[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey, bookies. Do you have a book that you're reading that you wish that we would read? Perfect matchmaid in heaven. Just contact us at www bookinterrupted. Backslash fans and see if you could be the next fan member who gets to join the conversation.
[00:00:18] Speaker B: Parental guidance is recommended because this episode has mature topics and strong language. Here are some moments you can look forward to.
[00:00:26] Speaker C: During this episode of Book Interrupted, you.
[00:00:29] Speaker D: Weren'T free to be safe. You couldn't walk alone at night. And now you don't have to worry about that because you're not allowed.
[00:00:35] Speaker E: Second half is when everything happens.
[00:00:37] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:00:38] Speaker F: Why? I didn't know you were allowed.
[00:00:40] Speaker E: Everything does happen then.
[00:00:41] Speaker D: Almost everything.
[00:00:42] Speaker F: Pleasure is pleasure a choice.
[00:00:44] Speaker D: As it gets shorter, you're more prone to like, age related sickness.
[00:00:48] Speaker E: Because the movies even distort my memory of the books.
[00:00:53] Speaker F: I don't care. There's another way to do it. That was as if we three got together and decided to shoot a movie.
[00:00:59] Speaker D: Well, that was a big turnaround.
That didn't take much images.
[00:01:04] Speaker F: Okay, fine.
[00:01:05] Speaker G: I'll read it again without my body.
[00:01:19] Speaker E: Is information is trying to learn something without being disrupted.
[00:01:30] Speaker G: Mind, body and soul inspiration is with us and we're going to talk it out on Book Interrupted.
[00:01:41] Speaker B: Welcome to Book Interrupted, a book club for busy people to connect and one that celebrates life's interruptions.
During this book cycle, we're reading The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. This book has been banned for being sexually explicit, violently graphic, and morally corrupt. If you'd like to follow along, this book cycle is from December 1 to February 1.
Let's listen in to this episode's. Group discussion.
[00:02:09] Speaker F: Welcome to the second and final discussion about The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood.
[00:02:16] Speaker E: So did everyone finish the book?
[00:02:18] Speaker G: Yes.
[00:02:18] Speaker D: You know, strangely, I didn't.
[00:02:20] Speaker F: Wow.
[00:02:21] Speaker D: And it's not because they don't like the book. My health was not good over Christmas. I got the book into the library and it had hold, right? It had holds. And so I returned it because I felt like, oh, I can't just finish it. And somebody was waiting for the hold. I was feeling guilt, so I returned it. I was like, I'll just go buy it. It wasn't really in a good place to go out to a store, so I didn't buy it until recently. And then I was like, oh, no, I have another book club. I was like, I didn't read that book.
So I already had that book club.
[00:02:51] Speaker G: And I haven't finished it.
[00:02:52] Speaker D: I'm so close. My mom's visiting and she came to the book club with me. So my friend lives close by. So we walked. She was like, okay, I'll fill you in, because she read it like a day. My mom reads so fast, and so she's like, that's why I let her read it first. And on the way, she filled me into the whole thing. And literally she's like, and then that was the book we walked right up to the door as she was like and that's what the book was about. And she didn't know where this person lived. She just finished give me the summary in the right amount of time. Anyway, she couldn't do that for the hands maintail. I have read it in the past. That's right. Anyway, in the meantime, I bought it.
You know what I want to interrupt about?
[00:03:28] Speaker F: I dislike these new covers. I want old classic covers. And so many times, it's either, like, pictures of the actors if it's getting turned into a movie, you know what I mean? I want original covers. And I went to a bookstore to find a book, and there is a whole table full of books that have been remade with completely different covers. It's a thing now. It's not even just, oh, there's a movie coming. Here's the new cover. As if they're reinventing them. Maybe they're trying to well, they do.
[00:03:55] Speaker D: That with different editions. That's what they do with different editions. They put a new cover on it.
[00:03:59] Speaker F: I guess I prefer first edition covers then.
[00:04:01] Speaker G: That's what I'll say.
[00:04:02] Speaker D: But I have something good that happens, because I often write down, like, quotes from the book and page numbers where things happen, so I can go back. And this is a different version than the book I had from the library, but the page numbers are the rare.
[00:04:15] Speaker E: Oh, crazy.
[00:04:16] Speaker F: I was like, yeah, please, you know.
[00:04:18] Speaker D: And I was like, oh, okay.
[00:04:19] Speaker G: So I'm fine.
[00:04:19] Speaker D: So if I want to look at my little book of notes, then I'm all good. I know what's happening here and there.
[00:04:24] Speaker F: And what have you noted about The Handmaid's Tale, Meredith?
[00:04:27] Speaker D: A lot of pressure.
[00:04:30] Speaker F: Just pull a random.
[00:04:31] Speaker D: Here's a random. I like this one. This is early in the book. Aunt Lydia, who's talking about freedom, she goes, there's more than one kind of freedom, said Aunt Lydia. Freedom to and freedom from. In the days of anarchy, it was freedom, too. Now you're being given freedom from don't underrate it. So her point was, like, before you had freedom to do everything, but you weren't free to be safe. You couldn't walk alone at night. And now you don't have to worry about that because you're not allowed.
[00:05:00] Speaker E: We'Re.
[00:05:01] Speaker D: Going to take care of you, right? You have the freedom to choose what you want to do with your career, but now you're not allowed to have a job, so you don't have to worry about it. You can't read.
[00:05:09] Speaker F: Yeah.
I have freed you from literacy.
[00:05:13] Speaker G: Yeah.
[00:05:14] Speaker D: Free you from choice. And that's a thing where people now have so much choice, it causes stress and anxiety, and it actually takes a lot of your energy having to make choices. Anyway, it's interesting. I would rather freedom, too.
[00:05:26] Speaker F: What were you going to say, Sarah?
[00:05:28] Speaker E: I was going to say isn't interesting how in the book, even the stores, they had to take the names off the stores because they realized the women were reading the name of the stores to go to. So then they just put a picture.
[00:05:38] Speaker G: Yeah.
[00:05:39] Speaker E: That's crazy.
[00:05:40] Speaker C: Can't even read like that.
[00:05:42] Speaker D: He gives her the magazine.
[00:05:44] Speaker G: I know.
[00:05:45] Speaker F: Forbidden.
[00:05:46] Speaker D: Why are you showing this to me?
[00:05:48] Speaker E: The scrabble, too.
[00:05:49] Speaker F: Well, the scrabble was major scrabble.
[00:05:51] Speaker E: Yeah, that's what they did. Because I read this. This is my third time, and I forgot that's the game they'd played. Like, I remember the other more extreme things, but the fact that the first thing he wanted to do when she came to the room was play Scrabble. And first time she was trying to pretend she didn't know everything. And then after, she's like, okay, no, I'm going to show him how smart I am with all the words.
[00:06:11] Speaker D: I know.
[00:06:11] Speaker E: It's crazy.
[00:06:13] Speaker D: I like that she listed words and I put them in my memory bank for next time I play Scrabble.
[00:06:17] Speaker F: Oh, hopefully you'll get lucky enough to have those letters.
[00:06:22] Speaker D: Rhythm larynx larynx.
[00:06:29] Speaker F: I didn't like it. How about that? Oh, yeah.
I don't want to repeat my personal journal, even though in my personal journal, I apologized because I was like, you're probably just going to hear this exact same statement in the episode. Although I recorded my personal journal a couple of times, so maybe I didn't say that.
[00:06:50] Speaker A: I guess you'll have to just wait and see.
[00:06:52] Speaker F: I think it was mostly a case. I did say this in the personal journal of expectations. And like, oh, everyone loves this. It's such a great book. It's well spoken of. Like, it's a popular, important book in history. Whatever.
[00:07:07] Speaker D: Got a classic.
[00:07:08] Speaker G: Yes.
[00:07:08] Speaker F: And it's got a school.
[00:07:10] Speaker D: It's important, right?
[00:07:12] Speaker F: It comes with, I feel like an automatic a hype, right?
[00:07:15] Speaker G: A hype. Yeah.
