Finishing 丨 Beijing News reporter Dong Muzi intern Zhou Jie
Testimony, by Margaret Atwood, translated by Shanghai Translation Publishing House, July 2020.
Margaret Atwood's new book, Testimonials, Chinese edition, was recently published. Testimony is at Wood's Booker Prize-winning work for the second time and a sequel to Atwood's famous Tale of the Handmaid.
Written in 1984, The Handmaid's Tale is a fictional parallel world called the Kingdom of Gilead. In Gilead, all women were deprived of the right to work, the right to knowledge, the right to economy, and they were either handymen in the household or handmaidens as reproductive tools. The tv series of the same name, based on "The Handmaid's Tale," has been released for three seasons and has swept the Emmys, Golden Globes and American Critics' Choice Awards in three years. Sales of the original book also grew rapidly along with the broadcast of the TV series, with the English version of "The Handmaid's Tale" selling more than eight million copies. Hundreds of millions of viewers and readers began to pay attention to the original "The Handmaid's Tale", trying to explore Margaret's ideas, including details such as how the Republic of Gilead worked.
These questions became the inspiration for Atwood's new novel, Testimony. In this new book, Atwood features three women from different backgrounds who tell the key moments of the decline of Gilead's rule in The Handmaid's Tale from different perspectives. In Atwood's skilful narration, the previous and sequels, the novel and the reality, the past and the future overlap.
On the afternoon of August 14th, the flagship store of The Shanghai Book Fair Duoyun Academy held a press conference for the Chinese edition of the new book "Testimonials", and translator Yuan Xiaoyi, writer Mao Jian, literature professor Luo Gang, and the translator of the book shared with readers their after-reading impressions of Atwood's new work. We have selected the highlights of the dialogue to entertain the readers.
Why did Atwood choose New England as the backdrop for a dystopian novel?
Luo Gang: The 2017 adaptation of the "Handmaid's Tale" TV series has re-illuminated this novel that has been silent for many years.
When we think of dystopias, we often think of 1984 and Brave New World. Atwood set the birthplace of the Republic of Gilead, the place where The Handmaid's Tale takes place, in New England, United States.
To some extent, without the various crises that Western democracies have encountered in the second decade of the 21st century, including Trump's rise to power and European refugees, it is difficult to imagine that dystopias are not just the antithesis of the West, but also within the West. After the TV series "The Handmaid's Tale" is broadcast, everyone will rethink these questions.
As early as 1985, Atwood dealt with many of the problems posed by the modernization of the West in his novels. These problems are largely unsolvable, including the problem of handmaidens, namely fertility, and humanity as a species has no way to reproduce on its own. Entering the "post-human" era means that humans as species have become a problem in their own right. Why are handmaidens present? The reason is that many women have become tools of production. The novel also talks about environmental pollution and waste, and all the clothes of the Republic of Gilead are recycled, including the clothes worn by the archbishop's daughter. The son of Jacob rebelled and needed to find a solution to save the society from the overall crisis.
Atwood seems to have embedded environmental protection, sustainable development, minimalist life and other things that everyone is keen to discuss, into the interior of the Republic of Gilead. If the book had been published in 2019, you might not have been surprised, as all the issues were already out there. But the publication of The Handmaid's Tale in 1985 proves atwood's intellectual penetration.
Photo by Mickalene Thomas/Time Magazine.
So: How did Atwood, who was less than 40 years old, come up with the idea of writing a "Handmaid's Tale" in Berlin? In fact, there is a reason. She had an idea before she went to Berlin. Once, Atwood went to an event and was in the same car with a South American lady on the way back. The woman told her that there had been a lot of violence in the Civil War in South America, most of whom were insulted and damaged by women, but that no one outside knew about them.
When Atwood heard about the events, he realized that literature must exert the power of the eyewitness to record what has happened in the world. After arriving in Berlin, Atwood learned a lot about Eastern European countries during the Cold War, including Romania's 770 law on women's reproductive rights. These histories are not told over and over again, and those who do not know do not know. After learning these things, Atwood had the idea of writing "The Handmaid's Tale".
Not defined by feminism, think about the complexity of women's issues
Thus: Atwood has reiterated on many occasions that she is not a feminist writer, and that Testimony and The Handmaid's Tale are not feminist novels. From the translator's point of view, is Atwood writing a feminist novel?
Yuan Xiaoyi: At least when I read it, I didn't think of it as a women's novel, it wasn't a novel that only talked about women's issues. Of course, she denies this label, and may also have a certain strategy. Any female writer does not like to be called a "female writer" by others. However, as a woman, Atwood still deeply appreciates and keenly captures the problems that women may encounter in the future social development process.
