Oryx and Crake

Why have I been intimidated by this trilogy? Oryx and Crake is a masterful post-apocalyptic, dystopian novel. Snowman (aka Jimmy) appears to be the sole survivor of a massive virus that has brought humans to the edge of extinction. Set partly in this devastated future, the novel gradually reveals just how we got there and, most particularly, Snowman's old friend Crake's role in the journey. Oh yes, and there is Oryx, a hauntingly there-but-not-there woman with whom both of them are in love. Complex and subtle, the novel is filled with delightful glimpses of humanity's beauty even as Atwood explores the inevitability of our terrible destiny. In a time when many of us are asking how can we change this self-destructive trajectory and why show more on earth (no pun there, or is it?) we seem incapable of doing so, Atwood lays bare the folly of human need, greed, and short-sightedness. Brilliant. show less

(This review is spoiler-free until my warning near the middle)

That was... oddly compelling. Much better than I had expected it to be, given what I knew of the plot. I'm not a fan of apocalyptic sci fi, and I'm definitely not a fan of apocalyptic sci fi in which nothing happens for long stretches of time. But somehow this one defied expectations and I ended up loving it.

Here's what I liked about this book:

1. The main POV character. Literally the only character in this book who was multidimensional and this actually shows how irredeemably, humanly flawed he is. He's an apathetic, sexist, self-centered manchild made loveable by the grace with which he deals with his new reality.

2. The nature of the apocalypse. Atwood is masterful at show more scaring the shit out of me because her dyatopias are sickeningly plausible. Maybe an exaggerated bit of paranoia here and some regrettable dated technological references there, sure. But brilliant and horrifying in its overall likelihood.

3. HERE BE SPOILERS HERE BE SPOILERS
The stories Snowman makes up for the Crakers. There was just something so creepy and primordial about it. I felt like I glimpsed some very unsettling truths about human nature in the precise stories Snowman tells and the Crakers' reaction to them.

HERE BE MORE SPOILERS

What I didn't like about this book was how awfully sexualy objectified all the women are. Maybe it was deliberate. Maybe that's just Jimmy's/Snowman's way. But regardless it was painful to read. Oryx especially. Augh. Was there even a single stereotype about sex workers NOT crammed into her story? Even in death she is denied the dignity of humanity granted to Crake: her corpse lies demurely face-down, swathed in pretty silks, forever the sexy pixie dream doll. Couldn't have allowed a single fart to escape her perfectly sexy buttocks as she died, could we? It's places like this where I think the line is crossed between character building of Snowman and straight up objectification by the authorial voice.

Those are my thoughts. For now. Can't wait to read the next book.


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I listened to this as an audiobook read by Campbell Scott. Scott is one of the good ones. His reading style is bland and unadorned, but despite this he is compelling rather than boring, and honestly, the style just added to the book's atmosphere. show less

The most striking and frightening aspect of reading Atwood's dystopia is that it is so easy to see how we would get there from here. In using science and technology to rule out spirituality and art and bend the world around them to their will and reconstructed image, this future society finds itself numbly going through paces that ultimately end in its destruction at the hands of a man playing God. Of course, in the end, we find that nothing has truly changed, despite his efforts to purge man's dark impulses. The book reminds me of Lewis' statement that, just because we can do something, doesn't mean we should. There is a solemn warning in this book, one that needs to be heeded by our culture at large. This is good science show more fiction...some of the best I've read this year. show less

Excellent plot and the pacing kept me gripped, but I really wish it relied less heavily on the whole child sex slave thing with Oryx - I understand this is part of her backstory but it is incredibly disturbing how Jimmy keeps that photo of her abused, naked 8-year old self his entire life and it’s not really portrayed as creepy, rather a sign that they were destined to be together or something, and she’s totally fine with it. And hello, why are you obsessed with child porn? Why is this the plot device that brings these two characters together? I was uncomfortable and kinda thought that would be addressed and then she died and the book ended and here I am still unsettled.
I wish I had known how brutal and difficult to read this was show more going to be in terms of child sex abuse.
I would have skipped this one had I seen a TW because there are some things I just don’t want to imagine. But it’s also good sometimes to get a slap-in-the-face-wake-up-call about the real world and be reminded that this is the way things truly are for some young kids. And THAT is what makes it so hard to imagine. I really feel sick. Don’t know if I will continue the series.
But, the climax and resolution of the plot were fantastic. I love it when everything comes together so well in a story like that.
I just need to be in a book club for this, or keep rambling my thoughts out at 3am. Is Snowman supposed to be a hero? I have Weird feelings towards this naked, feathered, fish-eating, pedophilic, fevered, betrayed caveman. show less

