#literature quotes
I tell you, even a half-dead man hates to be alive and not be able to see any sense to it.
The Sirens of Titan
Kurt Vonnegut
I tell you, even a half-dead man hates to be alive and not be able to see any sense to it.
The Sirens of Titan
Kurt Vonnegut
I tell you, even a half-dead man hates to be alive and not be able to see any sense to it.
The Sirens of Titan
Kurt Vonnegut
We have found out forever
That blood smells only of blood.
Something about angel wings-
Much about a broken heart.
Susan Sontag, As Consciousness Is Harnesses To Flesh
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
Rating: 9/10
Set in a dystopian world and military dictatorship called the Republic of Gilead, the novel explores themes such as censorship, oppression and rebellion; a society where women have extremely limited freedoms and are assigns ‘roles’ such as being an Agatha – a cook and house servant or Handmaid – to provide children for powerful households through ‘the ceremony’ whereby Housemaids have sex with the male head of the household with his wife present due to the decrease in births as a result of sexually transmitted diseases.
Religious fanaticism is an undertone that runs throughout the novel, with the regime having doctored the Old Testament to legitimise and empower their cause. The narrator Offred is a Handmaid and often flicks between past and present events as well as memories throughout the novel to allows the reader to have insight into the events leading up to the patriarchal takeover. Events such as the burning of lingerie due to their ‘hyper sexualisation’ of women and the new view that the female body must be covered at all times with exposure leading to execution. In the new regime, women are robbed of many basic rights such as the freedom of speech, banned from talking to anyone outside of their household and reading.
I absolutely loved this book, it was such an interesting read and the way the novel is structured means that you are constantly drip fed new information from how the Republic was established and Offred’s life Pre-Gilead with her husband and daughter. This is one of the few books that I would definitely read again and again because the concept and execution are so captivating that you can’t help but be enticed and drawn in by it. To me the novel echoes satire of politics and social constructs in the 1980’s at the time of Atwood’s writing and can be critically analysed through feminism, politics, sociology and the hierarchal structure of society – more specifically regarding the patriarchy.
Overall this was an intensely captivating and interesting read that I can’t recommend highly enough. Deserving of 9/10 because I really really enjoyed this book and didn’t want it to end! I definitely will be reading it again, and you should definitely give it a try if you’re looking for something that’s going to get you thinking this summer!
Make sure to check out my giveaway ending 11th August if you haven’t already!
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but there is the happiness he promised, too. he loves me without being in love with me and that’s all i can ask of him. i don’t even need to hear him say it to believe it
«MOREHAPPYTHANNOT»BYADAMSILVERA
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—André Aciman, from Call Me By Your Name
—André Aciman, from Call Me By Your Name
when arthur conan doyle said “of all ghosts, the ghosts of our old loves are the worst” and when harry styles said “we’re just two ghosts standing in the place of you and me” and when mother mother said “i’m just a ghost out of his grave / and i can’t make love in my grave” and when lord huron said “yes i know that love is like ghosts / oh, few have seen it but everybody talks” and when sylvia plath said “how can i go, meeting and exorcising my own ghosts here! i’ve made some new ones now” and when mumford & sons said “but the ghosts we knew will flicker from view / we’ll live a long life” and wh
—Iris, by TheGoo Goo Dolls
—Somto Ihezue, from All the Stones That Built Me
—Charles Tomlinson, from Poetry and Silence
—Robert W. Watson, from A Paper Horse
I felt once more how simple and frugal a thing is happiness: a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound of the sea. Nothing else.
Zorba the Greek, Nikos Kazantzakis
This is why dreams can be such dangerous things: they smolder on like a fire does, and sometimes they consume us completely.
Memoirs of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
Silence, I discover, is something you can actually hear.
Kafka on the Shore,Haruki Murakami
Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)
Leaves of Grass,Walt Whitman
“Here it is, a book that represents the wholeness that I built after everything toppled.”
Little Weirds, Jenny Slate
If you are happy in a dream, does that count?
Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things
— Clarice Lispector, tr. by Johnny Lorenz, Um Sopro de Vida
Jonathan Safran Foer / John Steinbeck
—Rupi Kaur, Home Body
Franz Kafka // Unknown