To be honest, I read Atwood's work as a sequel to 1984. Later, when we talk to Our English and American literature teachers about dystopian novels of 20th-century world literature, we also compare "The Handmaid's Tale" and "1984." Of course, there are also differences between male writers and female writers.
Margaret Atwood at the testimony global launch, image from Dylan Martinez/Reuters
So: Two days ago, I watched a documentary about the second wave of feminists in the 1970s, and the creators interviewed the women who participated in the feminist movement at that time, and one of them mentioned the complex overlap of feminism and racism. For example, a feminist of African descent would have a hard time claiming to be a feminist when talking about anti-racial issues. In such a context, if they raise the issue of feminism, some advocates of extreme anti-racism issues will perceive them as biased toward whites. This shows that the hat of "feminism" is actually very difficult to buckle today. Perhaps it's also for this reason that Atwood is less likely to call himself a feminist writer now?
Yuan Xiaoyi: One thing good about Atwood is that all the problems she encounters are real. Even when she wrote The Handmaid's Tale in the 1980s, when society had not yet had these problems (or the problems were not so acute), her imagination was still real. All the problems presented by Atwood, such as fertility, class, and hierarchy, were true in the Republic of Gilead, and vice versa in Canada and elsewhere. No society or institution can solve this problem directly, and no fixed answer can tell us what to do.
Ryangon: Atwood may not be a feminist writer, but she's thinking about the complexity of women's issues. You just talked about the second wave of feminist thought, and the third wave of feminists represented by other ethnic groups such as Africa. Our original modern imagination of women was to empower them and liberate them from all kinds of shackles. The most typical is the British, who particularly glorify the barbarism of the Indian women's burial system, and regard the British colonial government as the savior of women. But some postmodern feminists point out that the Indian system of burial exists because it is embedded in a very complex socio-cultural structure, and there is a lot of contingency. In the same way, there is the phenomenon of Chinese women's small feet. These phenomena existed for only a short time, but Westerners saw them as a symbol of Chinese ignorance, thus constituting a hierarchical discourse of civilization. What postmodern feminism emphasizes is that we can stick to feminist positions but not necessarily fully embrace the Western set of ideas.
Looking back, "The Handmaid's Tale" is when the heroine suddenly discovers her memories, and all work and rights are suddenly stripped away, so she knows that these things are very precious. This is not directly told to you by Atwood, but expressed in the novel and experienced in the process of reading. If we are familiar with science fiction writing, we will know that this is an apocalyptic trend often used in science fiction literature. At first, there is nothing you take for granted, but everything is real.
Atwood is not shaping a female utopia, nor a male utopia
Rogan: Atwood actually went beyond left and right, which is very important. Let's start with fertility. In the view of right-wing conservatism, contraception and abortion are illegal in some parts of the United States. Some radical feminists will criticize contraception and abortion, as well as all artificial measures around female fertility, as part of the workings of modern capitalism. Some radical feminists have even historically begun to liquidate how women have been effectively absorbed by capitalism, exploiting the surplus value of modern women. Some radical feminists believe that women should give birth naturally, give birth naturally, conceive naturally. "Left" and "right", in this place together. A topic embedded in social history, suddenly comes first.
Argentine activists who support the legalization of abortion dress up as characters in The Handmaid's Tale.
Atwood is reflecting on these questions, which are where she is most important. In terms of modern values, handmaidens are anti-modern, but they are also reasonable from the perspective of human reproduction, because without a monogamous life, the most childlike women in the race can allow the race to reproduce. Man's self-preservation and racial preservation are instinctive. What do you use to overcome this instinct? That's another topic. The story of Atwood's work itself pulls the question away.
Yuan Xiaoyi: This is not even just a matter of men and women, Atwood said in the "Testimony" that the "male world" and "the female world" have their own classes, which is actually not only to protect the rights and interests of women to some extent, but also to protect the rights and interests of human beings.
So: in "The Handmaid's Tale", from the perspective of Off Fred, men are not very happy. Such a gilead republic is dystopian for women, but is it utopian for men in turn? This book has fully proved that this is not a matter of duality, black and white. In The Handmaid's Tale, especially in the adaptation of the film and television drama, all the people of the Republic of Gilead, men and women, all classes, have no way to realize their self-worth. From the point of view of human nature, even if it is premised on the great goal of continuing the race, the Republic of Gilead has failed.
In His Testimony, Atwood deliberately wrote about how such a polity was established. In particular, through the "Lydia Grandma's Notes", the reader is told that a so-called "female world" should be established, and this "female world" has the power to make all the rules. Men's grasp of the regime and the republic itself is vague. Atwood tells us these details in the narrative of The Testimony, and each chapter has a lot of content for us to analyze.