[00:07:16] Speaker F: Like, it wouldn't have the Hype if it wasn't good or so I thought. I was waiting for it to get started, and then I didn't feel like it actually got started until literally the last page, and I was like, okay, I guess I got to read the next one.
[00:07:31] Speaker E: So this is a spoiler for anyone.
[00:07:34] Speaker D: Who hasn't finished the book.
[00:07:36] Speaker E: I always thought she escaped, and I've read it three times, so in my mind, I've just made it that Nick helped her escape, and that's why her tapes are out there. But that's not necessarily true. She leaves it kind of open. Like, maybe she did, maybe she didn't. Maybe she like, you don't know. So no one knows what happened to her. But I think because Margaret atwood left, it, like, open ended, I just, in my mind, have filled in the blanks to where I wanted it to happen that she escaped and Nick was a good guy, and then she had her baby, and I don't know. I had all this I finished the book, and I was like, oh, we never find out. Why do I always think she think.
[00:08:18] Speaker D: When authors do that, you don't know what's going to happen next, but you're invested in the characters.
[00:08:22] Speaker G: Maybe.
[00:08:23] Speaker D: Do you think they do that? No, not why they do that. But do you think when they do that it makes you want to read it again? No, this is the very thing I hate that. No.
[00:08:31] Speaker F: Yes, exactly. First of all, I really dislike when I am putting in time because I'm expecting a payoff and then I don't get it. The book never gets better or whatever.
[00:08:41] Speaker D: Right.
[00:08:41] Speaker F: Or also when it's not really an ending, I don't mind when how can I relate this? I was going to say I don't mind if they leave. It like you don't know.
Confused a little bit because I thought it was clear that she got away, that Nick did help her and that she wasn't getting taken to certain deaths. She was getting taken to wherever the next adventure was going to be. The adventure that I was reading the book for that is not contained in the book. So that's what I think is happening next.
[00:09:11] Speaker D: Do you think that part of that is to try to transport the reader into kind of this feeling that I can't remember her name now.
[00:09:20] Speaker F: Offred.
[00:09:20] Speaker D: Offred.
That offred is feeling where it always feels like something might happen and nothing ever happens.
[00:09:29] Speaker F: I think that's valid.
[00:09:30] Speaker D: Like, you know that feeling you're like, maybe it's I will take that put in there. Because she's trying to make you feel what she's feeling, where she's like, I'm not crazy and maybe I am and I'm stuck in the past and try to be know, like all the things that she's going through. Maybe it's on purpose.
[00:09:46] Speaker E: Probably Nick is helping her because he said matey and whatever, but there's always that little looming or he's an eye.
[00:09:51] Speaker G: Yeah.
[00:09:51] Speaker D: You can't trust anybody.
[00:09:53] Speaker C: And he's just turned her in to save his own skin.
[00:09:55] Speaker F: I don't even know what an eye is.
[00:09:57] Speaker C: Isn't the eye those spy guys?
[00:09:59] Speaker D: They're kind of like the military. They're kind of like they're watching people.
[00:10:02] Speaker F: If they were having a big giant affair, wouldn't he have killed her?
[00:10:06] Speaker A: Like way, many rendezvous ago?
[00:10:08] Speaker F: Wouldn't it take one, maybe?
[00:10:09] Speaker D: Right?
[00:10:10] Speaker F: One rendezvous and then he would kill her.
[00:10:12] Speaker E: No, I know. I agree with you. I think that Nick saved her and she made it through, but it didn't.
[00:10:17] Speaker F: Also, I didn't know she was pregnant. Is that a fact or do you find that out in the beginning of the testimony?
[00:10:22] Speaker E: I think she might be. Remember she said that she thinks she might be?
[00:10:26] Speaker F: I don't remember because it's like even less filed away than normal stuff for me, which is not very filed because I was disappointed. So I was like, well, that doesn't need to take up space in my mind.
[00:10:38] Speaker D: Interesting, because somebody else was saying that they didn't like this. And I think it's because lacks finality. They didn't know for sure. I think maybe it depends on what people like in a book. I like how she takes you into the character and you're trying to figure what this character saying or thinking, and if what she's saying is true, because it's just from her point of view, and she's not even sure if she knows what's real anymore sometimes.
[00:11:01] Speaker G: Right.
[00:11:01] Speaker D: And so if a book doesn't wrap everything up, it doesn't bother me at all.
[00:11:06] Speaker F: I don't mind that it wasn't wrapped up so much.
[00:11:11] Speaker D: You felt like the climax didn't happen, the one that you're now I'm going to get the payoff and the book's over.
[00:11:17] Speaker G: Yes.
[00:11:18] Speaker F: So it's not that I didn't know what happened because I feel like I do know what happened. I just don't know the details of it. I don't get to hear that story. But I do like your point about if the author did it on purpose to make the reader really experience the off red experience. I hate, like, that point because I think it's valid, but it makes me mad because I'm like, well, I don't like being manipulated by authors.
This is what it must feel like.
[00:11:46] Speaker G: Right.
[00:11:48] Speaker F: I'm not doing a submersion experience where I become the character. I don't want that.
[00:11:54] Speaker D: And I love that sometimes if I'm reading a really good book and they're really good at that, sometimes, like, have trouble with my identity.
Is this me or is this the book? If I get too invested in a character, Dan's, like, what's wrong with you? Yeah, sometimes I'm like, I think it does happen, where I'm like, I got to read a different author for a while or whatever.
[00:12:16] Speaker F: Is this book about me?
[00:12:18] Speaker G: Yeah.
[00:12:18] Speaker F: Am I this or is this me?
[00:12:20] Speaker A: I don't know.
[00:12:21] Speaker D: And then I always have that thing. Is reality real or am I in a coma and just making this all know? Did I write this book?
[00:12:27] Speaker F: Matrix.
[00:12:29] Speaker D: Yeah, Matrixy stuff.
[00:12:30] Speaker F: Oh, you know what? I wanted to why did I want to bring this up? Maybe just because of the weird ending. Have you watched Severance?
[00:12:38] Speaker G: No.
[00:12:38] Speaker D: Tell me about is it a movie.
[00:12:39] Speaker F: Or I think you'll really like it. Mare, it's a show. It's on Apple TV.
[00:12:44] Speaker A: Shoot.
[00:12:45] Speaker D: I don't have it, but I will get it.
[00:12:47] Speaker G: Oh, blast.
[00:12:48] Speaker D: But I'm going to get it when the new Ted Lasso comes out.
[00:12:51] Speaker G: Okay.
[00:12:51] Speaker D: I have to see Ted Lasso because it's hilarious.
[00:12:54] Speaker F: Did you see the first Ted Lasso without Apple TV? Like, how did you accomplish no, when.
[00:13:00] Speaker D: Our last computer died, we bought a Mac and we got Apple TV for a year for free. We don't watch TV a ton. So I was just like, we don't need this unless it's got a show that I actually want to watch. So when it expired, I left it because we had finished Ted Lasso by then.
I was like, we'll just wait.
[00:13:16] Speaker G: Yeah, we'll just wait until the next.
[00:13:17] Speaker D: Season comes out and then we'll get that.
[00:13:19] Speaker F: So this is a science fiction y story. And basically the basis of the concept is, would you if you could and in this universe, you can sever your brain in such a way so that when you're at work, your work self has no idea about your not work self, and when you're not at work yourself, has no idea about your work life.
Pros and cons, a weird work life balance, whatever. But it's so much more than that. And these are the things that made me want to watch it. Ben Stiller directs a bunch of the episodes, and John Tttoro is in it. Plus, I was already kind of interested in the concept. Like, what would that be like?
[00:13:58] Speaker D: Right. Mind me who John tutoro is.
[00:14:00] Speaker F: The best person I think he is is in Mr.
[00:14:03] Speaker G: Deeds.
[00:14:04] Speaker F: He's the butler who's very yeah, yeah.
[00:14:07] Speaker D: That'S the best reference because I know exactly who you're talking about. He's like, oh, where'd you come from?
[00:14:13] Speaker F: He's in so many other better roles for him.
[00:14:15] Speaker G: Probably.
