Rose Page is a Cheltenham local and college lecturer in English. She has a Masters in Modern and Contemporary Literature, Culture and Thought, as well as a Bachelors in English Literature & Philosophy.

Her monthly feature, ‘Book Club Picks’, will see Rose choose two books – one classic, one modern – with suggestions on discussion points for book clubs, as well as a brief description and comparison to other publications for more relaxed readers.

Novels which speculate on humanity’s future have been in vogue recently – both in young adult literature and film (think ‘The Hunger Games’ or ‘Divergent’) and across into more literary territory.

With the resounding success of Hulu’s serialisation of Atwood’s novel ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’, the 1985 text has come back into prominence and inspired a series of disturbing visions of gender politics in future societies.

From a world where women discover they have the physical upper hand in the ability to give electric shocks to their foes (in Naomi Alderman’s excellent novel ‘The Power’) to a nightmarish finishing school where young girls are raised to be the perfect partners to society’s eligible bachelors (in Louise O’Neill’s ‘Only Ever Yours’), these ‘female dystopias’ are all the rage.

Of course, Atwood herself was reluctant to call her novel a dystopia, saying that everything she wrote about had already happened, somewhere, to some woman.

Considering this stance, this month’s suggestion pairs her seminal work with a recent contemplation on women’s voices and enforced silences. These novels are particularly interesting to read together and compare/contrast. Despite being written more than 30 years apart, both authors seem to share similar fears for the women they represent.

The Classic Choice: Margaret Atwood – The Handmaid’s Tale (1985)

You’ll like this if: You have been watching the excellent adaptation starring Elisabeth Moss on Channel 4 and want to see how Offred's voice is crafted on the page, or if you have enjoyed other books by Atwood that adopt a similar style, such as ‘The Blind Assassin’ or ‘Alias Grace’.

Perhaps you have seen or read some young adult dystopian fiction but would like a more literary counterpart. If you have read some of the earliest dystopian fiction, such as Orwell’s ‘1984’ or the soft dystopia of Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’ then you are bound to enjoy Atwood.

What’s it about?: Offred, the rather unreliable sole narrator, tells us the story of how she came to act as a Handmaid – a forced surrogate used by a couple unable to have a children in a future where female fertility is under threat.

She depicts her intensely claustrophobic existence living with the couple and joining the two of them in the bedroom for the disturbing ‘ceremony’ during which the Commander attempts to impregnate her.

Interspersed with her descriptions of the highly religious, totalitarian world of Gilead and her monotonous routine is a piecemeal account of the paradigm shift that brought about this state of affairs. Offred gradually reveals how she lost both her husband and child from the ‘time before’ and grows increasingly desperate to escape her situation, by any means possible.

Discussion questions for your group:

• There are several doppelgangers in the novel – Offred compares herself to the former occupant of her room, calling herself her double and her mirror, but also to Serena Joy and to Ofglen, her shopping partner. Why do you think this motif is used?

• What significance do you think the colour red has in the novel? Consider the literal uses of red – in the Handmaids’ uniforms and the bloodshed that Offred depicts, but also her name itself (Of-Fred, as she belongs to the Commander Fred, but also Off-red).

• What do you make of the characters of Nick and Janine? Both seem in some ways to conform stringently to the regime (Nick’s possible role as an Eye, Janine’s fertility) while also subverting it and forcing us to question it (Nick’s liaisons with Offred and Janine’s mental instability and vulnerability).

• Atwood wrote the novel in Berlin, at the time when the Berlin wall was close to falling. She was also inspired by the televangelists growing in popularity in the US and the vocal pro-life movements associated with them. Does this context add anything to your reading of the novel?

• Why are the scrabble games so important in the novel? Share some definitions of the words Offred spells out and consider how they link to the plot. What comment is Atwood making about the relationship between power and language in the novel?

• Were you frustrated by Offred’s unreliability and her revisions of the same event? Why do you think she lies to the readers – and why does she also go on to admit that she lies?

The recent novel – Christina Dalcher – Vox (2018)

You’ll like this if: You are interested in speech and silence in literary texts and drawn to characters who are forbidden to or cannot speak out – J.M.Coetzee’s novels ‘Disgrace’ and ‘Foe’ are interesting starting points to explore the theme, with the former involving more metaphorical silencing of a female victim, while the latter literalises silencing with a character whose tongue has been cut out.

If you enjoyed the viewpoint of the ostracized and silenced Adah Price in Barbara Kingsolver’s ‘The Poisonwood Bible’, you will appreciate the narrative voice in ‘Vox’.

You may also be interested in the science behind Aphasia and the relationship between thought, speech and communication. Many critics have described Dalcher’s novel as a response to current events, with Vanity Fair’s review citing it as “a novel ripe for an era of #metoo”.

What’s it about?: Our narrator in ‘Vox’ is Jean, a mother of four and a scientist whose work centres around researching Aphasia, a condition that robs the sufferer of the ability to speak or formulate language due to damage to specific areas of the brain.

The novel opens in the midst of a ghastly future where, with great irony, she, along with all other women, has had her speech forcibly restricted to a maximum of 100 words a day.

As a first-generation sufferer, she riles against the unfairness of sitting silent as the male members of her family speak, of being forced to use her words economically and only out of necessity. She is still more disturbed by how it affects her children – watching as her daughter proudly wins a prize for staying silent all day at school and as her teenage son becomes increasingly zealous in helping to reinforce the regime.

When she is called upon to assist the government in helping develop a cure for a high-ranking figure’s diagnosis of Aphasia, she sees it as a bargaining chip to bring about change.

Discussion questions for your group:

• It is as interesting to look at how the male members of McCellan’s family react as it is the female. Do you think there is any value in her husband supporting her behind closed doors? Do you feel sympathy for the way her son is brainwashed or are you shocked by his willingness to follow such a brutal system?

• The novel’s use of speech-limiting technology literalises the issue of women being unable to speak up or feel that they are heard in society. If the regime in the novel continued, how long do you think it would be before the restricting bracelets were not actually needed for women to remain silenced?

• Science and emotion are carefully linked and interwoven throughout the novel. Do you think it important that our narrator is a scientist? How does it affect her narrative voice?

• How does the novel remind us of the importance of words and language? Remember it is not only speech that is prohibited, but Jean’s novel, magazines, emails, notepads – even fridge poetry magnets – are all locked away from her.

• As with ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’, ‘Vox’ pinpoints religion as the root of the problems, recalling how the Southern states Bible Belt “morphed from belt to corset, covering all but the country’s limbs” – a powerful image of suffocating restriction. How did you react to the preacher’s role in punishing the neighbour’s daughter? Do you think religion in either novel was cause – or catalyst – for events?

• Critics suggest Dalcher’s novel descends from powerful speculative fiction to overblown thriller in its latter half. Do you agree? How necessary do you think it is to adopt a ‘happy ending’ in dystopian fiction (consider Atwood’s novel as a counterpoint)?