Many things irritated me about this dismal, leaden, simple-minded satire of biotech and corporatocracy. I'm unkindly disposed to stories told in flashback, for a start, and also to present-tense narration, and this book alternates between the two. My tolerance for evil genius characters is low, and lower still when they sneakily plot the demise of all mankind. And if there's one type of character I like even less than that, it's young male slobs, and these two guys take up 95% of the bloated page-count without ever approaching multidimensionality. There's one other character, an ex-child sex slave cum-exotic Oriental mystery woman-cum new Eve whose dialogue, though minimal, is indescribably exasperating. There are some pointless and show more mildly offensive references to Asperger's and neurotypicality. The corporations, products, websites etc. all have idiotic 50's-style wacky phonetically spelled names like ReJoovenEsence, Noodie News, AnooYoo, and NiteeNite.com (a site where you watch people off themselves, duh). Atwood succumbed to a serious case of sci-fi neologism-itis here. It's a boring book; very little happens and the non-ending would be infuriating if it didn't come as such a relief.

The gene-splicing at the heart of the plot is laughable. Hey, what do you get when you cross a raccoon with a skunk? A "rakunk"! What's that, a spider-goat hybrid called a spoat? A snake-rat (you guessed it, "snat") which is apparently... drumroll... a snake... with the head of a rat... FML.

But what irked me most about Atwood's craptastic connect-the-dots dystopia was the lack of imaginative effort. Other than the Doctor Moreau-style menagerie of mutant freaks, her "near-future" doesn't seem to have moved on at all from 2003. There's internet (used exclusively for snuff porn and live news feeds — strangely e-commerce isn't a thing in this world of all-powerful consumer-facing corporations) but no smartphones; CD-ROMs and DVDs are cutting edge tech; emails go back and forth but she apparently wasn't familiar with instant messaging; résumés are still sent out by mail. There are glaring inconsistencies like New York having been relocated due to sea-level rise but Seattle and Fiji apparently being just fine. All of this isn't bad in itself, but it demonstrates laziness, a lack of interest in the future, and by extension a lack of interest in the present she's trying to criticize. Atwood rejected the tag "science fiction", possibly in an attempt to absolve herself of the responsibility for putting some thought into her future or maybe because she's a snob, but I don't see how her preferred term, the quibbling "speculative fiction", gets her off the hook. When we read a historical novel we expect a basic effort from the author to make the setting convincing; surely novels set in the future should meet the same standard. The whole thing comes off as condescending, arrogant, the product of a laurel-ensconced doyenne who can do no wrong.

And on top of it all she asks us to believe in a North-American high-speed rail network! show less

Very well-written, thought-provoking, and disturbing. Atwood skillfully jumps back and forth between a post-apocalyptic dystopia, and the story of how the dystopia came to be. This world is frighteningly close to what ours could soon be: climate change has had catastrophic effects on ecology and society, genetic engineering (particularly of food) runs rampant, a wealthy scientific elite hide themselves from the poor rabble of the world, and it is perilously easy for a disease to wipe out humanity. Atwood not only describes this world in vivid language, she also skillfully and subtly explores its implications.

[semi-spoiler alert!]
My only complaint about the book is its ending, or lack thereof. The book just sortof stopped, right before show more what could have been a climactic moment. I suppose Atwood was aiming for an unfulfilled feeling: the dystopia is a new world, so in a way it is appropriate for the book to feel unfinished. But after such a long and emotionally-charged journey, I was really hoping for something bigger and more meaningful in the ending.

I listened to the audiobook, and thought it was very well-read. show less

The man formerly known as Jimmy tries to survive in a post-apocalyptic world while remembering his adolescent friendship with the man who destroyed everything. They began their life sheltered in a corporate compound, grew up to be the smartest of the smart while the outside world suffered, and then decided they could do better than Mother Nature. Now there is only Jimmy, the last real human, and the results of their hubris.

When I selected this book in November 2019 to be read in November 2020 I had no idea it would become so relevant! This was was at least my 3rd time reading it, if not 4th or 5th. This time I thought constantly about the people in the plebelands, outside the compounds. What was their life really like, aside from show more Jimmy's limited narration? I doubt it was really so bad that destruction would be better. Crake claimed to see through corporate hypocrisy and greed, but he still couldn't see the humanity of the poor, or actually care about anyone.

I always say each read of this book will be my last, but it probably won't be. show less