Margaret Atwood, the author of the dystopian The Handmaid’s Tale, announced she is penning a sequel to the novel, called “The Testaments,” to be published in September 2019. Sure, Atwood is a prolific writer, but a sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale would be far more interesting if it weren’t obvious the book is meant to piggyback off the fact that Trump became president and the Left made it their anthem cry of epic proportions.
Even though Atwood is an incredible novelist, liberals, particularly feminist liberals, ruined her novel for good, such was their effort to coerce it to become an anthem of dramatic, progressive proportions. Personally, I’d rather listen to Alexa read Stephen King’s tweets making fun of President Trump for the rest of my life than read a novel accompanying that which progressives utilized as a false metaphor for a conservative, dystopian universe.
Recall these interpretations of The Handmaid’s Tale this last year:
Bold choice going with decorations inspired by the Handmaid’s Tale. pic.twitter.com/Ze2kZX65lp
— Nick Jack Pappas (@Pappiness) November 26, 2018
In the corridor outside the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings, “The Handmaid’s Tale” pic.twitter.com/13qhg5rYDu
— Laura Litvan (@LauraLitvan) September 4, 2018
Congrats to Elizabeth Moss for your #criticschoice award! That Planned Parenthood pin looks great, too! #StandWithPP pic.twitter.com/VJvcclDQxe
— Planned Parenthood (@PPIAction) January 12, 2018
Hillary Clinton quotes ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ at Planned Parenthood gala: “Never let them grind us down” https://t.co/ivg3KdnNFz
— TIME (@TIME) May 4, 2017
At one point in time, Atwood herself eschewed this kind of feminism. In January, Atwood wrote an op-ed in The Globe and Mail asking if she was a “bad feminist” for thinking a male professor at the University of British Columbia was denied due process after being accused of sexual misconduct. “And now, it seems, I am conducting a War on Women, like the misogynistic, rape-enabling Bad Feminist that I am,” Atwood wrote. However, she seems to have changed her tune somewhat.
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Atwood said she was writing the sequel because she was “inspired by the world we’re living in.”
Dystopian novels like 1984, Brave New World, Hunger Games, and Lord of the Flies have their place in literature. They are wonderful examples of imagination, foretelling, cause and effect, and imagery. Still, piggybacking upon the success of one decent novel, because the Left hijacked it and made it a progressive anthem of crazed proportions, seems to demonstrate a lack of understanding of the purpose of politics and government.
Sure, good literature projects, mirrors, and prophesy all the time (look at Crime and Punishment or A Tale of Two Cities) but there was a grasp of society, the role of politics, and human nature, and those novels were not held up as perfect examples of authenticity. It will be disappointing to see a sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, especially if feminists end up trolling around Washington, D.C., with Little House on the Prairie-era bonnets and blood-red robes as if they’re just so progressive even decent clothing escapes their judgment. However, I guess, if they want to interpret influential literature with the emotional intelligence of a 12-year-old, the reaction to the sequel will be just as entertaining as this one has been.
Nicole Russell (@russell_nm) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. She is a journalist who previously worked in Republican politics in Minnesota.
