MaddAddam

The ending's tonal shift, although I was somewhat prepared for it, undercut the cumulative power of the trilogy and overall power of this book a little bit. And it did take a minute or two to adjust my expectations as I realized that this trilogy was not about building out of the ruins of a post-apocalyptic society but was, instead, the stories behind the foundational texts that would serve as religious/societal benchmarks for the new world that would come out of the ruins. With this in mind, it actually becomes a remarkably hopeful ending - something you don't really expect out of your dystopia or your post-apocalyptic stories these days. Atwood is trying to remind us of the fundamental good inside humanity even as she warns us about show more the really terrible things we're currently doing. How lovely - I hope, should everything go to hell, the rebuilding looks as hopeful as this does. (But I also hope that we sort our shit out before it ever gets this bad. Here's hoping, anyway.)

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He tries to explain why the lights go on, but they’re puzzled. It’s obvious to them that the light bulbs are like lumiroses, or the green rabbits that come out at dusk: they glow because Oryx made them that way. (Location 811-813)

MaddAddam by Margaret Atwood is the third and final part of Atwood's dystopian speculative fiction series that began with Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood. While Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood took place during the same time period, MaddAddam continues the story on from the point the first two novels left off. MaddAddam is being released on September 3rd.

Having read the first two novels, I would encourage everyone to read them first before proceeding on to MaddAddam, however several show more reviewers feel MaddAddam can stand on its own merit. (Okay, let's be honest, anything Margaret Atwood writes can stand on its own merit.) There is a review of what happened in the first two novels at the beginning of MaddAddam that neatly summarizes the narrative in Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood, leading up to the current action.

The story of Jimmy, the Crakes, Toby, Zeb, Ren, and Amanda are all continued. This future depicts a society that has been wiped-out by a plague created by Crake. In the backstory we know that before the waterless flood, corporations ruled. Gene splicing and genetic alterations were common. Now human beings as we know them are almost all wiped out and the genetically altered wildlife and plant life flourish. I'm unsure about how much of the story to tell because I don't want to spoil anything for anyone who is planning to read all three books. If you look at today's headlines, though, Atwood's speculated outcome doesn't seem far-fetched at all.

Can I just say "Wow!"and "Bravo!" In MaddAddam Atwood did an astounding job continuing her story telling, mythology-making, and world building until they reached a credible conclusion. Yes, the big themes are heavy, cautionary, and serious and there are many profound statements and observations:
"But hatred and viciousness are addictive. You can get high on them. Once you’ve had a little, you start shaking if you don’t get more." (Location 323-324)
"Perfection exacts a price, but it’s the imperfect who pay it."( Location 719)

But there are also many humorous, lighthearted moments. Take these two exchanges between Toby and the Crakes:

"I am doing this thing with my hands on my forehead because I have a headache. A headache is when there is a pain in your head.
Thank you. I am sure purring would help. But it would also help if you would stop asking so many questions.
Yes, I think Amanda must have a headache too." (Location 1486-1489)

"Stupid means things Crake didn’t like. There were a lot of things Crake thought were stupid.
Yes, good, kind Crake. I will stop telling this story if you sing.
Because it makes me forget what I am telling.
Thank you.
So then Adam’s father..." (Location 1815-1819)

And two more tidbits:
"Too bad Chuck was dead, in a way – he must’ve had some good sides to him, maybe he liked puppies – but now there was one less asshole in the world, and wasn’t that a plus? A checkmark in the column of the forces of light. Or darkness, depending on who was doing the double-entry moral accounting." (Location 1021-1023)

"Romance among the chronologically challenged is giggle fodder. For the youthful, lovelorn and wrinkly don’t blend, or not without farce. There’s a moment past which the luscious and melting becomes the crusty and wizened, the fertile sea becomes the barren sand, and they must feel she’s passed that moment." (Location 1501-1504)

Very Highly Recommended - one of the best.

