The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood

The Handmaid’s Tale tells the story of Offred, one of the few fertile women left in the Republic of Gilead, a totalitarian, patriarchal theocracy that overthrew the old United States of America by assassinating most of congress and blaming it on Islamic extremists.  Women have lost almost all their rights under the new regime and Offred’s only choice for her future is a slow death working in irradiated lands, suicide, or prove she is fertile by living as a surrogate mother for the wife of one of the powerful new commanders.

I read The Handmaid’s Tale many years ago as one of my VCE Year 12 texts and it’s easy to see why it was chosen.  Many different themes are woven into the story.  Perhaps the one that has stuck with me most over the intervening years is the idea that perhaps our relatively recent victories for race and sex equality and religious freedom aren’t as permanent as we’d like to think.  That political apathy might allow fanatics of one persuasion or another a way to regress our social development in some small or large way.

The other idea that really stuck with me was that the women in the dystopian future of The Handmaid’s Tale essentially have a counterpart in today’s society.  The most direct comparison would be with women living in nations under Islamic rule, but even within the more western religions, the role of women is still largely pushed as being subservient to men.   The theocracy depicted in The Handmaid’s Tale is a fundamentalist Christian one.  Offred’s ritualized surrogate mother role is taken from the biblical story of Rachel and Leah.  We enjoy a very liberal existence in Australia, but this book made me realize that not only are there always going to be individuals who view women as inherently inferior to men, but there are actually nations where the idea is law.

The opinions posted here are my own and not those of Maribyrnong City Council.

Michael Lay

Diving the Wreck – Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Kristine Rusch  has written romance, sci-fi, mystery and crime novels, but reading Diving the Wreck you’d never know, it’s a straight up sci-fi novel and it’s done very well.

Our protagonist is Boss, a loner spaceship captain who dives wrecked spaceships she finds in the depths of space.  These wrecks are here livelihood, as she can bring tourists on dives of wrecks that she deems safe enough, but she’s also a historian, who dives wrecks for the love of the history associated with them.

Then she finds an derelict ship, incredibly old and originating from Earth, but in a sector of space it should never have been able to reach.  The ship is a mystery that could hold incredible riches, incredible danger, or both.

Diving the Wreck reads like a small story in a large universe.  Rusch concentrates on the details of Boss’s life and story.  She is a believable and compelling character and the mystery of the ship and how Boss decides to deal with it made this a very quick and easy book to read.

Michael L.

It Chooses You – Miranda July

In It Chooses You Miranda July is at her best – shining a light on the underexposed aspects of human life to reveal humour and heartbreak in unexpected places. The book was compiled as a side-project while she wrote (or avoided writing) her second film. July set out to interview thirteen individuals who placed advertisements in the Los Angeles newspaper the Pennysaver , hoping to find out about the lives behind the funny little ads for tadpoles and  large leather jackets.  She took photographer Brigitte Sire with her, and the result is a book filled with the stories of the interior lives of ordinary people, accompanied by thoughtful portraits of the people and their homes.

July’s style is tender and understated. Her interview questions are gentle and respectful, allowing her subjects to weave their own narratives . Her subjects are from all walks of life – a nervous teenage boy, a strong immigrant mother, a remarkable transsexual woman. The anecdotes they tell are in turn funny and sad, often at the same time. It’s amazing what people will reveal to you if only you ask, and that’s one of the key themes of July’s work here – in a big city it is easy to remain isolated from the people surrounding you, but it only takes a little effort to see the richness in a stranger’s life.

It Chooses You is a beautifully put together book filled with touching stories from ordinary people. I’ll never look at the Trading Post in the same way again.

Laura M.

The Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins

In a dystopian future, an oppressive regime has the power to keep 12 districts in line from a single gleaming capitol city.  To display their power, as punishment for a failed rebellion and simply for their own entertainment, the capitol demands one male and one female teenager from each district every year.  These tributes compete against each other in a televised battle to the death.

I resisted reading The Hunger Games for a long time.  The premise above really didn’t appear to have much room for depth, but I read the first few chapters of my mother’s copy when she was visiting one weekend and reserved a copy for myself the next day.

It’s well written.  Right from the start the protagonist, Katniss, is a believable and likable character, but more importantly, the tension between the capitol and the districts is obvious.  Katniss is a hard and sometimes cold character, but she’s inherently good.   She loves her sister and looks after her family any way she can, but Katniss is headed for the barbarism of the Hunger Games where only one tribute can survive.  While many of her opponents there are vicious killers there is also Peeta, the male tribute from her home district who’s act of kindness towards her years earlier has Katniss feeling indebted to him and Rue, the youngest competitor in the games who reminds Katniss of her own sister.  

Katniss enters the games with her life and her humanity, and while we can foresee ways for her to survive the games with one, surviving with both seems impossible.

Michael L.