The Testaments (Hardcover)

Reviews

"'Gilead is within you ...'" by Angelo F. - 29 October 2019

In this superb return to the dystopian nightmare of Gilead, Atwood draws together several of the major themes of her life's work, from the early poetry of THE CIRCLE GAME, through THE HANDMAID'S TALE itself, to offer hope against the rise of misogynistic politics in the contemporary moment. The mordant wit of her earlier works is once more evident, even going so far as to take a critical stab at television adaptations and bad historians, readers who project their own need for coherence onto texts which resist such gestures. Aunt Lydia is back, as are two figures we are led to presume (by Professor Pieixoto, the still unrealiable academic trying to make his career on his misreading and misrendering of the texts of four different women -- Offred's in the earlier novel; and now the three narrators of THE TESTAMENTS) are June/Offred's daughters. Atwood plays elaborate and sophisticated games throughout the books, interrogating any certitude readers may have about their own take on the world of Gilead and the people who survive to tell their tales, distorted as such tales are by the intervention of the very kind of historian Aunt Lydia (and Offred in the earlier book) caution us against trusting. A wonderful continuation of THE HANDMAID'S TALE, answering some of the 'What happened next?' questions of the earlier book, and throwing up a whole new range of questions for readers to ponder at the end of THE TESTAMENTS.