Why read Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale

The worst-case scenario — imagine it, vividly and honestly.

Sometime after COVID-19 happened — deep into the pandemic — I picked up Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go from a bunch of other fresh titles standing/laying on my shelf. I only rarely let the book go out of my hands until after it was finished and I could finally put it to rest. It was so engrossing. I’d never read any of Kazuo Ishiguro’s books before. I had no special expectations for the book. No special interest in dystopian literature, either. I enjoyed it but didn’t have a preference for it as some people do.

It was a lucky accident.

Never Let Me Go was an accidental (or coincidental) read that turned out to be soothing and therapeutic for the time when the familiar world was getting less and less familiar and more and more obscure.

One and a half years into the war, I’m reaching out for dystopia again to get myself through yet another disaster. Two dystopias. One is The Handmaid’s Tale, which I’m reading. Two is Silo, which I’m watching. First is hopeless and petrifying. Second is oppugnant and lively. Both are unputdownable. Both are masterful. Both are much worse than what I’m going through.