[00:14:16] Speaker D: He's like, Mr.
[00:14:16] Speaker G: Deeds.
[00:14:17] Speaker F: Come on. That's my favorite.
[00:14:18] Speaker D: We love Mr. Deeds, though. Sorry. It's like a very silly movie.
[00:14:22] Speaker F: And I like, it just the end of that. Like, season one, which I thought there was two seasons when I started watching it, is very similar to the end of this book, where you feel like you just got started and now you have to wait for season two. So don't rush to get Apple TV because you may want to wait for season two.
[00:14:39] Speaker D: Might be disappointed.
[00:14:40] Speaker F: Yeah, maybe you'll love it because it's like this book, the way that the story is. And I also just want to say I think the best way that I've heard it described is it's so patient. So if when you're watching the first episode, it's not as fast as you might like or as you feel like it could be, it's worth it. Be patient with the show because it's very good.
[00:15:01] Speaker D: All right.
[00:15:02] Speaker F: Yeah.
[00:15:02] Speaker D: I watched a different Adam Sandler movie recently.
[00:15:05] Speaker F: Which one called yeah, yeah.
[00:15:08] Speaker D: It's got real NBA players.
[00:15:10] Speaker G: I know.
[00:15:10] Speaker D: Full of NBA players.
[00:15:12] Speaker F: And it's so good. It is good.
[00:15:14] Speaker D: He's so good in sports movies.
[00:15:16] Speaker F: He's just so good.
[00:15:17] Speaker D: Just the basketball in it is just like it's just cool watching people who are good at doing stuff.
[00:15:24] Speaker F: Totally.
[00:15:24] Speaker D: Like, Whoa, you're so good at that. When they're doing the training, there's like this training part, and you're like, how? But it's because they're training and they do it all the time.
[00:15:32] Speaker G: Yeah. Practice. That's how.
[00:15:34] Speaker F: And probably a little bit of God given skill, right? Some coordination and yeah. Hand eye. After watching the movie, I showed my.
[00:15:44] Speaker D: Kids some clips that had scenes from the show and then scenes from real NBA games. And they'd be like, Go back and forth. And they're like, which one's the real game? And you're like, the one that looks far away. And the one that looks all fancy, like a movie is the movie anyway.
[00:15:56] Speaker F: They liked it, too. It's a straight to Netflix movie.
[00:16:00] Speaker G: Is it?
[00:16:00] Speaker F: Yeah, and it's good.
[00:16:02] Speaker G: Hustle. Yep.
[00:16:03] Speaker F: Hustle or the hustle, maybe.
[00:16:06] Speaker G: Something like that.
[00:16:07] Speaker F: Unclear. I think maybe Hustle, because the Hustle implies that someone's pulling the wool over someone's eyes, and that's not what's happening.
[00:16:15] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:16:16] Speaker F: It's about hustling.
[00:16:17] Speaker E: Not like this book.
[00:16:18] Speaker D: Work hard.
[00:16:19] Speaker F: Yeah, not like this book.
[00:16:22] Speaker D: But he discovers the guy because the guy's hustling people with basketball to get some extra cash. True. It gets discovered. So I think it's a little bit both.
[00:16:31] Speaker G: Yeah.
[00:16:31] Speaker F: You can double meaning it for sure.
[00:16:32] Speaker D: Because he goes, are the construction boots part of the Hustle?
[00:16:36] Speaker G: Yeah.
[00:16:37] Speaker D: No, I work construction. Anyway, you know what? I have trouble with this book. Instead of saying The Handmaid's Tale, I always want to say The Hands made Tale. I put an extra S in there.
[00:16:50] Speaker F: Same.
[00:16:50] Speaker E: I do, too. And I constantly type it that way, and I have to correct it constantly while I'm typing on social media. I'm like hands know the Handmaid's Tale.
[00:17:02] Speaker G: Yeah.
[00:17:02] Speaker D: She's only helping you with one hand.
I don't know. Your other one is for yourself.
[00:17:10] Speaker F: I get that this story is supposed to be, like, scary, not too far off reality dystopian future or whatever, but I feel like I don't care.
I don't know. It was too boring. I was bored.
[00:17:26] Speaker E: But the problem is she keeps you reading because you think something's about to happen.
[00:17:31] Speaker F: Yes.
[00:17:32] Speaker E: Constantly. Maybe she's going to get caught sleeping with Nick. Or maybe the wife is going to tell on her. Or maybe she will set everything on fire with that match. Or there's all these things that could happen, and none of them do.
[00:17:46] Speaker D: I also feel like all of those.
[00:17:48] Speaker F: Things that could happen didn't even get introduced until, at best, midway. But I would even say three quarters of the way through.
[00:17:58] Speaker G: Yeah.
[00:18:00] Speaker E: Last time I'm like the second half is when everything happens.
[00:18:03] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:18:03] Speaker F: Lie. I didn't know you were alive.
[00:18:05] Speaker E: Everything does happen then.
[00:18:06] Speaker D: Almost everything.
[00:18:07] Speaker G: Yeah.
[00:18:08] Speaker F: And when everything almost happens, I think would be more accurate.
But spoiler alert, nothing happens.
[00:18:16] Speaker E: But you know that's when she meets her friend again, right? She leaves with all these things happen. But we have to remember. I'm remembering when I said that to you from before, and I have these images in my head of the book being something totally different. And then when you read it again, it takes forever to get to the things that are happening. And then you forget you're like, oh, yeah, I don't know anything that happens to her after.
[00:18:38] Speaker F: I think that's cool that you had all these things in your head. That makes me want to reread a story now to see it's a good comment on human memory anyway, which I think we all know changes things that happened in the past all the time. Right?
[00:18:54] Speaker G: Yeah.
[00:18:54] Speaker F: We are not as memory as we think we are. So I think it's cool to see how your memory what it did with the story. So that's like a really good because you know how I don't usually read books again?
[00:19:06] Speaker D: That would be you're going to read this one again?
[00:19:08] Speaker F: Not this one ever again.
[00:19:10] Speaker D: I thought you were going there and I was like, well that was a big turnaround.
That didn't take much images. Okay, fine, I'll read it again.
[00:19:20] Speaker G: Okay.
[00:19:20] Speaker D: No, I did.
[00:19:21] Speaker E: I will read other books.
[00:19:23] Speaker F: Other books again. Other books that I've forgotten, whether they disappointed me or not. The pain is too fresh for this one.
[00:19:30] Speaker E: No, I think the more you read any book, the one book I've read a lot is Pride and Prejudice. I read it all the time.
[00:19:36] Speaker D: Especially when I'm feeling blue. I'm like, I need a Mr. Darcy.
[00:19:39] Speaker E: Oh, actually all the Austin. And they are different. And I just read Midnight Sun, which is the Edwards version of the twilight book. And I'm so can't I know I'm.
[00:19:53] Speaker D: Very late to the game. I love how you're kind of embarrassed though.
[00:19:56] Speaker E: I am.
[00:19:57] Speaker D: You're like, I love it. I love vampires.
[00:20:02] Speaker F: Anyway, you wouldn't even feel weird if you were on. I know, because everyone did that fully.
[00:20:09] Speaker E: I'm just late. That's why. I know, because everyone's so over it.
[00:20:14] Speaker D: You're all like.
[00:20:17] Speaker E: I'm watching the movies. I'm like, yeah, we did that like ten years ago more.
[00:20:22] Speaker D: What?
[00:20:23] Speaker F: But also those are disappointing. I won't even watch those. They're so stupid. I would way rather read those books again.
[00:20:29] Speaker E: So I read the books and then as you guys know, I watched the movies and then I'm reading Edward's book and I was like, oh, this is not the movie at all. Because the movies even distort my memory of the books. So now I'm reading the book and I was like, oh right. Why did they change that major part of the movie? You know what I mean? So those kind of things. So even then, reading that book makes me want to read the first Twilight again because my memory is completely distorted because of all the other things I've consumed being obsessed with Twilight original book.
[00:21:03] Speaker D: And you'll have to watch the movies again and watch the sexy vampires and werewolves.
