Review 37: The Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood has got dystopian speculative fiction down. She probably gets up in the morning and chomps on a huge bowl of Dystopios, washed down with a hot cup of speculation.

In fact, she's got it so down that in The Heart Goes Last, one of her more recent offerings, the premise feels almost throwaway. It's not that it's not fully-considered, or incomplete - Atwood's world-building is as jam-hot as it ever was. It's more that it feels like she can slot it together with such ease that shocking elements don't even shock her anymore. There's real darkness in this story, but the tone across the book is much lighter than on some of her other works, and that can serve to jar a little.

The premise is that society has crumbled (natch) and an authoritarian new semi-socialist system has arisen to combat the cultural rot (mais oui). In this, people spend half their lives voluntarily in prison (A.K.A. Positron), and the other half out of it (in Consilience), to best capitalise on their economic output. The question is whether this such a controlled reality can truly serve happiness, and whether you can ever trust people not to exploit others.

It feels like Positron and Consilience represent, among other things, the animal urges and moral selves of the people in the book. They spend half their time following rules and keeping up appearances, but half the time they're absorbed by committing or thinking about infidelity and destructive acts - not unlike a professional footballer. This book as a whole really feels like an exploration of sexual honesty and control.

At times, it gets positively Shakespearean. There are mistaken identities, sexual treachery, modern-day love potions - even a band of rude mechanicals. This feels like ground that Atwood knows well, and she exploits it to her full advantage.

It's a funny, sad, light, dark read. What could be more fitting for a book about a system comprised of two polar opposite conditions?

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