
clementine
Written on Jun 18, 2019
Margaret Atwood imagines a world that has been reduced to a disease-ravaged wasteland. Its (apparent) only inhabitants are a group of genetically-modified superhumans who have the intellectual capacity of children, terrifying animal hybrids, and a human named Snowman, who is apparently the only person who remembers the world as it was. The narrative alternates between the past and present (a trademark of Atwood's writing), and we get to see the segregated, capitalist world that existed before total collapse. There are a lot of interesting things to pick out here: the aggressive advertising of self-improvement products, the obsession with youth, the fact that corporations pretty much own everything. This is a very different dystopia to that of The Handmaid's Tale, one that focuses less on regressive patriarchy and more on how bad capitalism is. Atwood's writing and worldbuiling is always sensational, so no complaints there. And yet this was not really my cup of tea. First of all, there was only one female character in the whole thing, and she's kind of an Orientalist fetish object who exists exclusively as the target of Snowman's sexual obsessions. Like, if a man wrote this book I would probably be really mad. But Margaret Atwood can't just get a pass for being Margaret Atwood! Don't be racist, Peggy! I'm begging you!