Hatred of Books in The Handmaids Tale

While I'm on the roll of talking about hatred of books within books I thought I may as well make it three in a row, as mentioned in my last blog post it is a theme in Atwood’s The Handmaids Tale. Books are banned in Gilead which means any chance to read is valued greatly by Offred.

The only book allowed in Gilead is the bible but even that is “kept locked up ... it is an incendiary device”. The bible which is traditionally seen as a sanctuary to religious individuals instead is feared as a dangerous item. This is the fear that if the women had access to the bible the could educate themselves to the point where there is the risk that they could stand up to the men. The society is infact contradicting itself here as it claims to be highly religious and functions the way it does because it’s ‘what God would want’ yet they don’t trust the bible and instead make up the content of the bible.

Throughout the text Offred relies on one phrase to help herself survive this oppression she faces, “Nolite bastardes carborundorum”, a phrase she finds scratched into her wardrobe by a previous Handmaid, which is said to be a schoolboys slang for 'Don't let the bastards wear you down'. Offred goes on to recall this phrase as part of her prayer though stating “I don't know what it means but it sounds right”. It is as though because she has no access to written language her passion for it is diminished to simply a superficiality, using the words based on how they sound or look. Her desperation to rebel against the regime is based on insults that she has no clear understanding of. As a young woman who doesn't know latin you can imagine her simply seeing “bastardes” and assuming it equates to the English dysphemism (which she is right to assume) and decides the rest of the claim must be insulting enough to use against the men she hates.

The only word Offred is allowed to read (disregarding the inscription in her wardrobe) is the word “FAITH” that is stitched into the cushion under her window. There’s a sense of irony behind this word being chosen as the only thing she can read is a religious idea, which seems contradictory to the fact of they lock the bible up – this supposedly fully religious society in Gilead seems to be very uncertain in their own faith. Perhaps they only allow this single word because its very simple and difficult to manipulate and use as a base for rebellion – simply a message to have faith in regime. It being under the window is like suggesting look out at the beauty in the gardens and have faith, be inspired by God’s glory to trust the regime. 

Inkheart - Cornelia Funke

I don't know what it is at the moment but I'm in love with books confronting the theme of the 'danger' of book; first with The Handmaids Tale, then Fahrenheit 451 and now onto the list Inkheart! I won’t lie (and this is shameful as a self-proclaimed bookworm) I had been avoiding this book for the size, but mainly because I watched the film when it first came out and really didn't enjoy it, but after having it on my bookshelf for years I finally caved and I'm so glad I did. I've always loved fantasy and as my favourite fantasy novel is Funke’s Reckless, I was desperate for her not to disappoint and she really didn’t. Mo, one of the main characters, has the power to paint beautiful pictures when he reads aloud from books and Funke achieves this skill on every page of the book, making it really difficult to put down. 

Inkheart’s characters are so lifelike it’s hard to choose a favourite and I feel Funke was presented with a battle of trying to match her real characters (Mo, Meggie, Elinor, etc) to characters who had been red out of Inkheart (Capricorn, Basta), as fantasy book characters can afford to be far more eccentric and so are easier to style up than characters who are meant to relate to reality. However, I think Cornelia meets this challenge incredibly and some of the characters that haven't been read out are better than those who are. All this being said, my favourite character by far is Basta (which shocks even me as I normally despise the more formidable characters), his twisted nature holds something enthralling I just can't put my finger on. On the surface he’s presented as a shallow man who has eyes only for his knives and desperation for Capricorn’s approval. I think one of the benefits of Funke only presenting us with small sections of Fenoglio’s Inkheart means a whole lot more of the characters is left to the reader’s imagination. To me Basta was the deepest character in the text because he had so many personality pitfalls, making the reader question why he was like that, and where did it come from?

If ever there was a book full of allusions Inkheart is that, each chapter being started with an extract from another text. Cornelia Funke said in her ‘Inkfolio’ notes that she “chose to use quotes at the beginning of the chapter because it was so relevant to Inkheart to have the voices of other books within it”. I feel these extracts give so much to the text, somehow these passages from other texts add to the content of the chapter they prelude. It also makes for a nice break from a book of such length, it gives you a break every now and again to dip your toes into books you've perhaps never heard of, and for me it also provided new editions to my summer reading list (particularly the Princess Bride).

