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A review by jaswoahreads
The Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood
1.0
This novel by Margaret Atwood is about the inevitability of cheating on your spouse.
No, wait, that’s not right.
This novel by Margaret Atwood is about having weird fetishes for teddy bears and sex robots and fushcia lipstick.
Hang on, I’m not sure that’s correct either.
What was this book supposed to be about again?
As a fresh graduate whose formative years consisted almost entirely of YA, dystopias are my bread and butter. After being drowned in the unrelenting sorrow of [b:The Road|6288|The Road|Cormac McCarthy|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1600241424l/6288._SY75_.jpg|3355573], and let down by the shaky plot and unlikable characters present in [b:The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes|51901147|The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (The Hunger Games, #0)|Suzanne Collins|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1593892032l/51901147._SY75_.jpg|71367421], I was excited to make my next read another dystopia, but this time one by certified Cool Lady of Fiction and Overall Badass Margaret Atwood. Like every other person I have read [b:The Handmaid's Tale|38447|The Handmaid's Tale (The Handmaid's Tale, #1)|Margaret Atwood|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1578028274l/38447._SY75_.jpg|1119185], and I enjoyed it. My hopes were set high. And in the first few pages I had a good time. I would venture as far as to say a nice time. And then, before long, I had wandered so far off of the path of enjoyment that all I could do was continue onward searching desperately for that shred of intrigue I had once felt. The only reason I finished this is because I cannot stand not quitting things. This book made me wish I was different.
Typical of Atwood’s work, the book takes common themes from our everyday life and says ‘hey, what if we turn this up to 11?’. In The Heart Goes Last, we follow the journey of a once-in-love but now down-on-their-luck couple Stan and Charmaine who sleep in their car and live in a constant state of fear. Their impoverished life is so dismal that waves of helplessness roll from the page as we see the pair clinging onto their once happy marriage as their last remaining shreds of comfort. They long for beds and fluffy towels and breakfasts that aren’t stale donuts. Charmaine hopes that she doesn’t have to end up as a sex worker to pay for fuel. Stan wishes for a will to live. They get suckered into a new program that promises them food and a home and security with one catch: every other month they must do a stint in prison, and the prisoners take their place. The novel raises some interesting sociological questions here; for instance, how would you behave as a prison guard, if you knew that next month the prisoner you were beating on gets to hold the stick? How much freedom is a person willing to give up for a scrap of security?
Unfortunately this appears to be where the book becomes 350 pages of sexual angst. Apparently there is only so long the gratefulness of being saved from the horrors of living on the street and fearing for your life can last before you become so hideously, unrelentingly bored that all you can think about is sleeping with anyone that’s not your spouse. A suggestion of lipstick on a piece of paper is enough to send Stan on a lusty and crazed frenzy for 80 pages (I counted). It’s all he can talk about. All Charmaine can think about is bonking her non-husband once a month. This change in prose is so startling that I thought I’d tripped and fallen and accidentally picked up another book. What happened to the interesting plotline?
Atwood seems to allude to her characters having depth but sadly this is as far as she goes. A hint of a backstory and a whiff of personality is all that we are allowed before they start another internal monologue about their vapid sexual desire. I can’t tell if this is just a bad day for Atwood or if it is central to her writing style; I remember wishing during Handmaid’s that she would delve deeper into where the characters came from to help us understand their motives and desires, however finished the novel feeling dissatisfied. The most interesting character to me, Grandma Win, exists only in snippets of adage used by Charmaine to reflect every few pages. Sadly she is about as reflective as a rusted table spoon and does not take the advice of her grandparent further than the end of the sentence.
Perhaps this book went over my head. Perhaps I did not understand it. But perhaps Atwood took the most interesting concepts of this novel and buried them under 400 pages of the nonsense chattering of a mismatched couple desperate for marriage counselling.
No, wait, that’s not right.
This novel by Margaret Atwood is about having weird fetishes for teddy bears and sex robots and fushcia lipstick.
Hang on, I’m not sure that’s correct either.
What was this book supposed to be about again?
As a fresh graduate whose formative years consisted almost entirely of YA, dystopias are my bread and butter. After being drowned in the unrelenting sorrow of [b:The Road|6288|The Road|Cormac McCarthy|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1600241424l/6288._SY75_.jpg|3355573], and let down by the shaky plot and unlikable characters present in [b:The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes|51901147|The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (The Hunger Games, #0)|Suzanne Collins|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1593892032l/51901147._SY75_.jpg|71367421], I was excited to make my next read another dystopia, but this time one by certified Cool Lady of Fiction and Overall Badass Margaret Atwood. Like every other person I have read [b:The Handmaid's Tale|38447|The Handmaid's Tale (The Handmaid's Tale, #1)|Margaret Atwood|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1578028274l/38447._SY75_.jpg|1119185], and I enjoyed it. My hopes were set high. And in the first few pages I had a good time. I would venture as far as to say a nice time. And then, before long, I had wandered so far off of the path of enjoyment that all I could do was continue onward searching desperately for that shred of intrigue I had once felt. The only reason I finished this is because I cannot stand not quitting things. This book made me wish I was different.
Typical of Atwood’s work, the book takes common themes from our everyday life and says ‘hey, what if we turn this up to 11?’. In The Heart Goes Last, we follow the journey of a once-in-love but now down-on-their-luck couple Stan and Charmaine who sleep in their car and live in a constant state of fear. Their impoverished life is so dismal that waves of helplessness roll from the page as we see the pair clinging onto their once happy marriage as their last remaining shreds of comfort. They long for beds and fluffy towels and breakfasts that aren’t stale donuts. Charmaine hopes that she doesn’t have to end up as a sex worker to pay for fuel. Stan wishes for a will to live. They get suckered into a new program that promises them food and a home and security with one catch: every other month they must do a stint in prison, and the prisoners take their place. The novel raises some interesting sociological questions here; for instance, how would you behave as a prison guard, if you knew that next month the prisoner you were beating on gets to hold the stick? How much freedom is a person willing to give up for a scrap of security?
Unfortunately this appears to be where the book becomes 350 pages of sexual angst. Apparently there is only so long the gratefulness of being saved from the horrors of living on the street and fearing for your life can last before you become so hideously, unrelentingly bored that all you can think about is sleeping with anyone that’s not your spouse. A suggestion of lipstick on a piece of paper is enough to send Stan on a lusty and crazed frenzy for 80 pages (I counted). It’s all he can talk about. All Charmaine can think about is bonking her non-husband once a month. This change in prose is so startling that I thought I’d tripped and fallen and accidentally picked up another book. What happened to the interesting plotline?
Atwood seems to allude to her characters having depth but sadly this is as far as she goes. A hint of a backstory and a whiff of personality is all that we are allowed before they start another internal monologue about their vapid sexual desire. I can’t tell if this is just a bad day for Atwood or if it is central to her writing style; I remember wishing during Handmaid’s that she would delve deeper into where the characters came from to help us understand their motives and desires, however finished the novel feeling dissatisfied. The most interesting character to me, Grandma Win, exists only in snippets of adage used by Charmaine to reflect every few pages. Sadly she is about as reflective as a rusted table spoon and does not take the advice of her grandparent further than the end of the sentence.
Perhaps this book went over my head. Perhaps I did not understand it. But perhaps Atwood took the most interesting concepts of this novel and buried them under 400 pages of the nonsense chattering of a mismatched couple desperate for marriage counselling.