I’d never read any
Margaret Atwood before choosing Oryx and
Crake for book club. I listened to the audio version, narrated by Campbell
Scott. Wow, Atwood is a great writer. But this is one disturbing book.
The book is narrated
by Snowman, who seems to be the last remaining original human on earth. There
is a new race of genetically engineered people, but they have very little in
common with Snowman. Society has collapsed. Cities are in ruins. Over the
course of the book, Snowman talks about his present life - sleeping in trees to
avoid being eaten by genetically engineered monsters, scrounging for food,
water, and supplies, answering questions from the perfect children of the other
race - while also telling us about his childhood, about his relationships with
his best friend Crake and his one great love Oryx, and what happened to bring
the planet to its present state. (Bonus points from me for multiple references
to Alex the African Grey Parrot.)
The
narrative grabbed me from the third paragraph on page 1: “Out of habit he looks
at his watch – stainless-steel case, burnished aluminum band, still shiny
although it no longer works. He wears it now as his only talisman. A blank face
is what it shows him: zero hour. It causes a jolt of terror to run through him,
this absence of official time. Nobody nowhere knows what time it is.”
Published in 2003, Oryx and Crake came out before the
current round of dystopian novels. And unlike many of them, we don’t have a hopeful
subplot to distract us from the grim reality of what our future as a species
could hold if we go down a certain path of genetic engineering. There are
relationships, including romantic and sexual relationships, but the unrelenting
narrative about how the world was destroyed is not much lightened by those
relationships.
Gated compounds and economic
divides. Genetic engineering. Too powerful corporations. Every depravity
imaginable available on the internet. Climate change. Of all
the dystopian novels I've read over the years (at least 20 in the last four
years according to my Goodreads list), this is the scariest because it feels
the most possible.
The book is filled
with statements and passages that made me stop and think, like this one: “Watch
out for the leaders, Crake used to say. First the leaders and the led, then the
tyrants and the slaves, then the massacres. That’s how it’s always gone.” (p.
155)
At this point I am not
sure whether or not I will read the sequels - not because the first isn't good,
it is – but because the series depicts such a depressing future. At the very
least I'll need a little break first and something lighthearted to read before
tackling The Year of the Flood.
If you enjoy beautifully
written realistic dystopian fiction that carries true warnings for our species,
Oryx and Crake is for you. The Galesburg Public Library has the three books in the series in both print and ebook versions.
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