The whole novel is written in 3^rd person though Cornelia Funke was still writing from particular characters perspective. The characters that the perspective the story is told from changes regularly and the first time it did it I found it hard to adapt because it’s not clearly indicated if you're not fully concentrated. Although I feel the change of perspective made for a more interesting narrative, it also made for quite awkward reading. However, this is a very personal issue with the text and with everything else in the text it’s a very minor issue.

All in all Inkheart is a brilliant text, full of beautiful images of everything mentioned. Although at first I was terrified by the length and thought I'd never get through it, recently I've probably read it faster than any other books because it was just so enjoyable. Any faults in the text were simply down to me and very minor. I wish the story within Inkheart (Fenoglio’s Inkheart) actually existed. Funke presents the lesson I'm always trying to convince my friends of that there is always more than just paper and ink to a story, and she presents it in the best of ways. I've adored this book and can't wait to read the following two novels (despite hearing bad reviews) but for the first in the series a perhaps slightly conservative 8/10! 

Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury

The temperature at which paper burns.

This 1951 piece of dystopian literature is a brilliant classic in which roles as we know them today are completely reversed. Firemen, who in our society we associate with putting out fires, and saving persons and property, instead burn the books that have been outlawed, and for this reason is most clearly associated with the tensions that come with book burning (with relations to historical context such as Nazi Germany). We're never told why these books are banned but there are some factors that Bradbury suggests: a general decreased interest in reading (due to increased access to media) and factors contributing to hostility towards books (from envying those who possess more books, holding more knowledge). The afterword tells us of Bradbury's sensitivity towards any attempt to restrict his freedom of speech and the mind (a view I hold close to my heart also, personally I see oppression of the mind as one of the worst forms) and he sees it as hostile and intolerant.

If ever there was a brilliant first sentence of a text Bradbury masters it with this novel, "it was a pleasure to burn". He creates the tone of firemen's attitude from the start of the cliche 'ignorance is bliss', the fireman live a simple existence leaving them no need to be challenged, a simply black and white world - burn them, purge them, purify society. There role is intoxicating, they essentially have the hands of God creating purity by banishing these books. 

One of my favourite narrative methods Bradbury uses is his imagery, using animals, insects and birds. The most famous of this imagery is that of the phoenix, however personally I prefer the more subtle images such as the firemen driving a beetle, "yellow flame coloured beetle". The beetle (insect) connotes progress, simplicity, solidarity and protection, all factors which we can see in the regime:

• Progress - the general theme within dystopian literature is the journey towards a utopia. This regime is occurring because they saw previous life (with freedom to literature) as failing and so a need to progress towards a better future (without books).
• Simplicity - the nature of this regime is somewhat simple: burn books, purify world.
• Solidarity - the dependance on all the firemen working together in order to reach the 'end goal' and the way the story of burning books seems to stop after we discover Montag's secrets.
• Protection - protecting the world from the 'evil' nature of literature (as the society is meant to perceive it).

A traditional method of characterising a group of people as evil is dressing them in black (as can be seen in other texts like The Handmaids Tale, or even the Death Eaters in Harry Potter), Bradbury extends this method to making everything around them black too, "external burning black pipes ... charcoal hair ... soot-coloured brow", this blackness is essentially all firemen being coated in the same corruption. 

Bradbury's poetic prose creates a powerful text that has gone down as a dystopian classic, alongside others such as Orwell's 1984, that still provides a shocking message of the potential threat technology contains even over 60 years after it's first publication. Bradbury manages to create tremendous imagery on every page which led to the book taking me longer than it probably should have because I had to digest all Bradbury's ideas. I strongly recommend this book to anyone if it's just a simple summer read or a more indepth study (eg. I'm using it for A-level coursework), it can work either way and in a studying circumstance there is so much to write about it makes essays easy. In my eyes Bradbury is a literary master and I look forward to reading many more of his works, for this specific text I give it a 9/10.