The Testaments (2019)
Who wrote it?
Margaret Eleanor Atwood (1939- ; active 1961-), born Ottawa, Canada. Prolific across multiple genres (poetry, novels, non-fiction, children's fiction, graphic novels) and decades, Atwood has won just about every award going, including two Bookers.
Owing to her father's remote forestry research, she did not attend school full-time until she was 12, but developed a voracious passion for literature and realized she wanted to write professionally at the age of 16. She published her first book of poetry in 1961, while completing her degree at the University of Toronto, though her first novel (The Edible Woman) was not released until 1969.
Atwood is probably most famous for 1985's The Handmaid's Tale, which lost out (still shockingly, in my view) to Kingsley Amis' The Old Devils in the '86 Prize. She has been nominated for the Booker a total of five times, winning previously for 2000’s The Blind Assassin.
What's it about?
The Testaments revisits Gilead (the setting of The Handmaid’s Tale) via a number of new perspectives, each shedding new light on the dystopian world Atwood created some three and half decades previously. The first is a covert diary written to a future audience by The Handmaid’s Tale’s fearsome Aunt Lydia, describing how she became a part of the regime as well as how she comes to subtly undermine it from inside; the second a testimony from Agnes, a girl who has grown up knowing nothing other than the Gilead regime; and the third from Daisy, a teenager in Toronto who has viewed Gilead from the outside, but will have to face its realities first hand (for various spoilerish reasons.)
Without giving too much away, the three narratives intertwine and form the basis of what is ultimately an attempted escape narrative. Along the way, of course, new aspects of Gilead are introduced and existing perspectives challenged.
What I liked
It feels extremely wrong to say this, but it’s kind of a lot of fun? It’s structured like a thriller, with the end of each segment of the central triptych of narratives leaving you hanging and wanting to return and find out what happens next. The writing is simple, pacey and gripping.
While the subject matter is undeniably grim, it rarely dwells on the harrowing aspects in the way that many critics of the HBO adaptation of Handmaid have often criticised. There are sort-of exceptions - Lydia’s initial experiences in the stadium, the antics of the dentist, all as horrible as you’d expect but told in a matter of fact way that helps make it less difficult than it should be to read.
As with the original source novel, that’s I guess part of the point - Atwood’s writing cleverly presents as banal, everyday, what should be horrifying.
She maintains her rule here of including nothing that doesn’t have some basis in reality. The accumulation of conditions is what renders this separate from reality, but every aspect of it is based in some “real world” horror - whether drawn from repressive regimes of history or from present day so-called democracies.
What I didn’t like
I have quite a few thoughts here, which are less dislikes than sort of… regrets? I enjoyed reading this, but had some nagging doubts throughout that I think were largely informed by the fact of the shared award, which I’ve already talked about already.
First up, while this was a supremely readable book and one that it was hard to drag my eyes away from, I did feel a slight sense of sadness at how relentlessly it unpicked some of the open-endedness of The Handmaid’s Tale. The former novel succeeded partly I think because it didn’t feel a need to explain exactly how everything in Gilead worked, and left some space for imagination.
Atwood goes so far as to say that the book is written in answer to the many questions she’s been asked by readers over the years about Gilead. And that’s sort of I think what was nagging at me - it feels a bit like fan fiction. Incredibly well-written and enjoyable fan fiction, but nevertheless… (I think what I’m saying here is that it’s lovely that Margaret wants to give answers to her readers, but is that really the stuff of award-winning literature? I’m not so sure.)
Sometimes there’s fun to be had with this - as in the gleefully dark humour given to Aunt Lydia’s writing, embellishing and adding to a character who was previously a bit of a caricature. Elsewhere, I think it’s a bit less successful. Daisy feels a bit like a cypher for the modern young reader, who’s unable to imagine the true horror of Gilead having been inured to its realities through years of passive media absorption. Which is interesting, but less well executed for me - her characterisation feels cliched and a bit melodramatic in places. The outside voice punctures the sparse, beautiful economy of the tone set by Offred in Handmaid and continued by Agnes here.
I sort of felt that by the end Atwood was just having a lot of fun with writing the conclusion to a thriller, and I lost any sense of any real deeper meaning by the book’s conclusion. I enjoyed it, but I didn’t feel the emotion many seemed to at the end because it all just felt a bit overdone and, well, silly? The fate of Bekka? Seriously??
The repeated device that rounds out the book felt less impactful second time around.
