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Oryx and Crake (MaddAddam, #1)

Margaret Atwood

Start date: May 1, 2016

Finish date: June 1, 2016

Discussion: Monthly Bookclub Read

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The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet
By Sparrow Knigh… · 1 post · 12 views

last updated Mar 12, 2016 05:12AM

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Jun 09, 2010 Althea Ann rated it liked it

Atwood has a lot of live up to with Oryx and Crake, considering the striking originality (and raging success) of her previous novel of the future, The Handmaid's Tale. (One of my favorite books).

Oryx & Crake sets the stage by showing a scene of a future castaway, near-destroyed by the elements, in a state of filth and decay, living on the outskirts of an innocent tribe of beautiful, simple uncorrupted people.
A familiar scene, but here our narrator may be the last 'true' man on earth, and the inn Atwood has a lot of live up to with Oryx and Crake, considering the striking originality (and raging success) of her previous novel of the future, The Handmaid's Tale. (One of my favorite books).

Oryx & Crake sets the stage by showing a scene of a future castaway, near-destroyed by the elements, in a state of filth and decay, living on the outskirts of an innocent tribe of beautiful, simple uncorrupted people.
A familiar scene, but here our narrator may be the last 'true' man on earth, and the innocent tribe a product of genetic experimentation.

The story is told in flashback, as the narrator's memories of growing up in the gated communties of wealthy but restrictive companies dealing with genetics research, selling false hope to the residents of the ever-more-dangerous 'pleeblands' outside, dealing with ever-more-common incidents of bioterrorism.

I'm personally not a huge fan of the kind of complex narrative structure that Atwood utilizes here, jumping from time to time, carefully revealing elements at critical junctures - but I can appreciate that in this work, it is very well-crafted and expertly done.

This scenario of the future's wealthy living in environmentally regulated compounds while the masses take their chances outside is really a standard by now... While I love this kind of post-apocalyptic stuff, I kept getting a sense of deja-vu at many of the scenes...

The main fear that Atwood plays on here is that of scientific research fueled only by the bottom line, selling unsafe and unneccessary products to people without any sense of ethics. (The frightening bleakness of this vision is only enhanced by the amusing and pun-like names of the corporations and products). It is also about the potential for destruction enabled by brilliant minds who are all too subject to human frailty, whether that be fueled by interpersonal relationships or twisted ideals.

A feature of the book is that the narrator, like most individuals in reality, doesn't know everything. To the end, some things elude him. He doesn't understand everything. (Which by extension, means that the reader won't understand everything - much like in reality, where sometimes you can only guess at a person's motivations for what they do.) And it also features one of those (to me, intensely annoying) 'thought-provoking' endings where you don't know what's going to happen, so you have to consider the implications of all the possibilities. (But I just go - "argh! SO what happened!?")

Still, this is a well-done, thoughtful work, which I would highly recommend. ...more

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Mar 14, 2016 Damon rated it really liked it

Shelves: sci-fi

Nice read; a fable about society where government ids replaced by corporations. The new upper class are scientists employed to generate money, conditioned to be workaholics and live in compounds, with the general population degenerating into cultural tribalism and dependency on the material.

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Jan 21, 2008 Joe rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Improves with every reading - new depths discovered every time around.

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Aug 07, 2017 Luke Joseph rated it liked it

Atwood updates dystopia to account for the fall of the moral majority and the rise of Silicon Valley. (Except in this universe biotechnology and pharma have clearly won the technology war over IP. Sorry, Google.) It's a well written character study with an unfortunately fizzling plot, and at least the little "Atwoodisms" are amusing and coy. Even a dystopian hell can appreciate Martha Graham, and it's cute to see DVD outlive us all.

Will continue with the series. ...more

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