[00:21:08] Speaker G: I already did.
[00:21:09] Speaker C: We got Netflix for Christmas.
[00:21:11] Speaker F: What did you think about the casting?
[00:21:13] Speaker E: I did not like the Jacob Black character. Is that supposed to be this giant? Yeah, he's supposed to be a giant werewolf. And he's like some fur guy. I was like, he's supposed to be massive. Everyone comments how giant he is in the movies. He's not at all. So I didn't like that. I think Edward was good casted.
[00:21:32] Speaker D: Really good.
[00:21:32] Speaker E: Yeah, I was okay with them.
[00:21:34] Speaker F: I was disappointed with the family members. I can't remember the guy's name. He looks kind of like Tom Cruise. And he played the yeah, yeah.
[00:21:42] Speaker G: You know who I'm talking yeah.
[00:21:43] Speaker F: I just think that he looked so fake. I don't know, they looked like Barbies or you know what mean? Like I know that they're supposed to be hyper attractive. That's part of their vampire ness or whatever, but I just really felt like, I don't know. The movies were just so cheese and they fully missed on the heat and passion of the romance. Also, the running through the forest scenes, that was a joke.
[00:22:08] Speaker E: But it was before they had so.
[00:22:09] Speaker F: Much I don't care.
[00:22:11] Speaker G: I don't care.
[00:22:11] Speaker F: There's another way to do it. That was as if we three got together and decided to shoot a movie. That is how good that special effect was.
[00:22:19] Speaker G: Yes.
[00:22:20] Speaker F: It was so bad. He has like fella on his back. And because he's a vampire, he can run super fast.
[00:22:27] Speaker D: It's just him going like this with his legs going through. Yes.
[00:22:30] Speaker F: And the forest runs by the background.
[00:22:34] Speaker D: Wonderful. I love that.
[00:22:35] Speaker F: It's so bad.
[00:22:36] Speaker E: It would be better if it was done nowadays because they've come a long way.
[00:22:42] Speaker G: Okay.
[00:22:42] Speaker D: I didn't read or watch these movies.
[00:22:44] Speaker F: You should read those books for like whenever you're getting too attached to someone that's messing up your life or whatever character read these. They're so good.
[00:22:53] Speaker D: They are.
[00:22:53] Speaker E: I couldn't put it down.
[00:22:54] Speaker F: Summer, read. You know what I mean? Like, whatever. You're not going to learn anything. It's pure indulgent entertainment. Yes, entertainment.
[00:23:02] Speaker E: Pure indulgence. I felt indulge reading it.
[00:23:05] Speaker D: So you said that vampires are supposed to be ultra attractive. What if you're like, let's just say an ugly person who gets bit by a vampire, do you not become a vampire?
[00:23:13] Speaker F: You become attractive.
[00:23:14] Speaker E: No, you become attractive.
[00:23:17] Speaker D: I wonder what my transformation would be like.
[00:23:19] Speaker G: Right.
[00:23:20] Speaker D: Be the same. Your eyes would just be their eyes.
[00:23:22] Speaker F: Indicate if they're hungry, if their eyes are more red, that means that they need the blood or whatever. But if their eyes are darker, it doesn't make sense.
[00:23:29] Speaker D: If you need blood, your eyes would be non.
[00:23:32] Speaker E: Your eyes are red. If you've had human blood.
[00:23:34] Speaker G: There you go.
[00:23:35] Speaker E: And then your eyes are dark if you want it. If you're hungry for and that makes.
[00:23:39] Speaker D: You look attractive because large pupils are attractive.
[00:23:42] Speaker G: Yes.
[00:23:42] Speaker E: And if you eat Hannimal blood, your eyes are amber. That's why Edward's eyes are amber.
[00:23:49] Speaker F: Also, your skin is just I don't think it's a comment on what actually equals attractiveness. But the things that maybe were flaws in you before are now fixed.
[00:24:01] Speaker D: Like nice hair, nice skin.
[00:24:02] Speaker F: Yes.
[00:24:03] Speaker G: Yeah.
[00:24:04] Speaker F: Your bone structure doesn't change smelling breath.
[00:24:07] Speaker D: Yes. Your farts smell like right.
[00:24:10] Speaker F: That's right.
[00:24:11] Speaker E: So Bella becomes a vampire. Spoiler. When she does, everybody knows already.
Her hair gets thicker and more like full. Her breasts grow and her skin is like flawless all of a sudden. And her dad comments, he's like, you're my daughter, but you're not my daughter. She looks like herself more beautiful.
[00:24:35] Speaker F: It's just the author's interpretation of, I guess, eternity.
[00:24:38] Speaker G: Right?
[00:24:39] Speaker F: Like, oh, now you can live forever. So it's superheroesque.
[00:24:42] Speaker D: Your telomeres never shorten.
[00:24:44] Speaker F: Your what?
[00:24:45] Speaker D: Telomeres.
The little ends of your DNA that protect your other DNA from damage. It's like several base pairs. Long as they get shorter, you're more prone to age related sickness. So if you have a long telomere, maybe you would live longer.
[00:24:59] Speaker F: So those telomeres, part of the vampire, part of the vampire transformation is probably eternal sheathing of the telomeres. They don't even deteriorate, always lengthening. Yeah, they're growing. You're just getting better.
[00:25:15] Speaker E: They have a different number of chromosomes.
[00:25:18] Speaker D: Chromosomes.
[00:25:19] Speaker E: Thank you. They have two more chromosomes than humans.
[00:25:23] Speaker D: So you could have a test to see if somebody's a vampire.
[00:25:26] Speaker E: And werewolves have one more chromosome than humans.
[00:25:29] Speaker D: One supposed to come in pairs.
[00:25:31] Speaker F: Well, isn't that the story with down syndrome?
[00:25:33] Speaker E: That's why oh, I don't know.
[00:25:36] Speaker F: Isn't that the story with, like isn't.
[00:25:37] Speaker D: It an extra chromosome? Yeah, interesting.
[00:25:41] Speaker E: I'm just talking vampire book. I think that's what it is. Werewolves have one more and vampires have two, and that's why their daughter had one and she related more to the werewolves than she did the vampire.
[00:25:51] Speaker F: Well, and that's another story altogether. Like, this is now a podcast about.
[00:25:55] Speaker D: Twilight, but which I have not read.
[00:25:58] Speaker E: Because I'm obsessed with it.
[00:26:00] Speaker F: You should read it. Yeah, maybe. Meredith, you should read it for real. I would love to hear if you enjoyed it. It's just a good love story, really. Yeah, that's what it's yeah, exactly. It's a good love story and then it's, know, enhanced by the fact that it's also supernatural.
[00:26:17] Speaker D: I want a love story that's with serious I was like, what what makes.
[00:26:22] Speaker F: A thing a banshee? All I know is about screaming.
[00:26:25] Speaker D: Well, it's not necessarily screaming. So every family has a banshee, and if you hear the scream or song of the banshee, it tells you that death is coming for you. So you only hear a screaming or singing banshee when you're about to die.
[00:26:40] Speaker G: Wait a minute.
[00:26:40] Speaker F: Every family has a banshee?
[00:26:42] Speaker D: I think that's how it works.
[00:26:43] Speaker G: Yeah.
[00:26:44] Speaker F: And that banshee screams or sings if someone else in the family is going to die.
[00:26:48] Speaker D: If you hear them, you are the one who's going to die.
[00:26:51] Speaker F: I don't understand if I'm the banshee in my family.
[00:26:54] Speaker D: No, but banshees are a spirit.
[00:26:57] Speaker F: Okay? So it's not a member of the family, but there's a banshee attached to the I was like, wouldn't you know.
[00:27:03] Speaker D: Right away, like, why can't anyone hear me?
[00:27:05] Speaker G: And then all of a sudden somebody's.
[00:27:07] Speaker D: Like, why are you screaming?
[00:27:08] Speaker F: And I was like, I don't know.
[00:27:11] Speaker E: You're going to die.
[00:27:11] Speaker G: And immediately I was like, what if.
