes, I think so. The very belittling of women by the Commanders and male elite means they are not alert to the possibility of subtle undermining – outright rebellion is one thing they guard against, but they have decided that women aren’t capable of clever manipulation against the regime, so they don’t see it. And they have deemed the female sphere as separate, so really aren’t very clear about what is happening at Ardua Hall. This is what enables Aunt Lydia’s delicious subversion – and her fellow Aunts don’t seem to have much clue either (which is perhaps her greatest danger). And she has dirt on some of the individual Commanders – and they know it.

    6. Why was Canada (and presumably the rest of the world) seemingly unworried or unaffected by the population/fertility crisis that had caused major ructions in the U.S.A.?

    It is a bit of a mystery. I assume Atwood is implying that USA was more polluted than the rest of the world (I’m not sure how plausible that is) or there’s been a particular accident (chemical/nuclear or something similar) in the USA which has had localised effects. Of course she needs a counterpoint in Canada to the Gilead regime to make much of the narrative work.

    7. The book lacks ethnic diversity and is vague as to the genocide that has led to the U.S.A. population being almost totally white. Does this detract from the book as a whole especially given current events?

    The decision to have Gilead almost totally white – ie having a relocation of Blacks to an apartheid-style ‘homeland’ with accompanying high death rate as mentioned in The Handmaid’s Tale (and I don’t remember the details; it is a while since I read THT) – was a decision taken by Atwood in 1985, when, of course the apartheid regime in South Africa was very much still alive. There’s a mention of the ‘Homelands Genocide’ in Daisy’s testimony (chap 10). Presumably Atwood took that decision partly to show the barbarity of the regime and partly to be able to concentrate on one issue, gender, rather than race as well. Of course, since then we’ve had intersectionality, so things look a little different. I don’t see how it could be easily reversed in this book. The TV series ignored the book in this aspect and had a much more diverse cast – I’m not sure Testaments could get away with that. In the light of current events it could be seen as a flaw – or still show the barbarity of the regime. Either way, the lack of ethnic diversity happened in the writing of THT – Testaments is stuck with it.

    8. Was the mostly happy ending too optimistic?
    Most appalling regimes end eventually, even if it takes a while. We need to have hope.

  • Some more thoughts:

    1. Were there any benefits for women and girls living in Gilead society as opposed to modern western culture, as claimed by the Aunts and Commanders?

    It’s hard to see any! Though some people like having the hard decisions taken by someone else – I remember teaching Indo-Fijian girls about 40 years ago, some of whom claimed that the fact that their parents would find them husbands, with the girls holding a power of veto, took the tensions out of teenage/twenties dating and relationships. But whether they felt the same when they actually came to marry I’m not sure! Agnes claims to have had a happy childhood, mostly, until Tabitha dies. She knows nothing else besides Gilead, and that must at least give the security of familiarity.

    2. Although extremely patriarchal, did Gilead provide a happy life for men?

    They seem to have been jockeying for position amongst themselves – not that that’s unique to Gilead. They don’t seem a contented lot, though their foibles are largely tolerated and accommodated.

    4. Was Becka's sacrificial death necessary?

    IN terms of the plotting, yes, probably. Becka also raises the interesting question – which Mili notes – that the God of Gilead is a long way from any Christian world most of us would recognise (though I realise that many of the excesses have been seen in churches/cults somewhere). If one reads the Bible honestly, as Becka begins to, the discrepancy is clear – and this would be interesting to follow up. But the tone of the book doesn’t allow for that.

    In some ways I enjoyed Testaments more than THT; it’s an easier read, more sardonic, funnier and less claustrophobic. It also lacks the shock value of THT – which in 1985 (I read it not long after it came out) really packed a punch. But since then there’s been the TV production, and Trump, and the protesters wearing Handmaids costumes – and the initial punch has rather dissipated. Personally I thought the first season of the TV THT very good, with the wonderful visuals, the intensity and fear, the very good acting, but felt it deteriorated after that and ended up sensationalist (they shouldn’t have made the third series, IMHO). After all that Atwood probably had little choice to write a sequel with a different feel to it (a bit young adultish but with also Aunt Lydia’s cynicism – the best bit, I thought), and in that I think she’s succeeded. But it’s not the tour de force that THT was.

