Any regular reader of this blog knows that I credit Margaret Atwood with making me understand exactly what feminism is.  When I read The Handmaid's Tale in college, I was finally able to see clearly how high the stakes for women are in a society that oppresses and controls them.  But Atwood is more than just a feminist author.  Many of her works also address environmental justice, and indeed how issues of environmental Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood, and culminating in her latest book, MaddAddam.

justice are linked to forms of oppression such as classism and sexism.  None of her work displays this as strongly as the MaddAddam trilogy, beginning in

MaddAddam picks up the stories of both the MaddAddamites and God's Gardeners-one, the scientific and technological geniuses behind both the new humans known as Crakers, and the plgue that wiped out most of the population; the other, the eco-cult started by Adam One to teach people how to live without the technology that was invading their lives and ruining the planet.   In the wake of the plague, the two groups have come together in an attempt to create a sustainable existence on the remnants of the world they knew.  Their survival is threatened by a couple of ultra-violent psychopaths whose humanity has been drilled out of them through painballing, a "sport" where criminals were given the option to fight to the death rather than be locked up in prison.  Surviving the painball arena meant becoming a cold blooded killer, and survival at any cost became the only goal.  The survivors must be constantly on the lookout for these men, not just for their own sake, but for the safety and survival of the Crakers, the not-quite-human creations of Crake, who were genetically designed to have no need of or desire for violence, and would be wiped out by contact with the painballers.

I see the painballers as a symbol for all of the violent and soulless influences of modern society that Atwood writes about with such disdain and horror.  Atwood has set up an interesting duality within the book, between the non-violent Crakers, and the ultra-violent Painballers.  The other survivors find themselves existing somewhere between these two extremes.  In killing the painballers, the survivors are in essence killing off the last vestiges of the old, violent world they lived in.  This frees them to define how they will choose to live going forward.  Will they revert back to old ways of gaining and keeping power over others, or will they create a more egalitarian way of living.  And where do the Crakers fit in?  With most of humanity gone, are they now free to live an populate the world with their kind?

To be honest, while the Crakers are certainly endearing, there is much about their existence that would be unsatisfying.  Controlled by strong biological urges for mating, lacking in art or intellectualism, their lives read more like the lives of animals than humans.  I believe that Atwood uses the Crakers to show that while there is much about human behavior that is concerning and possibly dangerous, taking away those same qualities would be to take away what it is that makes us human.

I found it interesting that so much of the book dealt with Zeb, and how he came to be a part of God's Gardeners.  Zeb is introduced in The Year of the Flood, and never really seemed to fit in with the peaceful, gentle God's Gardeners.  But Zeb's story clears up some of the unanswered questions from both Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood, namely the connection between Adam One and Crake.  MaddAddam brings a satisfying completeness to the story, but it does not leave the reader without some questions.  Three of the women were pregnant with Craker babies.  How would those children, provided they survive, change the dynamic of the group?  And is that the future of humankind?  By the end of the book, the Crakers are beginning to evolve intellectually and socially, and I couldn't help but wonder what their future society might be like.  Will they be able to keep their innocence and peacefulness, or would the old human traits of greed and the desire for power creep back into what is left of humanity. As usual, Atwood has delivered a provocative story highlighting some scary possibilities for the future of our world.  

When She Woke, AKA The Handmaid's Tale for the 21st Century

I think I have mentioned here on the blog before that while I was raised by a feminist and called myself a feminist even as a young teen, I didn't really get feminism until I read Margaret Atwood's A Handmaid's Tale. Atwood is a master of speculative fiction, and her chilling vision of what might become of women in a future where our reproduction is controlled by men made me understand just how precious freedom of choice is, and how hard we have to work to ensure it.

While The Handmaid's Tale is powerful and disturbing, at the time it was written the fictional future it reflected, while not unrealistic, felt far away.  The near future world created by Hillary Jordan in her speculative fiction novel, When She Woke, feels frighteningly plausible and terrifyingly close.  Centered around the same themes as Atwood's classic feminist novel, but updated with 21st century geo-politics and technology, When She Woke tells the story of Hannah, a young woman from a fundamentalist religious background, who was convicted of murder after getting an illegal abortion.  In this near future, a sexually transmitted disease, carried by men but affecting only women, has rendered a large portion of the female population infertile.  In the panic that ensued, the United States overturned Roe v. Wade.  In addition, an economic depression led to the closure of prisons in favor of melachroming convicted criminals-literally changing their skin color to green or yellow or blue or red depending on their crime.  Hannah wakes up as a Red, the color of murderers.  When she is released from her detention, she becomes a social outcast.  Her family essentially disowns her for taking the life of her unborn child, and they send her to an enlightenment camp to try and "save" her and help her return to God.  But enlightenment means facing daily cruelty and abuse, and eventually Hannah is forced to leave.  Thus begins a journey from powerless to powerful; from weakness to strength; from blind, unquestioning faith to a new understanding of God and his relationship to the evil "others"-atheists, homosexuals, abortionists, socialists, non-Christians-she has always been taught to fear and hate.

The title refers not just to the day that Hannah woke up as a Red, but to the very real awakening of her ability to think for herself, to question her almost slavish devotion to her evangelical brand of Christianity, to envision a life for herself where she decides her path, rather than having it laid out before her by her father and then her husband.  The real world is a shock to someone as sheltered from it has Hannah had been.  Hannah comes to understand that morality is much more complex than the narrow, black-and-white worldview of her conservative faith.  How to rationalize the cruelty of her fellow Christians, or the kindness of the unsaved, when she has been taught that strict adherence to God's law-as interpreted by preachers, fathers, and husbands-is the only way to please God and achieve a place in heaven.

When She Woke lacks the amazing facility with language that Atwood's work always displays.  But what it lacks in literary-ness it makes up for in strong characterization and a quick-paced, exciting story.  Hannah has a rich internal life, and the journey that she takes-both physical and spiritual-as a result of her status as a Chrome is deeply moving.  But what struck me even more was how authentic the made-up future felt.  Global pandemic, war with Iran, water wars in Africa, the rise of religious fundamentalism...every one a possible outcome of the current state of our world.  Is it implausible that Iran could get a nuclear weapon and bomb the US?  It might not be likely, but it's certainly not impossible.  Experts have been warning about wars over water for at least the last decade.  Bird flu, swine flu, SARS-we've seen just how our increasingly global culture can lead to the spread of disease.  And the beliefs of the religious extremists in this book are awfully close to the Pat Robertson/Rick Santorum version of today-except it has become the law of the land.  How much would it take for the Promise Keepers to become the fictional Fist of God-a group that hunts down and exterminates anyone it perceives as immoral?  When She Woke is a powerful wake-up call for anyone who cares about reproductive rights, the separation of church and state, or social justice.