On the Cutting Edge?

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As usual, I’m a day late and a dollar short when it comes to what I am reading.  Certainly not on ‘the cutting edge’ – more the opposite, which is ‘the spine’ if you consider my cutting reference to be a knife blade.  I’m about three-quarters of the way through Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” and no, I didn’t see the TV series either.

For the few folks who share my laggardly reading habits, I feel the need to point out that this might be the optimum timing for reading Atwood’s dystopian novel.  Although she wrote it back in 1986, there are so many disturbing similarities to our present socio-political situation, that it reads almost like horror fiction.  I find myself forced to take a time out now and then to think about what she has written and what I’m seeing/reading/hearing in our daily news.

I began reading the book before we left home on October 16th and brought it along with me, thinking I could finish it while hanging out with Nyel in the hospital.  As it turns out, I haven’t made much progress.  Contrary to popular opinion, there are few ‘dull’ moments here.

I’m hard pressed to keep up with my small writing obligations betwixt and between the parade of doctors, nurses, pharmacists, phlebotomists, therapists and other hospital personnel who come in to see Nyel on a regular basis.  To say nothing of accompanying Nyel on his walks up and down the halls, visiting the Heartbeat Café for lunch or dinner alternatives, and enjoying visitors who drop by.

But, little did I think that we would overstay the book’s due date.  (Oh, did I say that it’s a library book?)  Now that going home seems imminent – well, maybe tomorrow or the next day – I’m thinking I ought to get cracking.  It’s hard for me, though.  There are aspects of it that seem too close to today’s reality to be comfortable.

I can’t help but wonder what Ms. Atwood was seeing in the world of 1986 that resulted in this book.  Whatever it was, I’m pretty sure I was oblivious.  But, now?  Not so much.  In the thirty-plus years since she wrote her tale, our United States has moved a bit too close to its descriptions in the Handmaid’s memory.  Scary to the max.

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