[00:27:13] Speaker D: I'm the banshee growing up, my mom would be like, stop screaming like a banshee. And so I said it to my kids because that's what happens when you have children. You'd say things at them that your parents used to say at you, and they're like, what's a banshee? And so I tried to explain, and then we learned more about banshees. I'm like, oh, they don't all scream. Some of them sing. So the kids would come and scream at me or sing at me. Be like, Death is coming for you.
It was like a game we played for a while, a bunch of, like, banshee.
[00:27:42] Speaker F: Red herrings.
Red herrings.
[00:27:50] Speaker E: Okay, let's talk about this book.
[00:27:51] Speaker D: Yeah, because this book is not about banshees or vampires, unfortunately, or a love story.
[00:27:58] Speaker E: Even with Nick, they weren't romantic.
[00:28:01] Speaker F: No, but what about is it Luke? Like, what about the absent partner? That's a little bit of a love story. She's always looking for him.
[00:28:09] Speaker E: That whole part breaks my heart even trying to not think about it. When I was trying to get our songs for the playlist, I started thinking about, what if you're just lying in your room thinking about your baby and then your husband? That's just like so I would be one of those crazy people. I would go crazy thinking, what happened to them?
[00:28:26] Speaker C: And making stories.
[00:28:27] Speaker E: And that Serena Joy.
[00:28:29] Speaker C: Let her see the picture just for a second.
[00:28:31] Speaker E: Like, all of it horrible. Just horrible.
[00:28:35] Speaker D: The relationship with Serena Joy is interesting in a way. It's tough because the world's been constructed that everybody has to be against each other. It's basically gotten rid of intimacy because for any kind of intimacy, you need trust, and nobody can fully trust anybody at all, and people might not even trust themselves. It's a world devoid of intimacy. But at the same time, she still feels some kind of empathy for the other people, even if they have powers to make her miserable. And use those powers to make her miserable. Right. She feels this empathy offered. Has empathy offered.
[00:29:11] Speaker E: Has empathy for Serena Joy?
[00:29:15] Speaker D: Maybe not, but maybe in her own mind, when she's sitting in her room alone and she's thinking back to be like, I fought for this, she's miserable, too. Like, everyone's miserable and no one has connection anymore. So I think it's interesting that she talks about these things. What is it like for them? And maybe that's just her way of reaching for intimacy that she'll never have. Because humans are social animals, so the people around you are the ones that you're going to be interested in because we all crave that kind of closeness or community.
[00:29:44] Speaker F: Well, that's what I was going to say. I think everyone has some version of empathy in the world because they're all still humans. How well they push it down. You know what I mean? Like dampen it. Yes. Or like, offred. Who still has it. I wonder if you were to look at the characters, if their goodness versus their evilness is also related to how much empathy they express. That would be an interesting thing to see. But I think that all of them would have some version of it somewhere, because it's a human characteristic.
[00:30:17] Speaker D: Right. And how about how much their perceived goodness or evilness is directly related to how much power they have in their own life?
[00:30:25] Speaker F: OOH, I like that, too, because for Offred, high empathy, low power. Serena Joy, for example, moderate power over.
[00:30:35] Speaker D: Others, but not over her own existence.
[00:30:38] Speaker G: Yeah.
[00:30:38] Speaker F: And then, like, the guy I think that we have a conflict here because the guy was moderately empathetic, but I think he was just lonely. But still, his loneliness kind of looked a little bit like empathy as he gave her magazines and played with her.
[00:30:50] Speaker D: He seemed good, but because he had more autonomy in his life, not like full autonomy, because no one can in that world.
[00:30:58] Speaker E: Yeah, but the handmaid before got caught doing the same thing Offred did and killed herself. And then he starts up with Offred anyway and does the same thing with Offred that he did with the other one that killed herself.
[00:31:11] Speaker D: They're all kind of stuck in their roles. Right.
They're controlling what they can.
[00:31:16] Speaker F: I think he's lonely, though.
[00:31:18] Speaker E: No, I think he's lonely, too, but.
[00:31:20] Speaker F: I don't think he thinks he's risking her life when he does that, even though the first girl killed herself.
I think A, his loneliness probably overwhelms him to the blindness of that possibility. Yeah, he's lonely.
[00:31:33] Speaker D: I get it.
[00:31:34] Speaker F: He is alone, but he's still going to do whatever he wants.
[00:31:37] Speaker D: I like how you said that.
[00:31:38] Speaker G: What's? What?
[00:31:39] Speaker E: I mean, like, he's just selfish.
[00:31:41] Speaker F: Of course he has the most power in his household anyway.
[00:31:44] Speaker D: Yeah, because he has the most power.
[00:31:46] Speaker F: He has the consequences least at stake.
[00:31:49] Speaker G: Risk.
[00:31:49] Speaker E: Yeah, least risk. Although everyone else potentially the most at.
[00:31:54] Speaker F: Stake because of the fact that he holds so much power to risk it in such a way and get caught. I don't know who his above people are, but do they punish?
[00:32:04] Speaker D: Does he go to the colonies?
[00:32:05] Speaker F: Or are they just all at a party at the hotel? Does he get put on a wall? Who goes on the wall? I thought it was like people they're making an example out of but is it more specific than that?
[00:32:15] Speaker E: Priesthood.
[00:32:16] Speaker C: They had a handmaid that did it.
[00:32:17] Speaker E: They had a wife that did it.
[00:32:19] Speaker D: You're a gender trader, as they call them, doctors.
[00:32:22] Speaker E: Someone that was with a handmaid like Nick.
[00:32:24] Speaker F: So arguably, the guy could go on the wall if he were caught doing whatever he's not supposed to.
[00:32:31] Speaker D: If you're a man that's not a commander and you're but not a commander.
[00:32:35] Speaker E: I don't know if there's any commanders on that wall.
[00:32:37] Speaker F: Well, that's what I'm asking, because you know how even in today's society, people with power kind of protect each other, you know what I mean? And don't punish, let's say, white collar crime as much as they would, like whatever.
[00:32:48] Speaker D: Right.
[00:32:49] Speaker F: And the thing that's interesting, too, that's similar, is that they're all at a party at the hotel. So outside of the hotel, they're all like, these are the rules, and these are the reasons why. And then at the hotel, they're like, forget the rules.
[00:33:02] Speaker D: Rather than literally the rules are for everyone else.
[00:33:05] Speaker G: Two people.
[00:33:05] Speaker F: Exactly.
[00:33:06] Speaker E: That's the point. The rules are for everyone else, not for commanders, because they're the ones in power.
[00:33:11] Speaker G: Yeah.
[00:33:11] Speaker D: Everybody else is being treated as a resource rather than, this is the world I want, so I have to use all these resources to get back there, but that's it. And I guess that's the question of empathy, too. They've kind of severed that. You're not a full person anymore. You're a means to an end.
[00:33:27] Speaker G: What's a good question.
[00:33:28] Speaker F: What makes a person? I want to talk about what makes a person. What did they remove as a choice? And then also, where does pleasure play into this when they're doing their mating rituals and then also when she's sleeping with them later? I don't know.
[00:33:42] Speaker G: Right.
[00:33:43] Speaker F: Those are two things that I think are worth talking about. I don't have anything to say. I'd just like to hear what you guys have to say for the fans.
[00:33:51] Speaker G: You got to tell yeah.
[00:33:53] Speaker D: Is pleasure important to make a full human? Is that kind of your question?
[00:33:57] Speaker F: Well, it's kind of two questions, but that would work as well to address both of them, because you're saying, like, these people are not really people. They're resources. Their personhood like that.
[00:34:06] Speaker G: Yeah.
[00:34:07] Speaker F: Their personhood has been taken from them. So what is it? Is it freedom? What is it that's been removed from them that now makes them not people or persons?
[00:34:16] Speaker D: I think it's choice. I think that's that whole comment about freedom that I randomly pulled out of my book right. How perfect.
[00:34:24] Speaker F: This is like walking to your book club and having the story finished right as you get to the door.
[00:34:31] Speaker G: Yeah.
[00:34:32] Speaker D: I think choice. Right. And then the people at the top still have the choice, but it's not choice. Yeah.
