The Paper's reporter Gao Dan
The First Edition of The Handmaid's Tale, first published in 1985, ends with an open-ended ending. For more than three decades, readers have been asking for details about Gilead and its inner workings, as well as the development of the heroine's fate. In this regard, Atwood said: "These questions have become the inspiration for this book. The other part of the inspiration comes from the world we are in. ”
As a sequel to The Handmaid's Tale, Testimony sets the time fifteen years after the finale of the previous game, when gileading's rule showed signs of decay from within. At the moment when great changes are approaching, the fates of three women of different identities and backgrounds begin to intertwine, they tell the changes of history from their own perspectives, and the three different narrative voices construct a grander time and space, revealing the secrets behind the overthrow of Gilead, and the past and the future are gradually overlapping in the narrative.
Recently, margaret Atwood's latest novel Testimony Chinese edition was published by Shanghai Translation Publishing House. On the afternoon of October 17, Shanghai Translation Publishing House held a sharing meeting on the Chinese edition of Testimonials in Beijing, where scholars Zhang Li, writer Zhi An, writer Huo Yan and readers shared their thoughts on the new work after reading.
The scene of the event
About women's right to live freely
In Zhang Li's view, "Testimony" is undoubtedly a feminist novel. "If you read this novel, you will feel that her language is very good, calm, restrained, accurate, and her portrayal of details, you will feel that she is very particular." 」 Feminist works have a popular work every once in a while, such as the recent "Jin Zhiying Born in 82" and other female works. But I've always had some regrets, and when some women's works come out, you feel that the media is also saying that it's feminist works, but in fact, what you see is anger, resentment, accusations. But for real literature or high-class works of art, I think these works are lacking. ”
And Atwood made a very good demonstration, she started from the female perspective, the female position, the female power, with the female voice, the female language, based on the female identity and the imagination of the female position to see the survival of all mankind and the plight of all mankind, she is only talking about the control of reproductive rights? Is it just about women's bodies being controlled? She wasn't just talking about women, not just men, not Gilead. Zhang Li said.
According to Atwood, what Atwood wrote was not a pure fable, "There are a lot of real life and human experiences here, including people being controlled in the world, people being manipulated, and the whole fate is decided by people, which is the most unbearable thing for us." Even though we may not have lost as much as the book says, the significance of the writer is that we may have experienced 5% or 10%, and the writer may have written 50% or 70%, letting us know that it was the fate that we might face. ”
Huo Yan believes that what this book really wants to solve is not only the problem of women's consciousness, but also the repression of the whole society, which is not only the repression of men for women, but also the repression of women themselves. She gave an example from the book: How was she going to conceive in The Handmaid's Tale? It is necessary to make the female pillow on the leg of the archbishop's wife, and the archbishop's wife will hold her hand, and at the same time complete the process with the three archbishops, and the film and television drama restores the process very well. This process was set by these grandmothers, why were these grandmothers used, because before the establishment of the Kingdom of Gilead, they were representatives of women in the normal world. As successful women, they know more about women's pain points and what women care about, so they use such a method to humiliate everyone.
A cautionary book that reminds us that the world is not so safe
The Handmaid's Tale was published in 1985, and the time point set in the book is at our current time. Why is it set so close? This is where Shibu-an has always been confused when he first read it. "Because after that, there are many places where it is not easy to write. The farther away the easier it is. Three thousand years later, it is particularly easy to write, but twenty years later, after twenty years, unlike you, you write in vain. So I guess why is it written so closely? I read The Handmaid's Tale with this question from beginning to end. Shi-an thinks.
"She found that all the processes of civilization are very fragile and can collapse overnight, including your civilization, your enjoyment and all your power, all your pleasant things, your favorite things. So she pulled the distance so close that there was no point in pulling it farther away. Pulling very close tells you that these things are very dangerous. Now that it is 2020, Gilead has not become one hundred percent of the reality, on the one hand, it proves that her book is not written correctly, but we can push this backwards, we can keep moving backwards, we can see from today that within the next twenty or thirty years, there may be another Gilead. Shinan said.
"It is a book of warnings, it always tells us that you don't think that what you already have will always have, and what you have will probably be deprived." Atwood wrote the book and studied a lot about the history of the Nazis, and she knew what [they] did. So this book is like an alarm clock, reminding us that the world is not so safe, that maybe you have something that suddenly disappears one day, and that you are willing to be the depriver, and everyone is the deprived, and at the same time everyone is a member of the deprivation. ”
In Shian's view, Atwood is a person who cares a lot about this world. "Some writers don't care about the affairs of this world at all, which is also very good, Borges doesn't care about the world at all, what do you love, it has nothing to do with me, there are many such writers, they are very great writers." 」 There are also writers who are particularly concerned about the world, and the reason why she wrote gilead in the Testimony is also because she herself is 80 years old, and she must have a way to overcome this thing. ”
Testimony
The interaction between film and fiction
The previous work of "Testimony", "The Story of the Handmaid", is undoubtedly a phenomenon-level work, in Huo Yan's view, this book represents a phenomenon, "There is a trend in the current novel creation, novels, film and television lead to social issues, such a cultural production, is now a very integrated production." The novel provides a good model, by a good production team for film and television adaptation, after the success of film and television adaptation will touch a very large social issue, touching the social issues and then prompting the writer to carry out further creation. In this process, the novelist actually has a process of competition and competition with her millions of readers and a sophisticated film and television production team, which is actually a process of secret competition. ”
"I found that some of the depictions in Testimonials were from episodes, and she hadn't had them before. And because of the series, Atwood changed the original tone of "The Handmaid's Tale" as well. The protagonist of "The Handmaid's Tale" is still an observer who reflects on fate, but she still only bears, she can only bear fate. What's special about the first season of the series is that the protagonist is very powerful, the character chooses a woman with a strong body, that woman is full of strength, she has always wanted to find her child, she has always wanted to escape from this place, she has always had a strong action, including her saying at the end that she must do something to break the world. So this is the biggest difference between the novel and the drama, it is full of power, one is passive bearing, the other is active breakthrough, which affects the writing of "Testimony". In "Testimony", everyone is full of initiative, their movements are very much, their language is very short, their personalities will become very distinct, their stories will reverse quickly, and the design of their twin flowers must highlight the very different personalities of the two people. Therefore, the degree of film and television or film and television sense and picture sense of "Testimony" will be very high. Huo Yan said.
"Atwood is certainly not a writer who writes for American dramas, but as a new production model, this kind of film and television will have a certain impact on the author, including she will have a plot communication with the screenwriter, and the setting of the novel will have a sense of echo with the production of the series." In the future, whether we do research or look at things, we will increasingly refer to the similarities and differences between the two, including why this thing is presented in the play and why it is presented in the novel. Huo Yan said.
Editor-in-Charge: Chen Shihuai
Proofreader: Liu Wei