Book review: ‘The Testaments’ by Margaret Atwood

In this blog Anne Marie Waters looks at ‘The Testaments’ by Margaret Atwood.

Having read the latest book of one of my previous literary heroines Margaret Atwood. Atwood is the author of the horrifying classic ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’. This is, without doubt, one of the most disturbing books I’ve ever read. It portrays a futuristic era in which the United States has transformed in to an Old Testament theocracy, where science, evidence and reason have been replaced by dogma, and brutality is the norm.

As is to be expected in such a society, women particularly suffer; reduced to property and valued only by their ability to give birth – something entirely controlled by their male masters. It is the subtlety and simplicity of this book that makes it so frightening. Reading it, you believe it, and Atwood takes you right there, right in to the midst of this medieval nightmare scenario.

She has done it again in the sequel entitled ‘The Testaments’, which I have just finished reading. Once again, the horror is laid bare in this brilliantly written novel. But as I read, I had to wonder; does Margaret Atwood realise that what she is describing is not fiction, but fact? She is describing life inside numerous Islamic states to this day.

In both books, Atwood describes how women are forcefully covered, forced in to marriages and killed if they refuse. In her dystopia, a woman’s word is worth less than a man’s, women are stoned to death for being raped, and face constant fear or violence or death for any expression of independence or autonomy. In one example, she refers to a grown woman needing permission from a young boy to carry out a fairly standard task.

By Anne Marie Waters

13th November 2019

Read the full post at the link.

https://www.forbritain.uk/2019/11/13/book-review-the-testaments-by-margaret-atwood/