Food & drink pairings
Oranges
Warm milk
Definitely not remotely awkward…
Fun facts (most repeated from 2019 part 1!)
This is the third time in Booker history that the Prize has been shared.
The first was in 1974, between two books that could hardly have been more different, Stanley Middleton’s Holiday and Nadine Gordimer’s The Conservationist. (I rated both of them around the same at the time, though retrospectively Gordimer’s has stuck with me much more.)
It happened next in 1992, with the honours split between Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient and Barry Unsworth’s Sacred Hunger. (I preferred the latter, the rest of the world seemingly the former.)
Despite this, the 2019 decision was almost certainly the most controversial of the three occasions. A number of reasons made it so:
Most obviously, the organisers had implemented a “rule” in 1993 that henceforth only one winner of the Prize would be allowed. As such, the judges this time around, under chair Peter Florence, were making a conscious decision to flout the rules. Unlike on the two previous occasions, when those rules did not (formally) exist.
Part of the reason for the rule change was the Foundation’s belief, expressed by literary director Gaby Wood at the time, was that it had the undesired effect of “detracting attention from” rather than “drawing attention to” both books. This was seen by commenters at the time as a particular issue given the sharing of the award between Bernardine Evaristo, the first black female winner of the award, and Atwood, a previous winner (with 2000’s The Blind Assassin) who many felt was already sufficiently acclaimed and celebrated.
While both winners put on a good show at the time, bigging each other up on stage and sharing joint publicity opportunities with a smile, some of Evaristo’s extremely understandable frustration became evident later that year when an ad-libbing BBC presenter managed to refer to the 2019 Booker Prize winners as “Margaret Atwood and another author.” Oh dear.
Sam Leith, a former Booker judge, was one of the more outspoken critics of the decision, calling it an “epic fail”, and explaining:
“The suspicion in the reading public’s mind will be that one or other of these considerable authors was being patronised; that something extra-literary had entered into the considerations of the panel, that the judges were trying to have their cake and eat it. Had they given it a single one, that would not have been possible in the same way. They could have said, simply: this book is first among equals.”
I’ve only seen a bit of the HBO Handmaid’s Tale, but from a bit of exploration it seems that Atwood wrote The Testaments while keeping the show’s producers informed, largely to ensure that none of the essential elements of its characters would undermine the storytelling in the TV show. It’s an interesting one I guess, since The Testaments presumably spells out what the future of that universe will look like in quite a lot of detail. I’m slightly tempted to check back into the show and see how it pans out… convince me one way or the other??
Vanquished Foes
Lucy Ellmann (Ducks, Newburyport)
Chigozie Obioma (An Orchestra of Minorities)
Salman Rushdie (Quichotte)
Elif Shafak (10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World)
As discussed, Atwood shared the 2019 Prize with Bernadine Evaristo (Girl, Woman, Other).
The Women's Prize went to Tayari Jones' An American Marriage, which was chosen over Anna Burns' 2018 Booker winner Milkman as well as previous Booker winner Pat Barker's The Silence of the Girls. Girl, Woman, Other was shortlisted in 2020.
Context
In 2019 (another repeat I’m afraid!):
UK PM Theresa May resigns as Conservative leader; Boris Johnson elected her successor; later calls election and wins significantly increased majority
In early December, the first known human case of Covid-19 is identified in Wuhan, China - no reports will be released internationally until the end of the month
Record number of wildfires in the Amazon rainforest
4 million worldwide join climate strikes led by Greta Thunberg
Donald Trump becomes third US president to face impeachment, on two charges
US under Trump withdraw from 1987 Nuclear treaty; Russia follows suit
Christchurch, New Zealand mosque attacks
Series of bomb attacks across Sri Lanka leave over 250 dead
Start of Hong Kong protests regarding Chinese extradition legislation
Fire destroys roof and main spire of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris
Kivu Ebola outbreak kills 1000 in the second-deadliest outbreak in history
Presidential crisis in Venezuala
US justice department charges Chinese tech firm Huawei wih multiple counts of fraud; subsequent China-US Trade War
Ursula von der Leyen elected as new EU President, replacing Jean-Claude Juncker
Proroguing of UK Parliament by Boris Johnson's Conservatives over Brexit impasse - later ruled as unlawful
In October, a further million people march through London in People's Vote campaign for a second Brexit referendum
Emperor Akahito of Japan abdicates
Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir deposed in a coup after nearly 30 years in power
Boeing 737 fleet withdrawal after disastrous crashes
Taiwan's parliament becomes the first in Asia to legalise same-sex marriage
Ban on tourists climbing Uluru in Australia comes into effect
First ever image of a black hole produced by Event Horizon Telescope project
All-English Champions League final sees Liverpool defeat Spurs to win their sixth title
Candice Carty-Williams, Queenie
Colson Whitehead, The Nickel Boys
John Lanchester, The Wall
Parasite
Avengers: Endgame
Joker
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Billie Eilish, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?