So: As early as 1984, when Atwood wrote the book "The Handmaid's Tale", she mentioned that in the seemingly patriarchal countries, there are actually a small number of people who completely adopt the management methods of matriarchal societies. In this matriarchal society, there is a fairly detailed setting, a woman's life, from childbirth to childbirth, followed by the education of children, and then to the girl's menstruation, marriage and marriage are included. It looks like a woman's morality, which is very heart-wrenching, but these problems still exist today.
I didn't realize this when I watched The Handmaid's Tale, but I understood it by the testimony. The Republic of Gilead was born in a process of theocratic unity, and the ruling class was born under the premise of tampering with religion, which is very intriguing.
Yuan Xiaoyi: In fact, the oppression of women often comes from women, which at Atwood even if it is understated, her setting has a deep meaning. I think the best thing about Atwood is that she sometimes likes to tease, for example, she writes about Grandma Liz, saying that she is weak, but also saying that she is a professor who is familiar with the history of the Revolution. I thought it was funny. She just wanted to flirt, she didn't want to make the story so heavy, of course, this is also due to the complexity of the world itself. The "male world" and the "female world" have laid the groundwork in The Handmaid's Tale, and the worldview of the Republic of Gilead says that the male mind is more focused and the female is more suitable for chores. But in the end, the plot of "Testimony" actually proves that men are not so great.
Testimony is a book dedicated to the reader
So: let's talk about the remakes of Testimony and The Handmaid's Tale. The publication of sequels to novels promoted by a series of film and television dramas in turn does not seem to be particularly rare in literary history. As far as I know, Teacher Mao Jian seems to think that novels are better than dramas?
The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood, translated by Chen Xiaowei, Shanghai Translation Publishing House, December 2017.
Mao Jian: The first season of "The Handmaid's Tale" was quite good. Generally speaking, first-rate novels are difficult to adapt into dramas, and third-rate or even fourth-rate novels are more suitable for adaptation into dramas, but "The Story of the Handmaid" is very successful as a TV series, and here, not only shows the ability to write and direct, but also is not unrelated to the timing of the launch of the TV series "The Handmaid's Tale". In 1985, the novel "The Handmaid's Tale" did not have much impact when it was launched, and the film remake was also coldly received. However, when the TV series was broadcast in 2017, it encountered hot topics such as women's morality, feminism, and Trump's election, which prepared the context for "The Handmaid's Story".
Although the overall level of the second and third seasons of "The Handmaid's Tale" is still there, it is a bit disappointing, especially after losing the support of the novel, the show is a bit sinking. But the new book "Testimony" came out, and I was immediately full of expectations for the fourth season. When I read the book, I felt that this novel was prepared for the filming of the drama, especially the second half of the great acceleration, although slightly simple, but it did prepare for the TV series in all aspects.
So: I saw an interview two days ago where they said that Atwood had been in close communication with the writers [Miller] when he was writing Testimony. The writers will tell Atwood some of the details of the episodes that appear in seasons two, three, and four so that Atwood can maintain the consistency of the plot when writing the story after 2015. As for the fourth season, I think your expectations will be disappointed, the fourth season will not write the finale, maybe "Testimony" will start a new drama.
Mao Jian: That might be better, because "Testimony" on the tail of the third season is not necessarily good. The temperaments of the two books are still very different, and the expression and sentence pattern are also different. Testimonial sentences are relatively short and the syntax is brighter. In fact, watching the TV series "The Handmaid's Story", at first I did not agree with the heroine, and later I saw that the heroine was becoming more and more powerful and full of explosive power, and I felt right. This kind of heroine is not too common in our own film and television dramas, in fact, they are a bit atwood in their bones. Although Grandma spoke very elegantly, she was full of force and could write so evenly until she was eighty years old, which was breathtaking.
Mao Jian: Testimony is actually a book dedicated to the reader. This book tells you what the pre-giles, present giles, and post-basis are like, basically answering the questions of readers around the world. In this sense, the book is unique, and every reader can find the questions left behind when reading The Handmaid's Tale. Although the cover of "Testimony" is very dark, the story inside is much brighter, and seeing the end, it is a bit of a Hong Kong drama.
Atwood is really good at writing three sets of ring plays. "Blind Assassin" is also three story nesting, one layer of narrative set of narrative and one layer of narrative and then one layer of narrative, which I myself call three sets of car narrative. She has a lot of text structures that are this kind of three sets of cars, which should also be the one she is most familiar with. At the age of 80, it may be a pleasure to reuse your own handy routine, so this "Testimony" is written quickly and easily.
Author 丨 Dong Muzi Zhou Jie
Edited by 丨Rodong
Proofreading 丨Virtual
Source: Beijing News