The Handmaid's Tale

[MargeH]

Book or DVD (Elizabeth Moss version)? Which would you recommend?

Both.

It’s not an either/or decision. Both are brilliant in different ways.

Read the book first. Because, unusually, the TV series is so good it's better than the book.

Book first then film then tv show. That would be the best way to see how the cultural world view has shifted.

DVD first, then book. You then visualise when reading the book

Book haven't seen the series

I'm on the first few pages of the book and haven't seen the show.. yet. Will watch after I think.

Book first

My viewpoint is possibly skewed because I read the book in my late teens, thinking 'Thank God this could never happen here, despite patriarchy, despite the old boy's network, despite all the hidden sexism, we are making progress'.

How wrong I was. By the time the excellent tv programme was made, women were under open attack from MRAs and men who suggest we should enjoy our erasure.

Definitely both! I read the book a few years before the TV series came out, now I'm reading it again before series 2 starts.

I read the book as an a level text over 20 years ago and re-read it before watching the series. They're both brilliant. I'm so excited for the 2nd series that picks up where the book left off

Both

I watched the tv series first, then I did the book

It is very different but both enjoyable

The book does end of a massive cliffhanger though, where as the tv series is carrying on

I did it as a 'Women's Writing' module at uni. Obv, loved the book and surprised myself by loving the TV adaptation, having hated the earlier version.

Excited that my son will be doing it in 6th form.

Thank you. I noticed the new series is about to start, so if that's a follow on, I might go for the book first, as that's probably quicker!

Book first imao.
The series is fantastic (and had me in tears on a few occasions)but deviates from the book in quite a few ways.

I thought I'd read the book decades ago (turns out I hadn't) and started watching Series 1. I then gobbled up the book between the first and second episodes. They are both absolutely amazing, but like some other posters here I do actually prefer the tv adaptation, and hope they don't drop the ball next season. The tv series, because it's been updated, feels very horribly plausible (I mean, even before you take into account Trump and trans craziness, etc)

I'd start with the book and enjoy both.

Weezol: My viewpoint is possibly skewed because I read the book in my late teens, thinking 'Thank God this could never happen here, despite patriarchy, despite the old boy's network, despite all the hidden sexism, we are making progress'. How wrong I was.

[[https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/set-handmaids-tale-inside-chapter-margaret-atwoods-dark/story?id=54946043 When Atwood's book first came out, some early reviewers thought it didn't ring true because the women's movement had already started to vanquish male chauvinism, so how could the future conceivably involve such a drastic step backward?

"I don't enjoy being right. Because being right means that we are where we are and that's, that's not a fun place," Atwood said.]]

You are not alone Weezol. I have read other interviews with Atwood, she said she wrote the book as a warning, and also, everything that she wrote about then was possible, could happen, or had happened.

I read the book a few years ago at the same time I read Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper".

I found both of them so terrifying, I have not been able to bring myself to watch the TV series. Even at the time the world of the Handmaid's Tale seemed so possible to me, it set up a sense of unease I've not been able to shake.

Book first. Always. Make your own pictures.

Then see it in a second, different way.

It’s next to impossible to do it the other way round.

Book first. As hipster says I can't shake the pictures once I've seen the film / tv.

recent article about the second series:

www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2018/may/05/elisabeth-moss-handmaids-tale-this-is-happening-in-real-life-wake-up-people
concludes:
“In the book, Margaret calls it the new normal,” Moss continues. “It’s a line that Aunt Lydia says – this will all be normal to you one day. That’s scary to me.” She has no tolerance, however, for people who find the show itself frightening. “I hate hearing that someone couldn’t watch it because it was too scary,” she says. “Not because I care about whether or not they watch my TV show; I don’t give a shit. But I’m like, ‘Really? You don’t have the balls to watch a TV show? This is happening in your real life. Wake up, people. Wake up.’”

I would read the book first. While I'm usually disappointed in on-screen adaptations, this was not the case here, and the book does give some additional backgound and details.

The book is definitely superior. The tv series was visually wonderful but had the usual Hollywood trappings of the characters being played by beautiful people. The commander and his wife are meant to be old and dessicated which makes Offred's sexual slavery even more repellent. In the series, they were portrayed by hot 30-somethings which watered down the horror a little. The book is, as the title implies, Offred's story but the series had big digressions about her husband. The book is far more claustrophobic and chilling, imo.

Well reading this was a 'head in my hands' moment... is this a glimpse of future themes in literary criticism?

www.advocate.com/commentary/2018/5/09/why-trans-woman-cant-identify-handmaids-tale
(extract)
"The trans community’s exclusion from the futuristic narrative of The Handmaid’s Tale is understandable. It just becomes emblematic of the daily fears that I face. Every time I hear about the trans military ban, the Department of Education rescinding protections for trans students, a transgender bathroom bill being voted on, or another conservative rally screaming out, “There are only two genders!” I'm reminded that I and trans people like me would likely be the first ones to die if Gilead ever comes to pass.

Yet maybe The Handmaid’s Tale should address this. The series often presents flashbacks showing how Gilead came to be. Perhaps a trans person’s struggles could appear there. Or back in the future world of Gilead, what if a character identified as transgender in this world? How would they hide or suppress it? Or what if there was a “passing” infertile trans woman who desperately had to hide her trans identity from the government? Or a trans man still able to carry babies forced to be a handmaid despite being a man? Adding trans people to the narrative could complicate the story in new and interesting ways that draw attention to not only the oppression of all trans people, but all genders"

I see your head in hands moment and I raise you a noticing that my mouth is hanging open moment................................

sweet Mary mother of Jesus.......

I'm going to take the dog out for a long walk...