The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood, is the story of a thirty-something woman caught in the aftermath of the disintegration of American government, and the institution of the “Republic of Gilead.” Canada (Atwood’s homeland) seems to have been untouched.

Gilead is founded on “Biblical principles,” the main rules having to do with Who Controls Womens’ Bodies. Every woman must have as many babies as possible, and be shared around to as many different men as possible in order to ensure that everyone can continue his line. The whole thing is a twisted Rachel-and-Leah story: women fall into categories of Wives, who are too old to bear children but were married before the revolution; and Handmaids, childbearing women who basically get passed around in two-year shifts.

“And she [Rachel] said, Behold my maid Bilhah, go in unto her, and she shall bear upon my knees, that I may also have children by her.” (Genesis 30:3).

Barren Handmaids are sent away to what amounts to the Gulag. Of course, in Gilead, it is the woman’s fault if they don’t get pregnant, never the man’s, even though they have modern technology to monitor fertility. Atwood‘s agenda is clear once again.

“And Jacob’s anger was kindled against Rachel, and he said, Am I in God’s stead, who hath withheld from thee the fruit of the womb?” (Genesis 30:2)

Atwood’s elaborate setup of a KGB-type government has been compared to Orwell’s immortal 1984 . Except the Religious People are to blame, instead of capitalists or communists. She also borrows the idea of propagandism from Orwell: instead of videos about how the “capitalist pigs” kept the working man down in times before, old S&M porn videos are shown. The idea is to convince the helpless women that they were abused and disrespected in America, but are treasured in the Republic of Gilead.

Orwell’s books are layered in subtle symbolism. The agenda of his books was often unclear, but he refused to explain them to his contemporaries. “I write to make people think for themselves,” he said. Atwood’s symbolism, meanwhile, is as subtle as a piano on the chest. Her writing is fluent and readable, but collapses beneath its own weight. For example:

“You are pearls,” one of the narrator’s Gileadian instructors tells her. The narrator wants to tell her friend that pearls are just oyster spit. “We’ll lick you into shape,” the instructor continues.

So in that passage, there is the spit and the lick. You also have a reference to birth, in the fact that “lick you into shape” is what mother bears were supposed to do with newborn cubs, whom the ancient Romans thought had no shape. Babies again.

The whole thing is like that. The narrator (who remains formless herself, nameless and swathed in a red tent of a dress) has a hard little cushion with FAITH embroidered on it, symbolizing her FAITH that things will get better. The plot is like a cat pregnant with eight kittens, dragging her pendulous belly along the ground because her legs are too short.

Perhaps this book would be better if it were original, like Orwell’s. Oh yes, the characters are vivid, the narration is flawless. Atwood knows just how long she can stretch the spaces in which nothing at all happens, before marking an event such as a friend’s escape from the institution.

The premise is the ruin of the story. Despite the fact that Atwood carefully molds her character as formerly-lovingly-married, with a baby of her own, and sets up “wild” women around her in her former life, as contrast, the whole book is basically a rant about women’s rights, women’s bodies, the evils of religion, and those lovable-hatable duffers, men. Perhaps if there were not so many other books ( The Jigsaw Woman, to name one) along the same vein, her rant would be more impressive.