Wednesday Reading Meme

[osprey_archer]

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

“A priest once told me that grief is not a duty. You should let it come and go as it will and not bind it to you with iron hoops.”

This quote comes from Vivien Alcock’s Singer to the Sea God, which is only intermittently a book about grief, so the quote is not really representative, but it stuck with me nonetheless.

As to what it is about when it’s not about grief? I’m not quite sure about that: I felt it was more diffuse than the other Alcock books that I’ve read, and perhaps didn’t ultimately come together as a whole, although I did admire Alcock’s project to delve into the world of ancient Greek myths through the eyes of the little people often ignored: Phaidon and his friends begin the book as slaves in a king’s court, and escape only after the king and most of his nobles are turned to stone by Perseus with Medusa’s head.

Singer to the Sea God is the last of the Alcock books my local library has available (the other two were The Mysterious Mister Ross and The Monster Garden), but I’ve found another source for some of her other books. Any particular recommendations? I seem to recall hearing nice things about The Stonewalkers.

What I’m Reading Now

Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments! I’m about halfway through and CALLING IT NOW, Aunt Lydia is the contact for Mayday on the Gilead side. Another prediction (slightly less certain about this one): her story is going to cut off abruptly, signalling that she’s been caught and executed, but we’ll only learn about it obliquely, probably through Agnes’s narration as Agnes has already mentioned that she becomes an Aunt.

Non-spoilery reaction: I’m not sure, upon reflection, that rereading The Handmaid’s Tale right before The Testaments was the best idea. The Handmaid’s Tale is a great book, which means that The Testaments, while good, can’t help but suffer by comparison. It’s also, as troisoiseaux observed, a much more conventional modern dystopian tale: a story about resistance, whereas The Handmaid’s Tale is about resignation, about a woman living under a regime she despises but has no power to change.

The story closest to the original Handmaid’s Tale in atmosphere is Agnes’s story about her childhood in Gilead. This is also the story that offers the most on-the-ground worldbuilding detail about Gilead, and so far it is my favorite in the book.

What I Plan to Read Next

The 2020 Newbery winners have been announced! The big winner this year is Jerry Craft’s New Kid, and there are also four (!) Honor books: Kwame Alexander’s The Undefeated (which also won the Caldecott Medal for the word of illustrator Kadir Nelson), Christine McKay Heidicker’s Scary Stories for Young Foxes (I’ve heard good things about this one: probably the one I’m most looking forward too), Jasmine Warga’s Other Words for Home, and Alicia D. Williams’ Genesis Begins Again.

Comments

[kore]

Yeah, I enjoyed Testaments a LOT, and even reread it, but well, Handmaid's Tale is a superb classic. I also personally didn't like the voices of the two girls -- I didn't think Atwood really got them, although I did like Agnes's early story. But LYDIA. Oh my God, I loved her.

[osprey_archer]

I've been enjoying Agnes's story so far (probably my favorite out of the three at this point in time), but I've had trouble connecting with Daisy. We'll see if that changes as the story unfolds.

[kore]

Yeah, not to dunk on Atwood, but while Agnes and Lydia were very convincing, Daisy was....not. That got better later on, tho (don't want to spoil you re how).

[asakiyume]

whereas The Handmaid’s Tale is about resignation --THAT is a super insight right there. My mind went *pop*. Thanks for that.

Scary Stories for Young Foxes is a great title.

[osprey_archer]

If only I could have summed it up as succinctly when I was in high school! I could have written a kickass term paper about The Handmaid's Tale instead of slogging out an essay about A Tale of Two Cities. But at the time I was just like 'I really like this" without being able to articulate why.

[silverusagi]

So I finally read The Testaments.

It’s also ... a much more conventional modern dystopian tale: a story about resistance, whereas The Handmaid’s Tale is about resignation, about a woman living under a regime she despises but has no power to change.

The story closest to the original Handmaid’s Tale in atmosphere is Agnes’s story about her childhood in Gilead. This is also the story that offers the most on-the-ground worldbuilding detail about Gilead, and so far it is my favorite in the book.

It's interesting, I also liked Agnes's story the best, because it was interesting as far as being the perspective of someone who was born in Gilead, someone who hadn't known anything else. And it had a ton of worldbuiling. I actually got less interested in the book the more the resistance plot geared up? Part of me feels like this was very much a book of its times, in that it shows the fall of a terrible regime, in a time of a lot of real life uncertainty. And it's not like we didn't know Gilead fell, because of course it did. This was an interesting book, but it's in no way as good as Handmaid's Tale, and I doubt I'll ever reread it. Of course, I might not reread Handmaid's Tale, either, but for different reasons. It's an extremely good book but a very uncomfortable read.

[osprey_archer]

IMO Agnes's tale (at least early on) is the closest to the original Handmaid's Tale; she doesn't have the same basis to critique Gilead's society as Offred, so she's less overtly critical early on, but there's a similar sense of resignation to the way things are.

But then the resistance plot kicks into gear and the book becomes a much more conventional Rebellion Against Unjust Authority novel.

[silverusagi]

Yes, and it was so fascinating to be inside the head of someone who had known nothing but Gilead. Also in Agnes's tale, I really felt like I was reading more of The Handmaid's Tale, but different.