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Title: Oryx and Crake by MARGARET ATWOOD, CAMPBELL SCOTT ISBN: 0-7393-0744-4 Publisher: Random House Audio Pub. Date: 06 May, 2003 Format: Audio CD Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $44.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.92 (130 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Worthy successor to Frankenstein
Comment: Margaret Atwood's prophetic Oryx and Crake is terrifying, a nightmare that could become morning's reality. People are comparing Atwood here to George Orwell and Aldous Huxley, and Oryx and Crake to The Time Machine, Brave New World, and 1984. While it does hold kinship with these works, Oryx and Crake is more of a noble descendant of Mary Shelley's gothic classic, Frankenstein, the romantic thriller published in 1818. For instance, consider the following line from a Frankenstein review: "...it is a subversive and morbid story warning against the dehumanization of art and the corrupting influence of science. Packed with allusions and literary references, it is also one of the best thrillers ever written." That same line easily applies to Oryx and Crake. (The real horror here is that Vernon God Little won the Booker Prize the same year that Oryx and Crake was a short-listed runner-up.)
Like Dr. Victor Frankenstein, the supergenius known as Crake wants to develop a superior human being. But whereas Frankenstein was limited to using electricity, and developed a man who looked like, and was treated like, a monster, Crake has the biotech world of our not so distant tomorrow, so he genetically engineers not just one but a whole tribe of superior beings in his Paradice Project. (Only one example of the many cleverly misspelled terms used in this dark, often humorous novel). Called Crakers, this green-eyed new species of man, which comes in assorted skin colors, is capable of warding off diseases, and incapable of human frailties, such as jealousy and violence. Crake is not the scientist's real name, only one borrowed from a computer game in which the players use names of extinct species, such as Oryx, the name of the woman loved by both Crake and Snowman, our narrator.
As the story opens, Snowman, possibly the last human alive, sleeps in trees at night and forages through the ruins of humanity during the day. He tries to survive not only for himself, but also for the Crakers, for whom he is now the caretaker. Snowman was known as Jimmy, and we get to know Jimmy, as well as Crake and Oryx, through Snowman's flashbacks to their youthful past. Their past is our near future, one in which brilliant scientists live and work in sterile Compounds, while the rest of humanity lives in the disease-ridden Pleeblands (where the suburbs and malls are). In the business-oriented Compounds they know how to cure diseases, but to stay in business, they need to create new illnesses; there is no profit in good health. In other words, you need to create a virus so that you can sell your next anti-virus product (much like some software firms have been accused of doing in today's world). At the same time, some companies are creating superior watchdogs, called Wolvogs, and there are also the Pigoons, very large hogs that supply human body parts. So we have many Frankensteins in the future, giving us monsters of all kinds, for, when released, the Wolvogs and Pigoons find humans to be tasty morsels. Poetic justice, perhaps?
My favorite line is on page 205 when Jimmy finds out about the Wolvogs: "What if they get out? Go on the rampage? Start breeding, then the population goes out of control - like those big green rabbits?" Then on the next page he asks himself: "How much is too much, how far is too far?" And therein is the heart of the book.
In structuring the novel, the author was clever in giving Snowman/Jimmy two names; Snowman is in the present, Jimmy in the past. When the reader sees the name Jimmy, you know you are in a flashback, and vice versa. Of course, Atwood is one of the best at segueing into different places and time periods, as she did in the Booker Prize winning The Blind Assassin (2000). As you read, you see Jimmy age from child to adult, while, as Snowman, he tries to survive a world of multiplying terrors. The first half of the book is interesting and suspenseful, as Atwood unfolds the back-story and provides the necessary technicalities. Then when she has Snowman revisit the scene of the crime (the greatest murder in human history), the book turns into an edge-of-your-seat thriller, with the razor-sharp tusks of a pack of Pigoons literally snapping at the hero's heels. As a former farm boy who used to have nightmares about our large hogs ripping me apart, these scenes had me sweating a bit.
Not all mysteries are solved, only the major ones, leaving us to ponder the whys of Crake's insane actions, and the fate of the new beings. And not until the end do we find out why Jimmy, a non-numbers person, has survived. "My name is Snowman..." he tells the Crakers. "...I come from the place of Oryx and Crake." It is a place I will never forget, partly because Atwood has made it so real, but also because I know it is all quite possible. Our Frankensteins are already hard at work in their labs.
Rating: 3
Summary: A page-turner but not Atwood's best
Comment: This books follows Atwood's usual formula of a slight mystery and a slow revel. The plot centres around one character, Snowman, who is living in an abandoned post-global warming world. He retraces the events of his life, starting with his childhood on an elite research compound where people work to develop genetically modified creatures, a place separate from the "pleeblands" where most ordinary humans leave. Snowman also slowly reveals the characters Oryx and Crake and their role in his life and current situation.
Atwood definitely succeeds at creating a sense of place - a terrifying, overgrown world of characters split between the elite research facilities of Snowman's childhood and the dangerous "pleeblands" where average people live. I couldn't put the book down because I wanted to find how Snowman got to the place he was.
But the characters in this novel aren't fleshed out. At the end we are still left wondering about the motivations of Oryx and Crake and Snowman himself.
There is also a child pornography sub-plot that was kind of pointless. We are expecting a great denouement but get none. I was left wondering "so what?" Why was this tawdry industry explored if not to offer us some sort of meaningful criticism of it?
To a lesser degree, the same is true of the genetic modification theme. Atwood is clearly horrified by the dangers but also seems fascinated by the possibilities, and in the end the question is not entirely resolved.
While I enjoyed this book, it felt more like a tawdry paperback than a novel by one of Canada's foremost authors. I am shocked that of all of her novels, this one won the Booker Prize. If you want Atwood sci-fi read The Handmaid's Tale. And if you want a compelling, mysterious read try Alias Grace.
Rating: 4
Summary: A very entertaining read.
Comment: This was a very entertaining book and I had a good time reading it. I think what keeps it from being a great book is the author's failure to concentrate on either a literary, highbrow commentary on society and science OR an engaging adventurous sci-fi tale.
If she'd chosen the first route, she could have made her points without the simplistic, recycled, over-the-top science mumbo-jumbo which is clearly not her forte anyway (in the Handmaid's Tale the "science" behind the infertility epidemic was left appropriately vague).
If she'd chosen to go for an all-out apocalyptic anti-fairy tale she could have devoted more effort to making her world of the future more believable and Snowman's attempts at survival more credible (why is this guy living among dangerous animals unarmed and wearing a sheet that constantly falls off? Everyone else is dead there's not an extra pair of pants and a weapon lying around?) Even a potentially suicidal character would at least attend more diligently to their physical comfort. More interesting details would have upped the entertainment factor even more.
Of course, there's no reason why a book can't be both, but Oryx and Crake doesn't quite make it. Sure comes close though and I would recommend it.
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