[00:34:37] Speaker F: Then does passion tie into that? Is passion a choice?
[00:34:41] Speaker G: Pleasure?
[00:34:41] Speaker F: Is pleasure a choice? I guess so.
[00:34:44] Speaker D: Acting on it.
[00:34:45] Speaker G: Yeah.
[00:34:45] Speaker F: Getting to choose pleasure.
[00:34:47] Speaker D: Right.
[00:34:48] Speaker F: Getting to have pleasure.
[00:34:50] Speaker D: But that's the thing. They're trying to control also how they react, too. So they're like, you don't have any choice of what you do, and we'll only give you the reactions that you're allowed to have as well. It's interesting, too, and they're like, it'll be easier for the next generation because they won't know anything different.
[00:35:06] Speaker G: Yeah.
[00:35:06] Speaker D: But that's another question. Will it be like, maybe it'll be a little bit easier, but maybe it won't? It comes down to, is it intrinsic, these needs for intimacy and even pleasure, autonomy, and that goes back to nonviolent communication. Are these needs that are intrinsic? Or if you never know them, can you be content?
[00:35:31] Speaker F: Do you know what you're missing.
[00:35:32] Speaker G: Yeah.
[00:35:33] Speaker D: Or would you know that? There's got to be something else out there.
[00:35:36] Speaker F: It's like about the human spirit, and I think that they would know, you know what I mean? I think they would know four generations into the future. They would be like, there'd be some kind of an uprising. There'd be one person that just couldn't be suppressed.
[00:35:50] Speaker H: And then there'd be two and then four.
[00:35:52] Speaker G: Yeah.
[00:35:52] Speaker F: And then eight, hopefully, or they all be killed and put on a wall. We'd have to wait till the next generation.
[00:35:59] Speaker E: There'd have to be, like, critical think it is. I think it's youth. No, something's missing here. I want more.
[00:36:07] Speaker D: Can you imagine being an ant? They get their roles, and they're, like, just like, Offred's trying to make sense of where she know at least she's not in the colonies or whatever, or dead. And then the question is, is there a fate worse than death?
[00:36:21] Speaker F: Well, explain the colonies to me, because is there some perverted extra freedom from having that less status? Aren't they kind of more forgotten so.
[00:36:30] Speaker D: They can I think it's like there's heavy pollution. You're sure to die, probably you're cleaning.
[00:36:36] Speaker E: Up the pollution, and you're going to.
[00:36:38] Speaker D: Die from cleaning up a painful death.
[00:36:40] Speaker F: But do you get to have a husband? Or could you have a partner? Like, can you be with your boyfriend? I don't know. You know what I mean? And have some slice of happiness in your terrible existence? Could you still have love?
[00:36:51] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:36:52] Speaker E: Do you have more choice?
[00:36:53] Speaker F: Exactly. Because as long as you're cleaning up the garbage, we don't care about you.
[00:36:58] Speaker C: I don't know.
[00:36:58] Speaker E: She doesn't elaborate on the colonies.
[00:37:00] Speaker D: She doesn't know. And they try to instill the fear of the colonies gets the worst possible fate. Life is good here. You've got good food. There's no pollution and stuff. But I guess that's the question. Those are different kinds of needs. Within the wall, you get certain needs met, clean water and a warm place to live and maybe safety from random violence. The violence you get is, you know, what's coming, I guess, right?
[00:37:28] Speaker G: Yeah.
[00:37:28] Speaker D: You don't predict the violence.
[00:37:29] Speaker G: Yeah.
[00:37:30] Speaker D: And then is that better or worse? Does the Testaments cover that, or would there have to be another one? That's a story of somebody who went to the colonies.
[00:37:39] Speaker E: I can't remember. The Testaments talk about the colonies, but the Testaments talk about the ants a lot and how they become ants and.
[00:37:46] Speaker C: What they go through to become how.
[00:37:52] Speaker E: We were talking before about knowing someone else's story makes they're like, oh, the evil person had their evil person. So that happens with the ants.
[00:38:01] Speaker D: I wonder if Margaret Atwood listens to this podcast, which maybe she does because we are also a Canadian. Maybe she'll write a story about somebody who went to the colonies and what's happening up there.
[00:38:13] Speaker F: I'd like to see that.
[00:38:14] Speaker D: People would love it.
[00:38:15] Speaker F: I think that would be a cool twist if she wrote that story and that person somehow had freedom in love or something. You know what I mean? Like, everything else was absolutely worst case scenario, right?
[00:38:28] Speaker D: All the emotions were higher, like fear and uncertainty. But you had autonomy and love.
[00:38:33] Speaker G: Yeah.
[00:38:33] Speaker E: And remember Offred's mum went to the colonies? Remember her friend Maura said that she saw her in a movie about the colonies? It was her.
[00:38:42] Speaker F: So so there's already a character that it could be.
[00:38:45] Speaker E: Yeah, yeah. It could be about her mom and the colonies. That would be great. I'd read that book.
[00:38:51] Speaker D: I wonder if does Margaret atwood tweet.
[00:38:53] Speaker E: I copied her on Twitter and Instagram.
[00:38:58] Speaker G: All right.
[00:38:59] Speaker C: Some of our stuff.
[00:39:00] Speaker E: So I don't know if it's going to mean anything.
She does have an account.
[00:39:05] Speaker F: You know what I did like about this book, speaking of Margaret Atwood coming on the show, I did like the voice of Offred. I like how she told the story. And I like how she sometimes said, I cannot tell this story, so I'll tell this story instead. You know what I mean? I felt more connected to her as a person than just a character because it wrote her. Like she would talk, I think, rather than just a story being told. There was even that time when she started the same story, like three times over. And she's like, that's not really how it went. This is how it went, or whatever. Right. I enjoyed that, whatever you would call it.
[00:39:40] Speaker E: Yeah.
Because it seemed real. How she's like, this is not going to put me in a very good light.
[00:39:45] Speaker D: Yeah, here we go.
[00:39:48] Speaker E: Yeah, that's genuine. Because it added, someone would think, right? Yes. Felt more real. I agree. She really felt like a real person. I think that's why for me, it made it more scary.
[00:39:57] Speaker F: Do you know what else, too, actually, back to the whole love and connection thing. If it's as bad as it is and you don't ever want to step out of line, I think it speaks to the human need for connection and intimacy, even if it's shitty intimacy. Because she risked it all to continue to go meet with Nick.
[00:40:15] Speaker D: And so many people risked for different things. People would risk a little bit of connection, be like, oh, I thought you were a true believer. I thought you were such a true believer, too, or whatever. Like off Glenn.
[00:40:27] Speaker E: She talked? Yeah. Not knowing for so long if she was and she finally became friends with.
[00:40:32] Speaker D: Her, and then she disappeared. You know what I like, too, is I'm still reading the book, as I mentioned, but I was just waiting for something. And I had the book and I was like, oh, historical notes. And I thought that it was going to be historical notes because this book is several decades old at this point. And I thought it was going to be historical notes about this book, but it's historical notes about the story. It's part of the book. Yeah, which is cool.
[00:40:56] Speaker F: I didn't read them. It's so funny because in my personal journal, I was like I was so disappointed at the end. I didn't even read those historical notes.
[00:41:03] Speaker D: No, but no, you have to is the people who are looking over the story that she told and what they think of it. Basically, it's part of the novel. The historical notes.
[00:41:16] Speaker G: Yes.
[00:41:16] Speaker E: You have to read the historical notes.
[00:41:18] Speaker D: Maybe you'll get some closure.
[00:41:19] Speaker E: Is maybe they tell you that they found the tapes in this attic and they're trying to offend her tape her story.
[00:41:30] Speaker D: That's another one of those handsmade tales.
[00:41:33] Speaker F: Hey, wait a minute. So this is supposed to be a tape?
[00:41:37] Speaker E: Like she's supposed to be speaking yeah, she's speaking the story onto a cassette tape. Because this is in the future, and these academics are studying this place where she's from, and they've discovered these tapes, and they were like old music tapes hidden with her talking. Yeah. And then they had to find even a tape player to be able to play them.
