The Handmaid's Tale Readalong

This week we're discussing Sections Five through Eight for The Handmaid's Tale read-along.  Mercy, have we learned a lot this week!  The read-along is hosted by Trish at Classic Reads Book Club.

"We are for breeding purposes: we aren't concubines, geisha girls, courtesans.  On the contrary: everything possible has been done to remove us from that category.  There is supposed to be nothing entertaining about us, no room is to be permitted for the flowering of secret lusts; no special favors are to be wheedled, by them or by us, there are to be no toeholds for love.  We are two-legged wombs, that's all: sacred vessels, ambulatory chalices."

Sometime in the future, most women have become infertile and it has become the duty of the women who are still fertile to bear children for the elite.  The Handmaids' duty is to become impregnated by the Commanders during ceremonies that also involve the Commander's wives.  All passion and love is absent from these liasons.  Even when women become pregnant, there is a very real risk, because of environmental hazards, that the child will be born deformed in some way, an Unbaby.

"Women took medicines, pills, men sprayed trees, cows ate grass, all that souped-up piss flowed into the rivers.  Not to mention the exploding atomic power plants, along the San Andreas fault, nobody's fault, during the earthquakes, and the mutant strain of syphillis no mold could touch."

A birth is such an important part of life that all of the Handmaids in an area attend to assist with the birth and all of the Commander's Wives attend to support the Wife whose Handmaid is having the baby.  They even pretend that the woman is actually the one in labor.  The whole thing was so cold.

We learned that our narrator is Offred.  All of the Handmaids are named as if they are the property of their Commander, which, of course, they are.  To the extent that when the Commander asks Offred to come to his office, a forbidden place, she goes even though she knows he will not support her if she is caught.  But it begins to give her an opening to ask for a favor or make her escape.  I'm eager to see where this will lead.

In our conversations about this book, one of the things that we've talked about it "freedom from."  In the society in this book, residents are largely free from decision and, for the most part risk.  Offred and the other women are able to walk down the street and feel entirely safe, free from worry.  But is this kind of freedom women want?

Sunday Salon - August 29

Amazon has released their Fall Reading Preview. I find it very interesting that they have a separate category for Blockbusters, Fiction and Nonfiction. Are they not anticipating that any of the fiction or nonfiction books will become blockbusters? Leading the list of fiction is Jonathon Franzen's "Freedom" and Ken Follett's "Fall of Giants (The Century Trilogy)" heads up the blockbusters.

NPR's Summer Reading section is highlighting nonfiction books to ease us out of summer and into the fall. I know many of you are fans of Anthony Bourdain and his latest, "Medium Raw" makes the list as does "The Daily Show's" Samantha Bee with "i know i am, but what are you?"

I'm continuing with the read-a-long of The Handmaid's Tale this week, as well as starting (a week late) the Bleak House read-a-long and reading "Finny." I only hope I can keep it all straight. What's on you reading agenda for the week?

All Things In Common

This summer not many of my books have had much in common with each other, with the except of "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien which tied back into the books I read this spring that dealt with Vietnam. But it wasn't a coincidence, as were so many of the other commonalities I've come across. I knew it was about Vietnam going in.

More of the things that have made me go "wow, I was just reading about this" happened while I was listening to the radio. Not long after I featured Kim Stanley Robinson's book "The Years of Rice and Salt" in Mama Shepp's Family Recommends. I'd never heard of Robinson before this book was recommended to me. Imagine my surprise to hear that name come up again while I was listening to "All Things Considered" on NPR. Alan Cheuse reviewed Robinson's latest book, a collection of his short stories titled "The Best of Kim Stanley Robinson." Cheuse has never steered me wrong so getting that second recommendation for this author's work really makes me think I need to get to "The Years of Rice and Salt" sooner rather than later.



That same day I was listening to APR's The Story and Dick Gordon was talking to Dennis Reed, who was an amateur photographer 30 years ago when he came across the work of Japanese American art photographers who had been forced to hid their work when they were sent to Japanese internment camps (a subject I'd discovered had recently come up in several reads). Some of these photographers managed to make cameras out of materials they were allowed to have in the camps. As stark and barren as the other photographs I've seen of these camps are, these make them look so much worse.

Have you discovered any themes recurring in your reading?

The Miracles of Prato by Laurie Albanese and Laura Morowitz

The Miracles of Prato by Laurie Albanese and Laura Morowitz
384 pages
Published January 2009 by Harper Collins Publishing
Source: the publisher and TLC Book Tours

In 1457, in Prato, Italy, Fra Filippo Lippi, monk and reknowned artist is teetering on the edge of disaster. His morals are suspect, his spending imprudent and he's definitely taken on more than he can manage. He's taken a commission for a painting of the Madonna but can't seem to find inspiration. Sisters Lucrezia and Spinetta Buti are recently impoverished following the death of their silk merchant father and the slandering of his good name. The only option for them is to become novitiates at the Convent Santa Margherita. Spinetta, who has always planned a life in a religious order readily accepts her fate but Lucrezia is heartbroken to have to give up her dreams of someday being a wife to a wealthy man and a mother. When Fra Filippo, who is the chaplain for the convent, first sees Lucrezia he has found his muse.

