Only the first two thirds were enjoyable. The last third was awful and wrecked the entire novel

• Published: 2015
• Completed: 21/05/2023
• Pages: 306

This sci-fi novel by Margaret Atwood is a bleak and misanthropic account of a desperately destitute couple who give up their freedoms in exchange for the anodyne comfort of the gated community of Consilience.

At the start of the novel, the central couple consisting of Stan and Charmaine, are living out of their car, struggling to feed themselves and stay safe. When they sign up to live in Consilience, they are given shelter, food and jobs. However they predictably grow tired of their new surroundings and despite the hardships of their previous lives, romantically begin thinking about escape.

The dystopia at the core of Atwood’s novel is nothing new, where large expanses of society are poor and corporations exploit the masses for profit. However, it was still interesting to me because of our recent experiences of the pandemic.

In some ways, the numb suburbia of Consilience resembles our own societies after the lockdowns were lifted. Even though there is no reason to complain – we have jobs, homes and are not hungry – there is a colourlessness to life. It might just be boredom, but like the central characters, we wonder if there is something more, something that we are missing out on.

What was most fascinating to me though, was the brutal first hand accounts of the two central characters in the couple. The novel is voiced from their perspective, in an unfiltered first/third person monologue. These are intrusive thoughts. They think the worst of people and are pathetic, cruel and selfish. What is scary, is that I can see part of myself in these characters.

Unfortunately, the last third of the novel was really disappointing to me and ruined the entire work. Up until this point, I had been happily enduring the details designed to depress and disgust because I could draw some tenuous parallel between Atwood’s fictional world and ours. However the end felt forced, with the final twist seemingly more academic than something consistent with the motivations of any character.

Additionally I felt there was a lot of unresolved set up. What did it matter that the residents of Consilience rotated between being citizens and prisoners? Why pretend that someone had undergone mind changing sexual orientation surgery? And was it really necessary to ask so many rhetorical questions throughout the novel?

Its biggest flaw though, was that the last third was simply boring and when coupled with the aforementioned cliched dystopia, meant that there was very little for me to take away from this novel.

Quotes

“She wants him to feel ashamed of himself, because such feelings of his are a part of her disguise”, p57

“She’s on the short side, with straight black hair down to her shoulders. Dark eyebrows. A heavy mouth, no lipstick. Black jeans and T-shirt. She looks like a dyke martial arts expert.” P83

“She’s been a distraction for him, but not a necessity of life. More like a super strong mint: intense while it lasted but quickly finished” p144

“He shouldn’t have let himself be caged in here, walled off from freedom. But what does freedom mean any more? And who had caged him and walled him off? He’d done it himself. So many small choices. The reduction of himself to a series of numbers, stored by others, controlled by others. He should have left the disintegrating cities, fled the pinched, cramped life an offer there. Broken out of the electronic net, thrown away all the passwords, gone forth to range over the land, a gaunt wolf howling at midnight” p151

“The sun shines on the ripples where it’s shallow. Deep is too dark.” P188

“Why does death make people so hungry?” P207

“She gives him an LED smile: light, but no heat.” P208

“Encourage him to think with his dick, an appendage not noticeably overloaded with brains.” P213

Questions & Thoughts

When the author and not a character calls a woman a “slut”, p23

Very black humour / complaints from those receiving lethal injections p95

Everyone’s tone is patronising – like talking to children, p97

Makes me think of Warhol (dead Elvis and dead Marilyn) p201 and at the same time, Dinos and Chapman, p202

Typography

.T kerning too tight? Chapter title font is very 90s with its use of spiky terminals

New Words

• Mollifying

Ratings

• Hayley: 3
• Kaye: 3
• Liz:
• Sarah: unrateable
• Sally: 5
• Thành: 5

Restaurant

Part Time Lover, because of the themes of infidelity