  • MiliMili Shipmate
    Thanks for the interesting responses and further info on the race themes in the series from Marama. I felt Atwood also drew on the experiences of Indigenous Americans.

    1. Were there any benefits for women and girls living in Gilead society as opposed to modern western culture, as claimed by the Aunts and Commanders?


    The leaders of Gilead claimed there were benefits, however in reality all the things their system did to protect girls and women did not prevent child abuse, domestic violence and murders or sexual assault. Also from the characters shown it was the top class that received the most benefits. I felt there was not enough information on the lives of Marthas or women and girls of the econo class to judge what their lives were like. The lack of divorce was bad for men and women as the only way out of an unhappy or abusive marriage was death which lead to murders in some circumstances. Wives also had to share their husbands with handmaids and often sex workers as well and were expected to accept that in exchange for a nice house and 'lifestyle'. Even worse was the lack of medical care, which seemed strange given that the main aim of society was to produce more healthy children. There were dentist clinics, but maternal hospitals did not seem to exist at least for giving birth. There did not seem to be modern interventions if something went wrong during labour.


    2. Although extremely patriarchal, did Gilead provide a happy life for men?

    Even the men at the top did not seem happy as they still could not divorce if their arranged marriages were not working. Not many men would have been as happy to kill off multiple wives as Commander Judd did, surely. They had a constant risk of being purged and had a high workload and stressful lives. Unmarried men of the upper classes were forced to be soldiers and had to compete with more powerful men to even get a wife. Again it was hard to tell if the boys and men in the econo class were any happier. We do not know if they had fair workplace laws and pay or if they were exploited so the people at the top could remain wealthy.

    3. Was it realistic for Aunt Lydia to have survived so long without being caught and punished?


    Aunt Lydia was very wily, but she also had a lot of enemies. She stayed alive through others knowing she would take them down with her if they tried to have her purged. However I think she was very lucky to escape being poisoned or murdered in some way that did not give her time to dob others in.

    4. Was Becca's sacrificial death necessary?


    I think another way could have been found to get the sisters out of Gilead without Becca dying. I would have liked to see how she would have adapted to life in Canada or a more free USA.

    5. If you could ask Margaret Atwood any question/s about the fictional world of Gilead what would you ask?

    I would like to know more about the Marthas and Econoclass citizens and how everybody was slotted into their respective roles. Before reading the book I had some knowledge of the world, but thought it was just made up of Handmaids and married women and that all fertile women who were not wealthy became handmaids and servants to wealthy married women. Now I realise it was more complicated. That some wives were fertile and that their were Marthas, a separate class for doing most of the housework and cooking. Plus the econoclass. This left me with a number of questions, which may have been answered in the first book:

    How does somebody become a Martha? Are the Marthas infertile poorer women and the fertile poorer women become econowives? Is a woman a Martha for life or can they marry?

    What were the living conditions for the econoclass like? Were women's lives in that class much more restricted than the men's lives or was there more equality? We know some people, especially on the edges of the Gilead nation opposed Gilead - how popular was the political system for those in the econoclass?

    6. Why was Canada (and presumably the rest of the world) seemingly unworried or unaffected by the population/fertility crisis that had caused major ructions in the U.S.A.?


    It seems unlikely that a level of pollution or nuclear disaster in the U.S. would not also cause fertility problems elsewhere, especially in neighbouring Canada. I found this was a weak point in the novel that was not really explained.

    7. The book lacks ethnic diversity and is vague as to the genocide that has led to the U.S.A. population being almost totally white. Does this detract from the book as a whole especially given current events?

    It is understandable that a book from 1985 might be less diverse and also that the citizens of Gilead would not dwell on the genocide that allowed only white 'Christians' to live in Gilead, forcing others to unlivable settlements, and may even cover it up by excluding what happened from history books and classes. However I thought this book could have included more racially diverse characters from Canada or from Texas and other areas of the former U.S.A. who were fighting Gilead.

    8. Was the mostly happy ending too optimistic?[/quote]


    I agree with Marama that these sort of dictatorships do often end, sometimes quite abruptly, especially in countries that have a history of democracy. However I don't think it would be smooth or peaceful transition back to a more democratic, egalitarian society. Too many people would still want a society where men and white people were superior and it may also be difficult to return to a society with less class division.
Sign In or Register to comment.