The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood

The Handmaid's Tale is one of those books that you always think you should have read but for some reason have never gotten around to. I bought myself a copy months ago so that I would finally read it but only got along to it now that I'm trying to read my entire collection of books so that I can give them away. Once I settle down again, though, I will have to get myself another copy because I absolutely loved it.

The Handmaid's Tale is set in a dystopian America that has recently undergone a major revolution. A fundamentalist theocracy has taken over and civilization has changed so as to be nigh unrecognizable. Taking their rules from a few passages in the Old Testament, the roles of men and women have been completely changed, a strange caste system having formed.

The heroine, known as Offred (for of Fred), is a handmaid for a Commander. Going off of an old Biblical precedent, households that are having problems with conceiving, are given a handmaid (if they're well off enough), a woman proven fertile that basically just serves as the womb of the family. She is not to be looked at, does nothing else but keeps herself comfortable, and once a month has to complete a ceremony with the Commander and the Wife in hopes of conceiving a child.

The novel is told completely through Offred's thoughts and memories. She tends to zone out and jump back in forth through time as she remembers the years before the new regime, her training to become a Handmaid once everything had changed and her present situation. 

It's strange but The Handmaid's Tale is one of those books that doesn't really need a plot. The world building and exploration of social mores is more than enough to fill all the pages. I found, as I was reading, that I had no idea where the plot was headed because I didn't really know what the plot was, other than Offred's life and I was completely fine with that. The world of The Handmaid's Tale just completely sucks you in and you find that hours have passed while you've read and you hadn't even noticed.

Another thing I loved about the book is the framing device. Well, you don't really know there's a framing device until the end of the novel. There is a wonderfully meta epilogue that is told as keynotes from an academic conference years in the future, post-Handmaid, discussing Handmaid as a historical text. As someone who just finished her Masters in English, this was completely up my alley. I loved what this allowed Atwood to do with the story and the insinuations she could make without messing up the extremely personal first person narrative that was the novel. It was absolutely brilliant.

I can't believe this is the first Atwood I've read. I've been meaning to read her forever and if this is any indication of how great an author she is, I'm jumping in feet first. I absolutely adored Handmaid's Tale and could not recommend it highly enough. Please, please read.

[Duel Review] If on a winter's night a traveller - Italo Calvino

Okay, I picked the book for this month's duel review. I had been glancing at it in Waterstones for a few weeks beforehand as it sat on the two for one table and had been intrigued. During my friends and my "we finished our dissertation so let's buy all the books!" afternoon, I gave in to temptation and picked up a copy. As well as the back cover making it sound quite interesting, my friend Lizzy's coworker had been raving about it to her the weekend before so it seemed a good buy.

To be quite honest, I'm not entirely sure how to describe the novel. It is definitely nothing you've ever read before. I think I may just put the back cover blurb: 

You go into a bookshop and buy If on a Winter's Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino. You like it. But there is a printer's error in your copy. You take it back to the shop and get a replacement. But the replacement seems to be a totally different story. You try to track down the original book you were reading but end up with a different narrative again. This remarkable novel leads you through many different books including a detective adventure, a romance, a satire, an erotic story, a diary and a quest. But the hero of them all is you, the reader.

I guess, at first glance, it kind of sounds like a very intense 'Choose Your Own Adventure' novel. The Reader is the main character, although, to be fair, there are instances where you realize that the author is aware of the difference between The Reader and the reader. Which shows you just how incredibly meta this novel is. 

Although there is a semblance of plot about forged books and sneaky translators, this book, more than anything, is a treatise on books, on reading and writing. It makes you think about what a book means to you and what the written word means in general. It investigates what the point of novels are and what a writer must do to be a writer and if he does not do these things, doesn't that still make him a writer? 

One thing that you will either love or hate about the book is the format. Every other chapter follows the exploits of The Reader and what he does in search of the continuation of his book. Meanwhile, the chapters in-between are the beginnings of the novels that he is attempting to read. Each one is very different, even if they sometimes explore the same things. On the one hand, they seem out of place at times but on the other hand, they really do showcase the talent of Calvino as a writer. I really enjoyed each new beginning and I think it really helps the reader identify with The Reader. When you finish each snippet, you really are curious how it would continue. It also shows you what the importance of a great set up is and how (as stated towards the end of the novel) perhaps that anticipation, the small beginning that sets the reader up, is something that can never be lived up to, no matter how good the following subject matter is.

I can't say that I particularly liked the actual plot of the novel, as I found it a bit too heavy handed and took away from some of the more interesting passages about reading in general. Even though I usually despise second person, I think it was used incredibly effectively in this book. 

I do feel that this book was probably much more revelatory in the period it was published in (the early eighties), mainly because being meta has become more mainstream, with social media breaking down the wall between reader and author and media in general becoming more interested in exploring structure through its own medium (I'm thinking Community here). However, it still packs quite a punch and gives the reader a lot to think about.

I really enjoyed this book and would definitely recommend it to anyone who considers themselves "a reader" or "a writer." It has a lot to say on both topics and will genuinely  make you think. It's an inventive novel and well worth your time.

This is my review for If on a winter's night a traveller. Here is a link to Colin's review.

Howl's Moving Castle - Diana Wynne Jones

If you're a fan of Hayao Miyazaki (and you should be), then you are familiar with the title of this 1986 YA classic. In 2004, Studio Ghibli released their movie version of the book and we ate it up. It was a lovely movie, full of fantastical images and classic Miyazaki moments. Entranced by the movie, I, of course, sought out the novel. And it's better.

Howl's Moving Castle was inspired by two things: firstly, Jones stated that she wanted to write a book where fairytales were real and just a facet of everyday life and secondly, one day a boy in a class she was speaking to asked her to write a story about a castle that moved. Combining the two turned out to be a wonderful idea.

