Word: handmaid
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This is not quite a popcorn novel, but it's not all you would hope from Atwood, who deftly imagined a different awful future in The Handmaid's Tale, her 1985 book about a U.S. controlled by Fundamentalist Christians. Here she sticks closely to the rules of dystopian writing. Civilization has succumbed to a calamity, in this case brought on by heedless bioengineering, the kind that sets loose viruses that melt down their victims like "pink sorbet on a barbecue." Then again, the world was asking for it, what with the webcast suicides, the rampant porn and the chickens bred...
...commentary on the book he's in, but it certainly could apply, especially if you factor in his next line: "Want some popcorn?" This is not quite a popcorn novel, but it's not all you would hope from Atwood, who deftly imagined a different awful future in The Handmaid's Tale, her 1985 book about a U.S. controlled by Fundamentalist Christians. Here she sticks closely to the rules of dystopian writing. Civilization has succumbed to a calamity, in this case brought on by heedless bioengineering, the kind that sets loose viruses that melt down their victims like "pink sorbet...
Margaret Atwood's 10th novel should equal or surpass the popular appeal she achieved in The Handmaid's Tale (1985) while maintaining her consistently high literary achievements. English professors will relish the postmodern trick--a novel with a novel within a novel--that gives The Blind Assassin (Doubleday; 521 pages; $26) its title. The less theoretically inclined can simply kick back and marvel at Atwood's gripping tale, which stretches from World War I almost to the present moment. At the center are two sisters, Iris and Laura Chase, daughters of a wealthy Canadian manufacturer who is ruined during...
...other interviews, Atwood has explained that she chose to set The Handmaid's Maid at Harvard because of its connection to early Puritan America. Harvard was originally founded to train Puritan ministers...
...Though a little too extreme to be realistic," advises one Australian critic, "The Handmaid's Tale still offers a dire warning to humankind, predicting the worst for society is yet to come...