[00:42:00] Speaker D: Yeah. The historical notes are being a partial transcript of the proceedings of the 12th Symposium on Gilladian Studies held as part of the International Historical Association blah, blah, blah, June 2521, 95. And so this is a transcript of they've gone through the tapes and they're talking about it as historians. They're looking back at this time in history, like in academia, as historians.
[00:42:27] Speaker F: What was the last book that we read?
[00:42:28] Speaker D: What do you mean?
[00:42:29] Speaker E: Before that?
[00:42:30] Speaker D: Yeah, before this book.
[00:42:31] Speaker G: Oh, yeah.
[00:42:32] Speaker F: I love that way.
[00:42:33] Speaker D: None of us know they called me number one.
[00:42:35] Speaker G: Okay. Right.
[00:42:36] Speaker F: So she had some historical notes and they were like, about history. You know what I mean? And so I was like, I don't need that for this stupid book. I can't believe I'm so glad we.
[00:42:46] Speaker D: Brought it up, that you didn't finish the book? No, I didn't finish.
[00:42:48] Speaker F: I'm not the only one.
[00:42:52] Speaker D: But I read the end. So between you and me, we got it.
[00:42:56] Speaker E: But it gives you some satisfaction.
[00:42:58] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:42:58] Speaker E: Somehow the world doesn't exist anymore. And they're studying that time period. That time period when it did exist.
[00:43:06] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:43:06] Speaker E: And they discovered her tapes.
[00:43:08] Speaker D: So the answer is it doesn't go on forever.
[00:43:10] Speaker G: Right.
[00:43:11] Speaker D: Things change again.
[00:43:12] Speaker G: Okay.
[00:43:13] Speaker D: So when you're wondering how will things and that's interesting too, now.
[00:43:17] Speaker F: And next episode, and I'll give a brief update on if it changes my perception yeah, maybe.
[00:43:23] Speaker G: Might.
[00:43:24] Speaker E: It gives you some satisfaction, for sure.
[00:43:26] Speaker F: We'll see. Because if I get satisfied, I'm happy. Like many people out there.
[00:43:34] Speaker D: If I get satisfied, then I feel satisfied.
I find satisfaction extremely satisfying.
[00:43:47] Speaker F: That's your quote for this episode.
[00:43:49] Speaker D: Great.
[00:43:51] Speaker F: Satisfaction extremely satisfying.
[00:43:54] Speaker B: This interruption is brought to you by unpublished do you want to know more about the members in Book Interrupted? Go behind the scenes. Visit our
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[00:44:08] Speaker C: Book Interrupted so here's my worried mind Interruption so we had a recording and as usual my husband took my kids.
[00:44:18] Speaker B: Out of the house and normally they.
[00:44:20] Speaker C: Come back probably about 30 minutes to an hour after I'm done. So we had a recording and after an hour my husband wasn't home so I gave him a call but he didn't answer and I thought, oh, maybe they're just having a really good time. So then 2 hours it goes by and I haven't heard back from my husband and my husband and kids aren't home. So then I start to worry. So I send a message to my sister in law just to find out if they've left. I get no response, so then I wait and think okay, you're overthinking it. They're probably just having a really great time, just relax. Another hour goes by, which means it's now the children's bedtime, which is very unusual. So then I start to worry and start doing the thing. I'm like oh, is this how it happens? Is this how my whole life gets ruined? Like maybe they're all in an accident together and maybe they're in the hospital or maybe they're gone and I start bawling my eyes out thinking I've lost my whole family.
About ten minutes after I start crying my eyes out in despair and worry, my husband and kids come through the door. And there was a blockage on their way home. And it was a road that is close to where we live, but because it was blocked, they had to go.
[00:45:40] Speaker E: All the way around.
[00:45:40] Speaker C: So they were almost home. So the detour to get to her house was that long and my husband's phone died. When I later on talked to my sister in law, she just had put her phone in her room and had gone out, so she just happened to not have her phone on her. So it was all a misunderstanding. But I later called Kim and she.
[00:45:59] Speaker E: Had a similar thing happen.
[00:46:00] Speaker C: Just when you're so certain of events and how they should happen, you start worrying about all the things that could happen. And I was raised by a woman who liked to say worst case scenario. So when worst case scenarios start to happen, it really threw me off. I had to go to bed early. I just kept on crying after they came the house and hugging my kids.
[00:46:21] Speaker E: And I end up having to go.
[00:46:22] Speaker C: Right to bed and not have dinner because I was so upset. Still, even though they were perfectly fine and all happy.
[00:46:28] Speaker B: Book Interrupted it's book report time. We're going to find out from each member their final thoughts and do they recommend the book? Let's listen.
[00:46:38] Speaker H: This is my final book report for the book The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwetter. First book of season three of so.
[00:46:48] Speaker D: You know, normally I would give a full book report, but I haven't finished the book. And it has nothing to do with whether I like the book or not.
[00:46:53] Speaker H: Because I do like the book. It has to do with the fact that I borrowed the book from the library.
[00:46:59] Speaker E: I had to return it because it.
[00:47:00] Speaker H: Had several holds and I didn't want to hold onto it when somebody else needed it. And then I didn't go out and buy myself a copy and I couldn't get another one from the library before having to meet with the group. Today I am enjoying the book, but I'm kind of at the part before.
[00:47:16] Speaker D: A lot of things start happening, so.
[00:47:18] Speaker H: I can only talk to that. And so I've decided that I would talk about a couple little things that are explored earlier in the book. The idea of minimalism. So there's a part in there where she's talking about the minimalist life and about how when you have very little, whatever's around you becomes important. She has an egg and she's saying happiness is an egg. When you have very little else. It's just another way that the book takes something that is valued or maybe considered something good. In today's world, living the minimalist life where you're only consuming what you need and not over consuming, I think that'd be considered commendable these days. And instead, in her life, it's the reality that's been pushed onto her in a way where she's been imprisoned. In this life. She doesn't have any choices. So something like that can be seen from different perspectives depending on where you're coming from. She also talks about earlier in the book, she's exploring the idea of change doesn't happen instantaneously. It happens very slowly, so you might not notice that it's happening. I think that's kind of how Atwood is saying that something like this could happen in these tiny little steps. Just like in the past, women slowly got more rights through the women's movement, the marches and stuff. But slowly, over time, women got more rights and it took a long time. Change didn't happen instantaneously, but then the backpedaling and taking away of things can also happen gradually to the point where you might not realize it. And unfortunately, when you're on a side that has less power and you're trying to get more rights, it's harder that change goes much slower than if it's the opposite. If your power is being taken away, it can happen again, not instantaneously, but much more quickly. There are things that happen in the world today and that are not good. Then something bad happens and we kind of get used to it and things are slowly getting worse.
It's very sad. I suppose maybe it's very cynical view of the world, but that's what you get in a Dystopian novel, my friend.
[00:49:35] Speaker D: I did like the book.
[00:49:36] Speaker H: I would recommend it. It's not for everybody. This book is more about the journey and experiencing what the characters are experiencing in this Dystopian.
[00:49:47] Speaker D: Well, past, I guess because the book.
[00:49:50] Speaker H: Was written a while ago. In this Dystopian reality, if you don't want to get in the mind of somebody who is living a sad life.
[00:49:57] Speaker D: Then maybe this book is not for you.
[00:49:58] Speaker H: So that's about all.
[00:50:01] Speaker G: Yeah.
[00:50:01] Speaker H: So I've read right up until things really start happening, and I've read the historical notes at the end, which are supposed to be from historians who have found the tapes of this story and are looking at what the world used to be like 100 years or more ago.
[00:50:18] Speaker D: That's about it. After I read this book, I think I'm going to want to read the next one, the Testaments.
[00:50:23] Speaker H: Maybe then I will take a little break from Margaret Atwood because I love her, but her Dystopias sometimes are just so possible. They just seem so possible, you know what I mean? So can't wait till the next book, which is going to be our fan book, and we're going to have a new member on that's it for now.
[00:50:41] Speaker C: First off, I'd like to say I would recommend it. I actually did recommend it for the vote.