Our heroine is Sophie, a young hat maker and oldest of three sisters. Due to the fairytale nature of their world, Sophie knows that, as the eldest, she is destined to fail the hardest at any quest she sets out on and won't be blessed with any riches or magic, so she contents herself with working in the family hat shop.

One day, however, as she works, the fearsome Witch of the Waste comes to confront her, although as far as Sophie knows, she hasn't done anything worthy of notice. Regardless, the witch puts a spell on Sophie, transforming her into an old woman. Not able to tell anyone about the spell she's under and knowing she can't stay home, Sophie sets off to find a way to break the spell, or at the very least, find a nice place for an old woman to relax.

As she goes out, however, she notices Wizard Howl's moving castle on the heath. Wizard Howl is notoriously wicked and is rumored to eat girls' hearts. But Sophie's an old woman now. Surely he won't be interested in hers. And the fire seems so cozy….

Sophie is a ridiculously lovable protagonist that grows into her own as the book progresses. Howl, our hero (?), is just as lovable in the completely opposite way, a drama queen of a wizard and surprisingly Welsh. Beyond them, there is an expansive and lovely list of side characters who all have memorable personalities and interesting plot lines. From the dog man without a head to the apprentice in love with the cake shop attendant, or, my personal favorite, the Count of Catterack, each character is very fleshed out and adds to Jones's magical world.

I must have read Howl's Moving Castle at least four or five times. It's a very fast, very easy read but it's just comfortable, like watching a favorite movie when you're sick. It may not change your view on life but it will definitely make you smile. If you don't come out of it loving Howl and having a bit of a girl crush on Sophie, you're doing it wrong. And I don't think you exist.

P.S. Completely unplanned, my friend Lizzy posted a review of this yesterday. Check it out!

[012] The Name of the Rose - Umberto Eco

The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

What the Back of the Book Has to Say:

"Imagine a medieval castle run by the Benedictines, with cellarists, herbalists, gardeners, young novices. One after the other half a dozen monks are found murdered in the most bizarre of ways. A learned Franciscan who is sent to solve the mystery finds himself involved in the frightening events ... a sleuth's pursuit of the truth behind the mystery also involes the pursuit of meaning - in words, symbols, ideas, every conceivable sign the visible universe contains ... Umberto Eco has written a novel - his first - and it has become a literary event." 

-New York Times Book Review

Why I Picked It Up:

I had read some of Eco's theory papers last year and had grown to like him. Surely his fiction would be easier to read, though?

What I Think:

The reason I picked up this book has become some sort of strange paradox in my mind. My senior year of college I took English 170 (Problems in Literary Theory), perhaps the hardest class I have ever taken in my life, and my professor had centered the class on Medieval literature. That is how I met dear Mr. Eco. The very first theory paper we read was one of his and although my classmates got rather annoyed with it very quickly, I actually really enjoyed it and proceeded to write my first paper for that class based on his theory's differences to another theorist's ("Thinking Outside the Box: The Rift between Eco and Dinshaw"). I did rather well on that paper and thus, a love for Umberto was born. True story: I even dressed as him for our Halloween class for extra credit. Because that is how cool English majors at my college were. And that's not sarcasm; we actually really enjoyed ourselves.

So, when I was perusing the shelves one day, my eyes alighted on the bright gold name of Umberto Eco. After reading the back, I could only think "Eco? Monk murder mystery? Sounds amazing!" and happily checked it out. 

At this point, I think I should mention what it was that annoyed all of my classmates so much in Eco's theory paper. One flaw that Eco indeed has is that he thinks (and rightly so) that he's smarter than everyone. He knows everything about everything, whether it be religious, theoretical, philosophic. Seriously, just look at his Wikipedia and see how many different types of things he's done in his life. This man is a genius and he knows it. As such, he enjoys throwing in references and information without explaining anything. Because, if you don't understand the reference, than you really shouldn't be reading his work in the first place. 

That was really rather apparent in Rose. There were so many things going on at any given time but, at the same, really nothing much happened. The basic plot is of a young novice monk, Adso, travelling with his mentor, William of Baskerville. They are sent to a monastery that is very soon to be host to an important religious debate in order to investigate a series of murders, as William is kind of the church's top detective, so to speak. They meet all different personalities of monks and others around monastery as the murders continue, taking one man of faith after the other without so much as a clue as to what is going on. 

Now, that all sounds very interesting, in my opinion. The problem is that Eco knows so much about all of the medieval history that this story is so grounded in that he goes off on tangents about major historical events and issues of the time, the kind of throwaway facts that are not typical stored information in a normal reader's head. Whole paragraphs might be written in Greek or Latin. There are lots of references to the Great Schism and other various fourteenth century Catholic historical events. If you don't know the littlest about these, then you're kind of screwed.

The plot itself is rather interesting. I'm a big fan of mysteries and the way he weaves the tale of murder, revenge and scholarship is very fascinating. There are even some good action sequences, something I'm not usually a huge fan of. Adso, the novice who is our narrator for this story, is a bit of a wet blanket (even if he does have a crisis of sexuality at one point) but William is a great, dynamic character who really pulls the story forward. 

And thus, we return to why I feel reading this story was a paradox. I wouldn't have understood probably 80% of this novel had I not taken English 170. However, I probably wouldn't have picked it up in the first place if I hadn't met Eco originally in that class. It's a strange, self-sustaining paradox. All in all, I'm happy I read it and enjoyed the plot itself. It just tends to get bogged down in pages and pages of philosophy and extraneous details that can be hard to muddle through. 

On a side note, apparently it was made into a movie staring Sean Connery at some point. I have not seen the movie, but if they took out a lot of the deep philosophy and historical details, it could be pretty exciting. Plus, you know, it's Sean Connery...