My Evil Mother: A Short Story

My Evil Mother: A Short Story by Margaret Atwood

Mother is "evil". She is a witch and controls her daughter in strange ways. She wont let her date a boy because she thinks he will die. (He does get involved with drugs a few years later and dies, but not related to the girl.) She tells her that her dad is now a garden gnome. (She believes it, but later finds out her dad served time in prison due to his past alcoholism.) Eventually the girl grows up, gets married and has a daughter. Does witchery skip a generation? The story is well written, but a little hollow.

The Testaments: A Novel

The sequel to The Handmaid's Tale that follow the life of a girls that have lived in Canada and the Republic of Gilead. Men have very little presence in the novel. They appear to marry or sexually abuse girls. The focus is on the girls. One girl is raised in a modern Canada. Her parents are very protective. Against their desires, she sneaks out to a Gilead protest. It turns out that she was actually born there and had escaped to be raised by a Canadian family. She later goes back to "infiltrate" Gilead. She has trouble living a pious life.

The other focus is the girls of Gilead. One doesn't want to be married after experience untoward behavior from the dentist. She instead joins the "aunts". They remain celibate, engage in recruiting missions in Canada and also have the ability to read. In the process, they also uncover some of the inconsistencies in their society. They live in circumstances that appear to us to be very harsh and cruel. However, they are just living their normal lives. They have hopes and desires within the realm that they live. They don't consider the regime they live in to be oppressive. (The girl in "open" Canada comes across as being more internally "oppressed".) Even though they are comfortable with the society they live in, they are upset with cruelties and inconsistencies. They find great offense from those that violate the rules of their society.

The Handmaid's Tale

The Handmaid's Tale is set in a dystopian future in which the ruling class uses pseudo-Christian rhetoric to subjugate women. Sex plays a large role in the novel. Handmaids are used to help counteract a population decline. (The government had declared that no men could be infertile, only women.) The man and his handmaid participate in a "ceremony" (with his wife present) in an attempt to impregnate her. They seem to have predicted that we do the same thing today - only the "ceremony" involves a few layers of scientists and a mixing in test tubes. The novel is told entirely from a female viewpoint, and presents a very dark picture of a society where women are not allowed to read (or even casually speak) and must subtlety show bits of individuality on their own.
At the end, we find the "tale" was found recorded on cassette tapes in Maine. A study of it is being presented as part of a scholarly presentation of the "Gilead Studies" convention. They are unsure of the identification of the narrator or the commander. However, they have some guesses. This ending drastically changed the understanding of the book. The reliability of narrator is called into question, though it is still considered to be fairly authentic. It does open the possibilities of all sorts of other works set in this "historical" period. We also have no idea what happened to the narrator. Was she caught? Did she escape shortly thereafter? We don't know. Though the framing story does seem to give an "excuse" for the graphic nature of the earlier work. After all, it was just unedited thoughts without literary filtration.

Cat's Eye

This tedious book dealt with the childhood reminiscences of Elaine, a popular, controversial Canadian artist. She traces back her experiences growing during World War II and going to school in Toronto. Her big concern seemed to be the relationship with Cordelia, a friend who used to tease the narrator, but later had struggles of her own.

The novel occasionally bounces from the past to present, but seems to have an odd "remembering" structure. The earlier parts of life seem to be in much greater detail, while the later parts of life whiz by quickly. The narration is fairly easy to follow, and has fairly vivid pictures of post-war Toronto. Cordelia plays the role of Citizen Kane's "rosebud", representing the lost youth that is difficult to reclaim.

Elaine has had challenges in her life, never quite fitting in with groups, yet not forcing herself to be a victim, or altering her beliefs to conform to groups at any end of the spectrum. Alas, the book is slow moving, and not very engaging. The characters change, but don't seem to grow. This is not a book I would recommend.