Sunday 15 September 2019

The Testaments: a clamour of voices, a muted dystopia


 Just finished reading The Testaments; it’s a page-turner I devoured over the last three days or so.

Structurally it is very clever, especially with the ambiguity introduced after all the journal entries, by the addition of the Symposium at the end. 

The language is Atwood in high gear:  sardonic, witty, morbidly funny, and echoing with mischievous literary, biblical, and mythic allusions.  

But the characters are somewhat flat and seem under-developed if not stereotyped and hence, less important than the plot: much like dystopic Gilead itself, subordinating people to ideology. This might be a clever conceit if Atwood meant it that way. But making the characters secondary to the action does not invite closeness to them. I observed them, but I didn’t wholly connect.



The ending seems happy — a wishy-washy version of secular humanism may prevail; however, I wish Atwood had fully grasped the thistle of evil.  The multi-faceted journal format is a recollection of events, mediated only by characters who are reactive, not especially reflective.  The horrific events they describe are certainly objectively repugnant (lots of frissons), but the evil is subjectively dulled. Mind you, I do wonder about some of the comments in the Symposium chapter at the end.

Overall, the novel reminds me of some young-adult fiction — lots of action, weaker character development, and an under-explored moral universe. Atwood is a master of genres, maybe it was the turn of young-adult fiction?? 

In any event, it surprising that this novel is not deeper, for want of a better word. 

It will be interesting to hear what goes on at the interview on October 4th.  Has anyone else read it? What do you think?

Three stars (out of four).