Harry Styles, Fine Line
Little Simz, Grey Area
Tyler, the Creator, Igor
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Ghosteen
Life Lessons
Let’s be honest: not all that many that we didn’t learn more concisely and impactfully in The Handmaid’s Tale
Score
8
A great read, just a very unnecessary co-winner. I can’t knock it too much on its own merits, as it was a proper page-turner and as well-written as you’d expect from a titan like Atwood. But did the judges really need to fight so hard for it to share the honours with Evaristo’s fresh and relevant creation? Should The Handmaid’s Tale have won back in the day? Yes. Is that a good reason to make such a poor decision in 2019? No.
Ranking to date:
Lincoln in the Bardo - George Saunders (2017) - 10
The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro (1989) - 9.5
Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie (1981) - 9.5
Disgrace - J. M. Coetzee (1999) - 9.5
The Narrow Road to the Deep North - Richard Flanagan (2014) - 9.5
Girl, Woman, Other - Bernardine Evaristo (2019) - 9
The Line of Beauty - Alan Hollinghurst (2004) - 9
Moon Tiger - Penelope Lively (1987) - 9
A Brief History of Seven Killings - Marlon James (2015) - 9
The White Tiger - Aravind Adiga (2008) - 9
Sacred Hunger - Barry Unsworth (1992) - 9
Oscar & Lucinda - Peter Carey (1988) - 9
The Sea, The Sea - Iris Murdoch (1978) - 9
Life & Times of Michael K. - J. M. Coetzee (1983) - 9
The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy (1997) - 9
Schindler’s Ark - Thomas Keneally (1982) - 9
The Inheritance of Loss - Kiran Desai (2006) - 9
Life of Pi - Yann Martel (2002) - 8.5
Bring Up The Bodies - Hilary Mantel (2012) - 8.5
The Bone People - Keri Hulme (1985) - 8.5
How Late it Was, How Late - James Kelman (1994) - 8.5
Troubles - J.G. Farrell (1970, "Lost Booker") - 8.5
The Sense of an Ending - Julian Barnes (2011) - 8
The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood (2000) - 8
Possession - A. S. Byatt (1990) - 8
Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel (2009) - 8
The Testaments - Margaret Atwood (2019) - 8
Milkman - Anna Burns (2018) - 8
The Sellout - Paul Beatty (2016) - 8
Saville - David Storey (1976) - 8
The Luminaries - Eleanor Catton (2013) - 8
The Sea - John Banville (2005) - 8
The Siege of Krishnapur - J.G. Farrell (1973) - 8
Vernon God Little - DBC Pierre (2003) - 7.5
The English Patient - Michael Ondaatje (1992) - 7.5
The Finkler Question - Howard Jacobson (2010) - 7.5
Rites of Passage - William Golding (1980) - 7.5
The Gathering - Anne Enright (2007) - 7.5
True History of the Kelly Gang - Peter Carey (2001) - 7.5
Offshore - Penelope Fitzgerald (1979) - 7.5
Last Orders - Graham Swift (1996) - 7
The Elected Member - Bernice Rubens (1970) - 7
The Conservationist - Nadine Gordimer (1974) - 7
Holiday - Stanley Middleton (1974) - 7
Heat & Dust - Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (1975) - 6.5
In a Free State* - V.S. Naipaul (1971) - 6.5
Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha - Roddy Doyle (1993) - 6
G. - John Berger (1972) - 6
The Famished Road - Ben Okri (1991) - 6
Something to Answer For - P. H. Newby (1969) - 5.5
The Ghost Road** - Pat Barker (1995) - 5.5
Staying On - Paul Scott (1977) - 5
Amsterdam - Ian McEwan (1998) - 5
Hotel du Lac - Anita Brookner (1984) - 4.5
The Old Devils - Kingsley Amis (1986) - 4
*Read in later condensed edition.
**Third part of a trilogy of which I hadn’t read pts 1&2
Next up
It’s 2020 and it’s Douglas Stuart’s debut winner Shuggie Bain!
