The Handmaid's Tale

By: Margaret Atwood

Narrated by: Claire Danes

Length: 11 hrs and 1 min

Publisher's summary

Audie Award, Fiction, 2013

Margaret Atwood's popular dystopian novel The Handmaid's Tale explores a broad range of issues relating to power, gender, and religious politics. Multiple Golden Globe award-winner Claire Danes (Romeo and Juliet, The Hours) gives a stirring performance of this classic in speculative fiction, one of the most powerful and widely read novels of our time.

After a staged terrorist attack kills the President and most of Congress, the government is deposed and taken over by the oppressive and all-controlling Republic of Gilead. Offred, now a Handmaid serving in the household of the enigmatic Commander and his bitter wife, can remember a time when she lived with her husband and daughter and had a job, before she lost even her own name. Despite the danger, Offred learns to navigate the intimate secrets of those who control her every move, risking her life in breaking the rules in hopes of ending this oppression.

Cover Art by Fred Marcellino. Used with permission of Pippin Properties, Inc.

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©1985 Margaret Atwood (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

“Claire Danes sparkles in this performance…Danes’s Offred is complex, and her flashes of intense strength highlight her vulnerability. This is a consuming listen, thanks to Danes’s emotional subtleties.” (AudioFile)

Ok book overall

This story was ok. Unfortunately the writing felt a little too poetic for me, and the storyline wasn't the most adventurous. Although, to be fair, I have read several memoirs about polygamy so perhaps my senses have been dulled on that subject.

Also, as a mildly autistic woman I could not relate to the main character. For any autistic folks reading this, the character's thoughts seemed to be (by my imagination) stereotypically neurotypical: multi-layered, socially-focused and feelings-oriented. Of course that's just my opinion, others may really enjoy that sort of thing.

I give the narrator 4 stars. I would have given her three because I prefer narrators that are a tad on the monotone side, so I bumped it up a star because that's an odd preference to have. At times she spoke with some emotion as if she were the main character herself, which was distracting to me. Also, as an aside, I hadn't realized before how much Claire Danes sounds like Scarlett Johansson. I kept picturing Ms. Johansson as the main character and then picturing Ms. Danes reading the book to me.

So all in all, if you think in pictures and have read many polygamy books this book might be just ok. If you like poetic writing and feelings and people, you might really enjoy this book.

Atwood's Handmaid brought to life

Claire Danes gave a spectacular performance in narrating this important work. Very well cast. A striking, intuitive interpretation of Atwood's best.

Wow. Sorry I waited so long.

Claire's Danes was fabulous. The story was captivating, maddening, and thoughtful. So glad I listened. Not sure I want to watch the series now though.

Sobering

If you could sum up The Handmaid's Tale in three words, what would they be?

Baffling and sobering

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Handmaid's Tale?

The summaries at the end made it all come into focus for me. I didn't really understand what was going on until I heard the scientific descriptions after the fact in the epilogue. The sobering part was realizing that all the handmaid went through was really just a few years of a "regime" that was short lived in the scheme of things.

I take things too literal, as I see so much of this happening in today's politics. When will this sort of thing begin in our world? or has it already started?

Which character – as performed by Claire Danes – was your favorite?

The main character. I loved her insights and the things she resisted remembering. Like she never ever mentions or remembers her daughter's name.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Like I said before, the epilogue was the most poignant. To see history through hindsight is very thought provoking.

wow

Highly internal writing of a fundamentalist worse case scenario, let us pray it remains wholly fictional.

exceptional

Claire Danes was exceptional. I hadn't read the book, so the audiobook was my first experience. And now, I wouldn't have had it any another way. I think she has narrated the story in the way it was meant to be told. I couldn't be it down. This audiobook is an absolute must!

loved this hauntingly really book

Realistically scary to how politics and women's reproductive rights are moving today. loved this book.

Haunting tale

Danes reading brings Offred to life.
Atwood is a master of the English language. Her description of the mundane becomes riveting. I appreciate her skills as a writer so much more now than I did when I first read this story as a young woman. The first person present voice draws the reader in, allows her to feel...to be...Offred. Haunting. Beautiful. Terrifying in its vision of what might have been. Terrifying because it still might.

What a show!

Claire Danes gives a wonderful performance to an already beautiful story. This book takes you both back and forward in time on a thought-provoking journey. It's not uplifting, but makes you appreciate what you have and leaves you thinking about the author's words long after you reach the end of the book.

One of the finest novels of the late 20th Century

What a breathtaking yet quiet novel. To me, this is the only way to describe this book. It requires the reader to think hard and long about the protagonist emotions since much of the story occurs in their thoughts, or at least the thoughts inside "Off Glenn". Like other Atwood books it builds slowly and you yearn for details that will only be fleshed out over time. Instead, you are given a non-linear story that is hard to follow at first, but will reward you. What this lacks in action it more than makes up for it in insightful, and beautiful writing. You will be treated to some of the most sensuous and erotic writing ever centered around a game of Scrabble. If you can put the time in, it will be well worth it.