My New Favorite

I just finished The Handmaid's Tale which I found fascinating with an thought-provoking open-ended finish. It takes place in a future with a declining birthrate and a repressive regime in America that came about by way of a bloodless coup. Not surprisingly this ultra-puritanical society has it's own corruptions and hypocrisies and it's own rationalizations for them.

I love the image of the Handmaids in long red habits with white wimples having built-in blinders; they look like nuns yet different and they serve a very different role. Somehow in my imagination this image is much stronger then in my memory of the movie version of this book. The image I do recall from the movie was the Ceremony which is introduced in a subtle startling way. In particular it was the image on Serena Joy's face when her husband, the Commander appeared to be enjoying the ritual. I guess both forms of this story have their strong points but I think the book is superior. Perhaps it was the blackness of the story that I found difficult to accept on first exposure, or perhaps it is just the realism/cynicism of a more mature perspective but I was even more enthralled with the written version of the story of Offred (she is of Fred; she has even lost her name in this new society), the Handmaid whose tale we are hearing (we never learn her former name or the name of her daughter who was taken from her). There are some very inventive touches such as the Marthas, the Unwomen, the Wives and Econowives dressed in blue, the Handmaids in red who are always in pairs, the Aunts, the colonies, the Salvagings and Prayvangazas , the Guardians, the Angels, and the Eyes. The irrepressible Moira is a well-formed character who gives yet another perspective on this society.
When the husband/commander commands Offred to join him surreptitiously, it is at least at first to play Scrabble and look at old outlawed magazines such as Vogue.
Another wonderful touch is the names of the stores of the town: Lilies of the Field, Milk and Honey, and All Flesh. Finally there is the store called Soul Drafts (formerly a lingere store) where you can buy time on a machine that reads prayers on your behalf.
This world is a well-wrought wryly inventive creation.

I have previously reviewed books by Margaret Atwood in this blog.

News-speak

What is it that I like about News Headlines?
-they're written to be provocative
-they often use idioms playfully
-they're written in an active voice rather than passive
-it is a style of writing that leaves out extra words, even subjects

Some favorite headlines from the New York Times:

Tit for Tat on a night where Spin is master

Zigzagging all day, Stocks resurface from a Dive

Side Deals in a Grey Area

Incumbents on the Ropes over Ties to Improprieties

Vice fills Void

Son of Privilege takes Baby Steps on Political Proving Ground

elbows

elbows
ground down from their former sharpness
to rounded
like river rocks

from the task of propping up
deadening weight

Margaret Atwood - at the outer edge of the work of a wide-ranging author

Recently I read Alias- Grace by Margaret Atwood followed by the novel Oryx and Crake.
I rate both books highly but the second one is the more gripping and stimulating of the pair. The two are very different in style and pace. Also the first one is set in the past and the second in the future.

Jimmy, also known as Snowman (named after the elusive Abominable Snowman), is the most interesting and developed character in Oryx and Crake as opposed to the flatter characters of Crake and Oryx.

The story is suspenseful although I haven't decided if the climax makes complete sense to me or not; it appears to be result of mutual misjudgements by the three main character or a suicidal impulse on the part of Crake (which is hinted at but does not quite jive with how I read his character). It has a touch of the deus ex machina plot device to me.

Nonetheless it is a rewarding book well-worth the read. I find it a conceivable extrapolation, however exaggerated, of the way things are going.

Jimmy especially rings true as a product of the modern times who as a word person ends up in advertising or Problematics or Applied Rhetoric as it's known in this book. It seems that in this world expressive writing for it's own sake (as Ms Atwood does so well)is not an option. How does the author portray his love of words? She does this by having him remember lists of unusual words perhaps as his own self-diagnostic test as he notices his mind deteriorating. Some of these words:

pullulate pistic trull grutch woad laryngeal

More lyrics from yet another source

I sing in the local community chorus; we have done an great variety of choral music some of which takes no back-seat for the power of the lyrics and their musical settings.
Recently we sang Handel's Messiah which includes lyrics like:

All we like sheep have gone astray
We have turned, everyone in his own way

The setting of the music suits the words so well, turning and going astray as expressed by the lyrics.
Then the music and mood takes a brilliantly abrupt turn to serious majestic measured contemplation:

And the Lord hath laid on him
the iniquity of us all

One of the best ways I know of to learn and appreciate music like this is to sing it with a chorus; it is so much more fufilling to be a part of the complex polyphony that to experience it from the outside. If you've never tried but have an interest in music/singing you must try this!
It would be interesting to search out other music that changes pace so dramatically and effectively.

A walk with a wound

I took a walk with a wound
we discussed
habits of successful people

and I saw
my dog nuzzling
my companion
and licking the wound

so it could bleed clean

My Father's Mind

Memory goes
in corrosive salt water
flaking off like bark
from driftwood


the ocean gusts
thigh-deep in it
seashells are whisked back from view
under the foam of a retreating breaker


If my father could just wave back at me
from the shore