The Handmaid's Tale, 1986, 2012, 2017

I spent part of today looking through old posts on my blog, especially the It Came from the Basement tag. (I recommend it, even if I do say so myself.) I started from the oldest one, and came across this within an entry from 2014 about a 1986 issue of Time magazine:

The books section provides a review of A Handmaid's Tale that tells us, "As a cautionary tale, Atwood's novel lacks the direct, chilling plausibility of Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New World. It warns against too much: heedless sex, excessive morality, chemical and nuclear pollution. All of these may be worthwhile targets, but such a future seems more complicated than dramatic." Wow, did that reviewer miss the point.

 And today it's even clearer that he missed the point.

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Here are my thoughts on reading The Handmaid's Tale in the Age of Rick Santorum (2012). Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.