Books, Tea and Me

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Oryx and Crake is a post apocolyptic novel, told from the perspective of Snowman, the apparently lone human survivor of a catastrophe. I am a fan of Margaret Atwood, whose talent of setting her terrifying imaginings in the near future provides a sobering glimpse of what could be.

In this novel she has explored a world where technology and science are rampant, genetic modification is standard and the pursuit of personal happiness supercedes the needs of civilisation as a whole. The world in which Snowman, originally known as Jimmy, his best friend and scientific genius, Crake, and their shared love, Oryx, live is a messed up one, with deep divisions between the 'haves' and the 'have nots'. Jimmy and Crake grow up in the security and artificial perfection of the Compounds, the children of scientists. The vast majority of the world's population, however, are locked out of this utopian existence, living in the Pleeblands.

The story jumps between the present, a time after the apocolyptic event that has left Jimmy/Snowman as the sole survivor and caretaker of a new humanoid species developed by Crake, and the past. The children of Crake, or Crakers, have been bred to eliminate the jealousy, leadership, religion and self-interest that Crake blames for the state of humanity. Snowman attempts to answer their questions about their creator and Oryx, who they know as the mother of the plants and animals. Snowman reflects on the events that led to the end of civilisation, events that he blames himself for not anticipating.

I found a world where people could watch executions and suicides unperturbed, where more concern was spent on physical appearance and sexual gratification than on the disasters that govern the lives of the poor , to be very disturbing. The thought of real food being a rare and expensive treat, that art and literature could fall by the wayside, that winter could vanish; these things are scary to me. Though Crake went about it in a horrifying manner, I could understand his motivation.

Margaret Atwood's incredible ability to imagine these things, and then, even more incredible, to convey them in words, is always marvellous. Now I can't wait to read Year of the Flood.

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