http://shetreadssoftly.blogspot.com/2013/08/maddaddam.html

Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of Random House via Edelweiss for review purposes. However, it should also be noted that while I'm thrilled to have received a review copy, I per-ordered my own personal copy of MaddAddam and am anxiously awaiting it's arrival.
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I have never been this unimpressed with a Margaret Atwood novel. MaddAddam is a tedious slog through the events of Oryx and Crake - again. While this technique worked incredibly well in The Year of the Flood, providing context for much of the events and letting the female characters flip Jimmy's story on its head, MaddAddam totally fails to provide anything new or interesting in its backstory. (My 'reading' was done via audiobook, and the actor's voices, nuances, and inflections did nothing to keep me interested.)

You might think that, now that all of the characters have met up after the end of the world, there would be some forward momentum in the present-day. You would be wrong. If you're interested in what happens to Jimmy, the show more erstwhile protagonist of the first novel, or any of the characters from the second novel - Toby, Ren, or Amanda - then you are going to be sorely disappointed. Toby's arc during this book is particularly terrible, but Ren and Amanda only escape this fate because they spend most of their time offscreen. Jimmy spends most of the novel in a coma. In fact, the entire plot of the present-day revolves around the Crakers and the Maddaddamites defending themselves from two rogue Painballers. It's just as boring as it sounds.

Even if you're reading MaddAddam to be further immersed in the dystopian world that Margaret Atwood created in Oryx and Crake, you'll probably still be disappointed. 75% of this novel takes place in the past, rehashing Zeb's life in the pleeblands and his relationship with Adam One. There are a few interesting new additions to the world, but the vast majority of Zeb's activities are tied to the other books' plot lines; his story just retells what you already know.

Finally, the writing in this book is just plain bad. There are a couple moments where the prose recalls the first two books, but they are few and far between. The metaphors have all been done before. The characters are flat and static. The Craker story sections are beyond painful. The pacing is puzzling. It's just one big mess.

I don't recommend it, unless you absolutely need to read it, and cannot go without the closure.... I was plain bored of Zeb's 1940's-style of speaking, endless jobs that have nothing to do with furthering his character, and Toby's endless jealousy, and worrying about losing Zeb. show less

I just finished MaddAddam. And I am absolutely reeling. There are definitely different layers to this book; you could read it just at the story level, and it'd be interesting and intense, as the plot moves forward. You could read it at the symbolic level, thinking about the ways the world could shatter and come back together, and the mistakes we make socially, economically, environmentally, scientifically. And finally, at the metaphor level, the way reality is re-tuned for the Crakers, so that they carry on in what they consider to be their paradise, with fully religious parable on board, having been carefully constructed for them by Toby, Jimmy, and the others, so as not to destroy that idealism.

One read is definitely not enough. I'm show more going to be musing on this trilogy for quite some time. And eternal thanks to Olivia, who encouraged me to take a second run at "Year of the Flood" when I gave up on it. You were so, so right. show less

MaddAddam is the final book in Margaret Atwood's post-apocalyptic trilogy, following Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood.

In many ways, MaddAddam is a quiet denouement to the frenzied dystopia depicted in the previous two books in the series. MaddAddam takes up right where both the previous books left off, joining Snowman-Jimmy and the bioengineered post-humans called the Crakers with the remnants of the God's Gardeners cult who survived the plague that wiped out most of the human race. The remaining humans decide to live with the Crakers and protect them from the last threat: other surviving humans, particularly the vicious Painballers who they know are lurking nearby.

A lot of the story is taken up by flashback, relating the back show more stories of brothers Zeb and Adam, founder of the God's Gardeners, and answering many of the questions left hanging in the previous two books. This storytelling technique leaves the reader feeling removed from much of the action and not fully invested in the outcome. For instance, when Zeb and the others decide to go take out the Painballers, those events take place "off-camera," related only as a story to the Crakers, which steals a lot of suspense from the climax.

