The Beginning of The End. (Oryx and Crake - Margaret Atwood)

Member Name: burtybookworm

Product:	Oryx and Crake - Margaret Atwood
Date:	03/06/09 (77 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: thought-provoking, well written, realistic!

Disadvantages: none

Some of you might be aware that Margaret Atwood is a favourite author of mine for some very simple reasons. Her stories are interesting, thought provoking, full of beautiful and intelligent descriptions and phrases and her novels and poems are just extremely well written. Not surprisingly, Margaret Atwood has won numerous awards over the years for her work and still produces the most fascinating and interesting work today that keeps me enthralled.

The last Atwood I read however, was "Cats Eye" which I found a huge disappointment (see review! ;) but I thought I'd return to what Atwood does best; dystopian science fiction. I first fell in love with her writing and the way in which she so cleverly "does" this genre when I read "The Handmaids Tale" during my degree and subsequently went on to write my dissertation on this and "The Robber Bride."

"Oryx and Crake" was written in 2003, and like "The Handmaids Tale", was a finalist for the 2003 booker prize as well as the 2003 Governor Generals Award. (The Handmaids Tale won the 1985 Governor Generals Award and also was a finalist for the Booker prize in the 1986.)
Not surprising then that "Oryx and Crake" is under the same dystopian theme and once again we are thrust into a novel where civilization has turned on its head.

** So, did "Oryx and Crake" live up to its predecessor? **

Snowman is the only human survivor of a worldwide disease that he is immune to. He sleeps in a tree, forages in the abandoned land to find food and water and looks after The Children of Crake (or Crakers) - creatures created through genetic engineering, which was supposed to make a better world. Along with the Crakers who are supposedly a perfect form of human being, genetic engineering has also been responsible for the creation of other creatures in Snowman's new world; wolvogs are a mixture of dogs and wolves, and pigoons a mixture of pigs and baboons who hunt him in pacts hungrily.

Of course, Snowman wasn't always called Snowman, and once upon a time he lived a human life, had a best friend called Crake and a woman he loved called Oryx. Could he have saved the planet from destruction? Is this lonely existence his punishment?

Aside from the quite obvious destruction of a world as we know it, this novel does differ quite substantially from that of "The Handmaids Tale." Where "The Handmaids Tale" focussed on a world controlled by religious fantasists and the enslavement of fertile women, this one has moved more with the times and Atwood has once again taken elements from our own evolving science and turned them into horrific events. Instead of a female main character trying to escape her confines, it is a man, Snowman, who is struggling to come to terms with how science and technology has caused the devastation of the world that was meant to cure it.

I have to say; it takes a while to get into this. At first, Snowman struck me as a crazy homeless man, grumpy and living in a tree and strangely rude or uncommunicative to the little Craker children who so desperately wanted him to explain about all the pieces of the wiped out human world that they had found. Slowly, through the past and then present chapters, Snowman's (or Jimmy as he was previously known) life is revealed and all the events that lead up to the desolation are laid out making this an intriguing, fascinating tale.

Although the this book does not have a date to pin-point when the events happened, Jimmy's life is clearly at a point in the future from now perhaps early in the next Century, or perhaps earlier. Jimmy's childhood and adolescence was spent living in a secure compound, his father works for a big corporation where they are trying to cure all the issues that have caused the destruction of earth. As Jimmy's parents are scientists they live in the strict compounds in luxury, whilst others live in the Pleeblands, which is still a main area of crime and disease. Unlike the language used by Offred in "The Handmaids Tale"; there is nothing elaborate about the language used in Jimmy's story; I felt the language used reflected it's scientific background; simple and stuck to the facts.

Despite missing any wonderful descriptions, I still cannot fault this book. It was as fascinating for me as "The Handmaids Tale" and it made a different impact on me than the aforementioned book too - possibly because the complete and utter devastation of the world by human hands is a result that could be imagined in our own society today as a direct result of how we are treating our planet. Science is becoming more intelligent, genetic engineering is popular if not always successful and the way in which scientists can "play God" has already raised many moral questions.

Of course, all the way through Snowman's story, I was eager to find out whom Oryx and Crake were and what roles they played in Snowman's situation. Crake is introduced to the reader when Jimmy meets him as a teenager. From the outset, Crake is an extremely intelligent boy but who seems lacking in any real emotion - which immediately sets alarm bells ringing. It is clear from the beginning that Crake is responsible for Snowman's predicament and the enjoyment is finding out exactly how these turn of events happened. Jimmy and Crakes relationship does take some interesting twists and turns and I felt that both characters were developed extremely well - although Crake appears emotionally stunted, he is so clearly a product of his environment that it doesn't seem strange that he almost goes off the rails in such a way. His need for a perfect society free from religious hatred, Gods etc is developed thoughtfully - the fact that Jimmy has to explain everything to the creatures that were created by Crake (the Crakers) as they are blank slates, means that by the end of the novel, Crake's brilliant mind has already failed - these children of Crake are already worshipping Gods - that of Crake their maker and of Oryx. Identity and religion are explored fully and Atwood's take on this in the new world wiped clean is thought provoking reading.

Oryx is an extremely interesting character, and my only disappointment is that she didn't have a larger role in the book. It is not revealed what nationality Oryx is, only that her childhood is one that is full of misery, abuse and pain. Yet she is the most serene character in the world. Out of all three characters, she is the one that seems most natural to me; it felt that she belonged in the modern day and not this futuristic world in which she lived with Jimmy and Crake. As well as this, Oryx's serenity and acceptance only makes Jimmy and Crake less likeable; they both discovered her as a young girl on an Asian porn site after she had been sold. Her acceptance that they had watched this site is unnerving and Jimmy's disgust at those that made her do the films is just hypocritical!

Simply put, I found this was a stunning book, and Atwood's status in my eyes has been restored after my disappointment in the last book! I have never read a book about the subjects discussed in this one and I was completely haunted with this last man on earth story. Once again Atwood has looked deeply into our societies biggest problems and pulled out a story that would leave anyone chilled.

Summary: Atwood at her best.