Lucrezia's visits to the Fra's bottega draw the notice of powerful people, including the Prior General, who are quick to think the worst of the situation. Things quickly spiral out of control and even the fact that Lippi and Lucrezia have fallen in love cannot salvage the situation.

When I finished this book I surprised to realize that I had not marked one passage with a sticky tab nor had I taken one note. That usually mean that I could hardly stomach the book; that it was not bad enough for me to mark things that I wanted to point out as reasons not to read the book. Which was not the case at all with this book. I liked it well enough but it just never grabbed me.

Morowitz, who is an art historian, clearly knows her stuff and there is a great deal of detail regarding painting techniques, the creation of paints, and the specifics of how various forms of painting are rendered. All of which is a wonderful teaching tool but there is just too much of it; it frequently slows the pacing of the book and distracts rather than enhances.

Although I never became fully engaged with the characters, I did get wrapped up in the story as the tension grew and it became more and more apparent that terrible things were going to happen to Lucrezia and Fra Filippo. But the ending felt rushed for me and a final chapter that threw us many years into the future was a disappointment.

Fra Filippo Lippi and Lucrezia Buti are actual historical people, as are many of the other characters. Albanese has crafted the book around the rumor of their liason and I did enjoy the historical background of the story and the look into the power structure of the time.


Other sites related to the book check out:

• Discussion guide for THE MIRACLES OF PRATO
• Co-author Q&A

As always with TLC Book Tours, you can find a number of opinions about this book. Dar, of Peeking Between The Pages, loved this book and felt the combination of the fact and fiction was seamless. For the other reviews, please check out these sites:

Tuesday, August 10th: Peeking Between the Pages
Wednesday, August 11th: The Tome Traveller
Thursday, August 12th: English Major’s Junk Food
Monday, August 16th: The Whimsical Cottage
Wednesday, August 18th: Bookalicio.us
Tuesday, August 24th: Passages to the Past
Wednesday, August 25th: Lit and Life
Thursday, August 26th: Life in the Thumb
Monday, August 30th: Rundpinne
Tuesday, August 31st: Drey’s Library
Thursday, September 2nd: The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader

The Handmaid's Tale Readalong

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
Published 1985 by McClelland and Stewart
Source: I bought it--I even have the receipt still in the book to prove it

I've been meaning to read this book for years; it was even on my plan to read it this year. But it took Trish (of Hey Lady, Whatcha Reading) hosting a readalong at Classic Read Book Club to get me to actually pick it up.

Several months ago, I happened to come across the movie, which stars Natasha Richardson, Faye Dunaway and Robert Duvall. Didn't like it a bit. I couldn't believe you could take a book that is supposed to be so great, add in that many great actors and come out with such a dull movie. Which made me really wonder about the book. I immediately hoped that the number one would not come up as my next read for the Random Reading Challenge. Four sections into the book and I'm ready to throw all of the blame on the script. Or the director. Anything other than the source material.

Because even though I've now read fifty pages of the book and have really only been given glimpses of what is really happening, I'm really enjoying Atwood's writing.

"A bed. Single, mattress medium-hard, covered with a flocked white spread. Nothing takes place in the bed but sleep; or no sleep. I try not to think too much. Like other things now, thought must be rationed. There's a lot that doesn't bear thinking about. Thinking can hurt your chances, and I intend to last. I know why there is no glass in front of the watercolor picture of blue irises, and why the window opens only partly and why the glass in it is shatterproof. It isn't running away they're afraid of. We wouldn't get far. It's those other escapes, the ones you can open n yourself, given a cutting edge."

The world as we know it has changed dramatically and our narrator, who is, at this point nameless, finds herself in the position of being a Handmaid. We don't really know yet what exactly that means except to know that she lives in the house with a Commander, the Commander's Wife, some Guardians and a couple of Martha's (essentially house staff). Handmaids have their own room in the homes but nothing about them is personal, the Martha's don't seem to like the Handmaid and the Commander's Wife is openly hostile. Our narrator is sent out on daily walks but must always be with another Handmaid, is not allowed to show her face, and can't talk to anyone other than the Marthas and other Handmaids. She's having recollections of a child, clearly her own, and a man but we don't yet know what happened to them. Or what has caused the world to change so dramatically.

And there is the Wall. It's hundreds of years old but it's gates now have sentries, there is barbed wire at its base, broken glass on it's top and floodlights mounted on metal posts.

"No one goes through those gates willingly. The precautions are for those trying to get out, though to make it even as far as the Wall, from the inside, past the electronic alarm system, would be next to impossible. Beside the main gateway there are six more bodies hanging by the necks, their hands tied in front of them, their heads in white bags tipped sideways onto their shoulders. There must have been a Men's Salvaging early this morning."

Doctors, lawyers and scientists seem to be the primary target of the Men's Salvaging but why? And why does the Handmaid wear nothing but red? So many questions at this point--I can't wait to read on for the answers. I know, I know--I saw the movie. But, honestly, I disliked it so much, I've all but put it out of my head. I'll let Atwood lead on.