I suspect this is purposeful on Atwood's part, who seems to be painting the picture of a near-perfect utopia in her post-apocalyptic world. A utopia which, I might add, doesn't really need men -- at least, not non-Craker men. Other than Zeb, the most fully realized characters are the surviving women, with Toby (a major character from The Year of the Flood) providing their voice. Most of the women eventually become pregnant by the Crakers, giving the reader the assumption that human and post-human will eventually merge, eliminating the traditional male qualities like aggressiveness, jealousy and ego.

That's all well and good if we're fantasizing, but it doesn't make for a particularly exciting read. Also, I found it a bit problematic that even though the post-apocalyptic society seemed to be forming itself along matriarchal lines, the bulk of the story still focused on male characters. It was a jarring contrast. Oryx is the character who has gotten short shrift in all three of these novels, as she has now literally been turned into an unknowable goddess.

Atwood is a terrific writer, and her books are always enjoyable. But I can't help feeling that she ran out of steam with this idea. In my opinion, Oryx and Crake remains the best book of the trilogy, a significant contribution to the post-apocalyptic genre. MaddAddam can't quite measure up to that. show less

I can't believe that 20 years after Snow Crash a major author could present a cackling corporate dystopia full of bad puns with a straight face, but here we are.

Atwood's books are impossible to separate out from their politics. The problem with MaddAddam is that the politics are so resolutely delugist as to be indefensible. (Delugist is a term that I'm working on, particularly in regards to climate change, with the idea that mankind is being punished for its industrial sins but that a righteous society will arise from the ashes. ) This is a dangerous fantasy, because you and the people who you love won't be among the righteous. In fact, there won't be any pure and moral survivors, just the traumatized victims who managed to be the show more last people standing when everything fell apart. Particularly so in this case, with the survivors being the MaddAddam crew that Crake put together--who by the way never discuss their key role in releasing the plague that destroyed humanity, the Crakers as an idealized race of God's children, and surviving Painballers, neurologically traumatized gladiators lifted from Mad Max.

The plot, such as it is, wanders around the various problems of survival for our small band, although without much urgency, flashbacks to tough guy Zeb's early career, and "strong female narrator" Toby's lovelorn moping over Zeb. The only parts that are particularly interesting are the half-recorded stories to the Crakers, and seeing how they compare with more factual accounts elsewhere in the book.

I started this review by mentioning Snow Crash, because I'm ashamed to admit that it took me far too long to realize that the settings were basically identical. The difference is that Snow Crash is a delightfully gonzo parody of cyberpunk and late-Reagan America. MaddAddam is the same hacker conspiracies and joke names, but with the earnest hairshirt eco-moralizing of a Greenpeace activist. The joke just doesn't fly.

There's an interesting book here about the Next Nature that grows from the wreckage. The Crakers and Pigoons are obvious dominant species, able to out-compete any natural species and with no existing predators. Do they find a balance, or strip the Earth bare again? Did the modifications to make the Crakers perfect pacifists work, or does hierarchy, myth, and violence arise again? There might be an interesting fourth book, but I doubt that's happening, and have little faith that Atwood would deconstruct her universe in such a way.

Reread The Windup Girl instead. show less

I closed my review of The Year of the Flood (the previous book in the series) with, "We can only hope this turns into a trilogy." MaddAddam is the third book I hoped for.

Atwood's MaddAddam trilogy is the story of a dystopian future where human greed and pride have clashed to unleash a plague that wipes out the vast majority of humanity. The first two books in the series tell of this"waterless flood" from two different perspectives. They loosely cover the same amount time. In MaddAddam, these two stories converge and the timeline moves forward, albeit with frequent flashbacks.

At its core, MaddAddam follows the relationship between Toby and Zeb, two people who try to come to grips with their past lives as they live in the apocalyptic show more remains of their world. These characters are complex and surprising. Their past lives allow Atwood to explore themes like religious cults, the authority of large corporations, the ethics of genetic manipulation, and the role of law in a radically subverted context.

Atwood's exploration of this world is shocking and even cringe-worthy at times, but her analysis left me thinking about important themes long after the novel was put back on the shelf. show less