[00:50:48] Speaker E: I was actually surprised it was on.
[00:50:49] Speaker C: The Banned books list, and that has been banned so often. So that was interesting for me. So I would recommend it. I did recommend it for the vote, and everyone else wanted to read it as well.
[00:50:59] Speaker E: So this is a spoiler.
[00:51:01] Speaker C: So if you haven't finished the book, I would suggest you stop listening right now and fast forward to the next personal journal. I didn't remember, even though this is.
[00:51:10] Speaker E: The third time I've read this book.
[00:51:11] Speaker C: That Margaret Atwood left. It kind of open. You don't really know what happens to offred, but she basically makes you decide if Nick was trustworthy and he was getting her out through Mayday or maybe he's one of the Eyes, and then she's going to be killed or tortured for information or whatever. So in my mind, because I trust.
[00:51:32] Speaker E: Nick, I thought she got out. In my mind always.
[00:51:35] Speaker C: She escaped, but that's not true.
[00:51:38] Speaker E: I also really like the end, how.
[00:51:39] Speaker C: They found her tapes, like, years later and they're studying it. People in academia are studying her tapes because they're studying this world that doesn't exist anymore, which I really like, that it doesn't exist anymore. So that's interesting. I forgot about that part as well. A couple highlights of the book. I mean, the second half goes really, really quick, but it's interesting how both the Commander and the Commander's wife both basically use her so they can get what they want that they're missing from this new world, even though they have so much power and that she doesn't really have a choice. The only choice she did have was going back to Nick.
[00:52:18] Speaker E: Oh, and I also forgot that they played Scrabble. I love that, because words are powerful, right?
[00:52:25] Speaker C: So I forgot that Scrabble was the thing the Commander started with for his breaking of the rules. I like that she saw her friend again and basically all the things that they got rid of in the world, kind of, that they said were so sinful and they got rid of all the rich and powerful people are still doing all those things. It's just for everyone else. Anyway, that makes me infuriated and I can see how that can happen because that basically is how the world works, right? Anyway, I would recommend this book. I think it's extremely well written. It keeps you on the edge of your seat. It makes you think about things like how I would feel if my husband and my daughter was taken from me and how she tries to remember them and that kind of thing. I really like how Margaret Atwood described her trying to grasp onto these memories. I like that a lot. The more you think about, the more you think, how do people continue? How did she continue? But it was those little things she did to make herself not go crazy and not knowing if she made that friend remember what her name was off something. Anyway, that taught her Mayday and it took them forever to realize. Yeah. Anyway, it's such a great book. I highly recommend it. To know it's a little bit disturbing, but I think that's because Margaret Atwood makes it seem like a possibility in life. So it's a scary book for any woman, but excellently written and the way she reveals it's nice and slow. And I think, as a woman, you'd feel the same way Offred did in many of these situations but not really having a choice and at the same time wanting something different than this crazy, mundane, nothing life I can't say anymore. I can't wait to talk to the other people in the group and see how they felt.
[00:54:17] Speaker A: Okay, take 759 on trying to make this friggin personal journal. I already recorded one and I thought that it was too quiet. So hopefully this isn't too loud. I also want you to know that if you are only a listener and not a viewer you're missing a wonderful bedhead right now, and that's your loss.
[00:54:36] Speaker F: So, what do you want to know.
[00:54:39] Speaker A: About The Handmaid's Tale? Would I recommend it? Is it a best selling worldwide known novel for its greatness? Yes. Do I like it. No, I don't. I felt like it was boring and slow and honestly, the entire book I was waiting for it to get started and I don't feel like it got started, really until the very last stupid page. And there are some historical notes at.
[00:55:04] Speaker F: The end that I don't even think.
[00:55:05] Speaker A: I read because I was so disappointed with my experience.
Maybe it was slightly enjoyable. Spoiler alert when she started to hang out with her, whatever he's called, the guy that she's attached to. I guess Fred, because she's off Fred. Anyway, I don't know what. All the hype is about. It was not something that I thought deserved all of that stuff.
[00:55:29] Speaker F: I mean, yeah, okay.
[00:55:30] Speaker A: Oh, it's dystopia and it's a comment on society.
[00:55:33] Speaker G: Woo woo.
[00:55:33] Speaker A: Like, I don't even care. I wanted there to be more action, and there wasn't, so it was disappointing to me. I think it was one of those situations where you hear about how great something is and everybody in general likes it, so you assume it's going to be good, obviously, but you also can you hear that? That is a very aggressive dog at my door. Don't worry, I'm okay.
[00:55:58] Speaker F: I'm safe.
[00:55:58] Speaker A: It's not that aggressive.
[00:56:00] Speaker F: Just wants to come in and I won't let it.
[00:56:03] Speaker A: Anyway, I think it's the case of.
[00:56:04] Speaker F: When everyone says something is great, so.
[00:56:06] Speaker A: You maybe even unreasonable expectations for it to be good. I'm mad at that dog. I do not want to rerecord this. So, listeners, I apologize. We're all just going to deal with the scratching. Okay? It stopped. I'll be fast. Anyway. Would I recommend it? No, not really. I would say this whole spiel to whoever was the last person left on Earth that hasn't read it, which I thought was me. So maybe it's a non issue, but it wasn't the kind of book I was looking for. Maybe I'll watch the series. Maybe that'll be better. TV sometimes hypes things up. Okay, I'm going to go so you don't have to listen to the scratchy dog anymore.
[00:56:40] Speaker F: But yeah. Handmaid's tale.
[00:56:42] Speaker D: Sorry.
[00:56:43] Speaker A: Disappointed. Yeah, not going to lie.
[00:56:46] Speaker E: Bye.
[00:56:47] Speaker A: Okay, this is a follow up, I don't know, personal Journal 2.0 to say that I did read the historical notes at the end of The Handmaid's Tale and it didn't make a damn bit of difference.
That does not do anything for me. The reason why I thought the book was going to get good, because I just listened to the first episode for The Handmaid's Tale is because Sarah kept.
[00:57:16] Speaker D: Saying, it's going to get good.
[00:57:18] Speaker F: Just wait.
[00:57:18] Speaker G: Oh, you're right there.
[00:57:19] Speaker D: It's about to happen.
[00:57:20] Speaker A: And then I kept on waiting and waiting and it never so well, it did happen on the very last page and it was just the beginning of the happening. I don't know if I'm going to read the Testament, though, or the Testaments. I'm not even sure what it's called. I don't know if I can be fooled again. Margaret. Have a nice day, y'all.
[00:57:40] Speaker B: Thank you for joining us on this episode of Book Interrupted. If you'd like to see the video highlights from this episode, please go to our YouTube channel, Book Interrupted. You can also find our videos on www.bookinterrupted.com.
[00:57:55] Speaker A: Are you having a hard time waiting for the next episode? Because you can't get enough of the Book Interrupted crew. We've got you covered at unpublished. You can connect with all sorts of.
[00:58:05] Speaker F: Behind the scenes action.
[00:58:06] Speaker A: It's like an all access backstage pass. Go to our website at WW dot bookinterrupted.com unpublished for your free trial today.
[00:58:18] Speaker B: Moments you can look forward to on the next book interrupted.
[00:58:21] Speaker D: So, yeah, my name is Ashley, and the book that I've chosen is called When Dad Killed Mom.
[00:58:27] Speaker E: About me saying how it's written like a fiction. Oh, that's because it is a fiction.
[00:58:32] Speaker D: Gives you endorphins. You're more like, sensitive to it. So, like, the things that make you happy, you're happier.
[00:58:37] Speaker F: I don't think that genital references warrants a banning, depending on the age.
[00:58:42] Speaker G: Yeah.
[00:58:43] Speaker D: So people who have high porosity the hair need protein. It was like the beginning of a murder mystery book. I don't know if this is TMI.
[00:58:51] Speaker F: But when I my vagina, when I.
[00:58:54] Speaker D: Draw my vagina and describe it in detail yeah. When I publicly post it.
[00:58:59] Speaker B: Book interrupted.
[00:59:02] Speaker A: Never forget every child matters.
