Bridgewater Review

Volume 39 Issue 1 Article 13

4-2020

Book Review - Margaret Atwood, The Testaments (New York: Doubleday, 2019)

Halina Adams Bridgewater State University

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Recommended Citation Adams, Halina (2020). Book Review - Margaret Atwood, The Testaments (New York: Doubleday, 2019). Bridgewater Review, 39(1), 36-37. Available at: https://vc.bridgew.edu/br_rev/vol39/iss1/13

This item is available as part of Virtual Commons, the open-access institutional repository of Bridgewater State University, Bridgewater, Massachusetts. BOOK REVIEWS

Margaret Atwood, The Testaments (New York: Aunt Lydia, and new characters Agnes Doubleday, 2019). Jemima and Daisy. This text attempts to redeem Aunt Lydia by revealing her Halina Adams back story: her life before Gilead, how she was converted to the Aunts, and ne image in Margaret Atwood’s The her current mission to undermine the regime. Atwood includes an epigraph Testaments (2019) stands out to me—not only from George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda pre- as a commentary on our age of “alternative sumably to explain the humanization O of this previously repulsive character: facts,” but also as a gloss on how we might read “Every woman is supposed to have this follow up to her popular and highly regarded the same set of motives, or else to be a The Handmaid’s Tale (1985). The image appears in a monster.” Yet, Aunt Lydia’s metamor- conversation between two Aunts-in-training, called phosis from arch believer to revolu- tionary seems a bit like retconning “Supplicants.” Discussing the motto of the Aunt at the expense of her deliciously evil school, one of the Supplicants notes that Latin was characterization in the original novel. Regardless of how one might feel popular for mottoes: “For instance, the motto of about this redemption, Aunt Lydia is everything inside the Wall used to be Veritas, which by far the most interesting of the three was the Latin for ‘truth.’ But they’d chiseled that narrators: Agnes is the daughter of a high-ranking Commander and Daisy is word off and painted it over” (289-90). It is a stirring a realistically snotty teenager living in image: truth being ripped off an academic building, the still-free country of Canada. Both feel underdeveloped when compared to painted over so that even ghosts of the letters can’t Aunt Lydia. be detected. Yet this erasure, bleak and oddly Testaments, while still engaging the premonitory as it might seem at first same sense of paranoia and unreliabil- glance, ironically captures a major ity, ultimately takes a more optimistic, problem with the novel. Truth, after and at times uncomplicated, position. all, is a slippery element in both the Perhaps it is a consequence of the popu- world of Gilead and the meta-tex- larity of Atwood’s first novel (and the tual transcripts of the Symposia on recent Hulu adaptation); the nihilistic Gileadean Studies that end both of ending of the first book simply does Atwood’s novels. The uncertain not play well now, at a time when conclusion and somewhat repulsive the bleak realities of Gilead are becom- academics at the end of Handmaid ing uncomfortably familiar. Rather led many readers to debate Offred’s than offering readers a philosophical fate, the veracity of her story, and the debate, Testaments serves up an uncom- trustworthiness of texts. As a result, plicated sermon. For fans of Atwood’s Atwood’s first novel left readers ques- original novel, this shift may feel like a tioning the nature of narrative, truth, dumbing down of her dystopia, a too- and perception. It was a clear warning tidy demolition of the insidious evil to readers: those concepts could be that made Handmaid so terrifying and manipulated and weaponized to yet so compelling. confuse and ultimately control the The story of The Testaments is told by unwary and wary alike. three narrators: the evil brainwasher and part-time torturer of the first novel,

36 Bridgewater Review The unifying plot revolves around hence the most revealing about the Shining, Doctor Sleep. What all three the Underground Femaleroad run by novel’s larger faults. Mayday feels more have in common is a return to a famil- the Mayday organization introduced like a deus ex machina—if you’ll for- iar world beloved by fans; but once we in Handmaid. This group has been give my Latin—than a real, operating, enter that world we find it littered with receiving information and aid for guerilla freedom-fighting group. They fans’ expectations for happier endings, smuggling women out of Gilead from a are as shadowy and undeveloped to the over-the-top gimmicks, and, sin of all high-ranking, mysterious source (Aunt reader as they would have been to the sins, winks and nods at what was once Lydia). The source is in possession of a Commanders of Gilead. All we know unique and exciting. Atwood’s new cache of documents that could lead to for certain is that they have almost novel may have a happy ending, but her the implosion of the upper echelons of supernatural abilities, it seems, when it original message seems to have been Gileadean government, and is will- ing to turn them over to Mayday. The only catch: the courier of this informa- tion must be Baby Nicole, a child who … the larger issue with this was stolen away by a rogue Handmaid years before. The central tension, then, novel—beautifully written and revolves around whether or not the entertaining as it is—lies in its documents, Baby Nicole (who we learn early on is Daisy), and Agnes will be departure from the veritas that able to get to Canada. Atwood relies heavily on the found made its predecessor so disturbing, manuscript trope, highlighting it this but important. time around by naming each woman’s narrative as an archival document: The Ardua Hall Holograph and Transcripts of Witness Testimony 369A and 369B. comes to extracting girls and women sacrificed to the all-seeing eye of fan Each thread of the narrative also reveals from Gilead. They appear precisely demands. I wish I could believe that the a fuller, and more disturbing image of when they are needed, both for the narrative twists and turns, unlikely plot Gilead and its practices. From Aunt characters and the plot. In this way, the points, and cheerful denouement were Lydia (Ardua Holograph), we get a plot of this novel better suits the Hulu the result of a clever manipulation of deeper dive into the history and prac- series in that it feels more like a sus- expectations that ultimately undermine tices of the Aunts. Not only do we learn penseful, but ultimately upbeat spy film the idea of really knowing the end of a how they were “converted,” we also see than a sensitive examination of how story. But that, dear reader, would not how she has gathered power and infor- quickly our rights can deteriorate. be the truth. mation over the years. Agnes Jemima Indeed, the larger issue with this (369A) details the life of a Wife-in- novel—beautifully written and enter- training and the very real and persistent taining as it is—lies in its departure threat of sexual violence that exists in from the veritas that made its prede- Gilead, despite their public relations cessor so disturbing, but important. campaign. Daisy/Nicole’s testimony Towards the end, a number of unlikely (369B) gives us an outsider’s perspective coincidences reveal connections that are not only on the conversion tactics of simply too difficult to believe. These the missionary Pearl Girls (Aunts-in- connections lean towards a narrative training who evangelize in the non- of destiny or biological determinism Halina Adams is Assistant Professor Gilead world), but also a glimpse at the that bring to mind the much-maligned in the Department of English. organization of the Mayday group. The Rise of Skywalker. As I read this It is this last narrative thread that is text, I was reminded of that film as well perhaps the least developed and conse- as Stephen King’s follow-up to The quently the most disappointing—and

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