I’d taught “The Handmaid’s Tale,” to great results–the students loved it–but now there are Cliff’s Notes for it. I want to use books where the students get no help. They just have to read it. Atwood is such a fabulous writer, I felt I wouldn’t be gambling too badly.

So I just finished it, and I’m in awe. The end is one of those that makes you think there’s more on the next page, but there’s nothing on the next page. So you again read the ending and nod and wonder.

Thus I came to the Internet and looked for who wrote about the book, and, lo and behold, you were at the top. This is such a difficult book to explain, and yet you did it brilliantly. I had not read “Oryx and Crake” because when I started that one, it seemed such a downer. This one, despite it opening when the flood had come–whatever kind of flood it was–I was fascinated by watching Toby survive, and then going back in time a few decades before the flood. You follow the story with Toby as she joins God’s Gardeners to hide out from her daily rapist, and there we also meet one of the teenagers in the cult, Ren, who later leaves and becomes a sex worker at SeksMart.

What’s interesting is we follow Toby in third person and Ren in first person. Normally, such POV shift would drive me nuts, but I didn’t even notice it until I was nearly done with the book.

I happen to write notes in my books as I read, and at times I was writing the word “funny” in the margins often. Atwood’s view of our countries (U.S. and Canada) is dryly wicked often. For example, she mentions how a foreign corporation east of Europe kidnapped a top executive from an American corporation, and, “The Corps over there were always trying to poach on our Corps — their undercover thugs were even more cut-throat than ours, and they had an advantage because they were better at languages and could pretend to be immigrants. We couldn’t do that to them because why would we immigrate there?”

I love all the names in the book. Atwood has as much fun naming things as does J.K. Rowling. Witness the companies HelthWyzer and CryoJeenyus, and the AnooYou Spa. There are the gene-spliced new creatures, such as the rakunks and liobams, that corporations have created. The big company that seems to run everything is is CorpSeCorps, which has the word “corpse” in it.

I’m just dashing this off, realizing that teaching this book is going to big a huge but fun challenge. With so many ideas in it, I can already picture some of my students, most of whom are not readers, feeling as if they’re Columbus, finding a new land.

I’ll send you a note if you’re interested in how the students reacted to it. I couldn’t finish Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” because it was too damn unrelenting and bleak. While this is bleak, there are absolutely lyrical passages.

I agree with you, Wendy: the Adam One passages and the hymns are not gripping, and I soon skimmed the hymns, but Adam One, the leader, grew on me. I’m not a fan of cults, yet as I’m watching the craziness of all the oil in the gulf and the fact that we as American’s burn up a third of the world’s oil and drive monster cars still as if it’s all endless, this book makes sense.

Dystopian literature is by definition unrelentingly grim. It’s probably best to put an uplifting kernel of hope and salvation, a bit of Hollywood ending, if you really want to keep the majority of people coming back for more. Just look at the Book of Revelations. However if you don’t mind good songs that start out kind of slow and then fizzle out altogether, try Doris Lessing’s Canopus in Argos series.

El Fay: I actually LOVED the Handmaid’s Tale – it is one of my favorite Atwood novels. I liked that this one had women playing central roles – Atwood does female characters great.

Gavin: You’re welcome – oh I think I could see her writing a third novel which would start where this one ended…but we’ll see!

Nicola: It is always so interesting to see how different readers interpret characters! I agree that IF there were a 3rd novel, it would be a natural choice to have it pick up where this one left off.

Staci: Sorry you didn’t enjoy the Handmaid’s Tale BUT, that said, Atwood does not just write dystopian stuff…and you might give another of her novels a try at some point.

Teddy: *laughs* Yes, I love her too! Will be interested to read your review of this one sometime.