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Oryx and Crake
The novel is a mad scientist story, where humans play God for pleasure and profit. It's a last-human-left-alive story. It's a projection of a dystopic future, where all political and economic power is held by militaristic corporations.
Most of these themes have been explored before, and they're introduced in the first couple chapters of the book. But they're handled so well, I feel like I'm spoiling the reader's experience by listing them here. Never mind, read the book anyway. Maybe you've seen this stuff before, but you haven't seen it written like this.
The measure of science fiction isn't the uniqueness of its concepts--it's what the author can do using the ideas as tools. It's about how intensely a book can penetrate into the reader's imagination, and this is driven by a writer's talent (not the raw ideas).
Margaret Atwood writes stories that are deeply layered and voiced in an incisive, conversational tone. Despite its bleak themes, Oryx and Crake is far from depressing--it's mostly cheerful and upbeat, which turns out to be a fine way to write about obsession and love and revenge and the end of the world. Somewhat like Neal Stephenson, Atwood's writing doesn't take itself too seriously. It's chock full of wordplays and grimly humorous subtexts. The result is a book that works as both a dark comedy and an allegoric drama, but feels like a conversation between the author and the reader.
Some parts of Oryx and Crake approach horror--not blood & guts horror, but what someone from the 1700s might feel if a time traveler explained the basics of how nuclear weapons, school shootings and Internet porn work today. Atwood pulls very few punches when imagining the possible extensions of humanity's greed, lust, hatred, and cold-bloodedness. Her easy pace, artful characterization and humorous touch fully engages the reader's mind, and her willingness to shock takes full advantage of the open target. The result is a mental chill that takes a long time to fade.
It's not a perfect book. Even at 374 pages, some episodes of the story arc seem abbreviated. Some of Atwood's future visions seem a bit contrived, but this depends on whether she's going for humor, symbolism, shock value or sheer inventiveness on a given page. Most pages (including the following excerpt) are a well-stirred mixture:
"On day one they toured some of the wonders of Watson-Crick. Crake was interested in everything--all the projects that were going on. He kept saying "Wave of the future," which got irritating after the third time.It's too early to tell if Oryx and Crake will earn Atwood the same acclaim as The Blind Assassin and The Handmaid's Tale. Regardless, it's a powerful book--unnerving, moving and well worth reading.First they went to Decor Botanicals, where a team of five seniors were developing Smart Wallpaper that would change colour on the walls of your room to complement your mood. This wallpaper--they told Jimmy--had a modified form of Kirilian energy-sensing algae embedded in it, along with a sublayer of algae nutrients, but there were still some glitches to be fixed. The wallpaper was short-lived in humid weather because it ate up all the nutrients and then went grey; also it could not tell the difference between drooling lust and murderous rage, and was likely to turn your wallpaper an erotic pink when what you really needed was a murky, capillary-bursting greenish red.
That team was also working on a line of bathroom towels that would behave in much the same way, but they hadn't yet solved the marine-life fundamentals: when algae got wet it swelled up and began to grow, and the test subjects so far had not liked the sight of their towels from the night before puffing up like rectangular marshmallows and inching across the bathroom floor.
"Wave of the future," said Crake."
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This book was quite a bit different than the usual Margaret Atwood novels and this is primarily because this is a work of science fiction. I did not particularly enjoy her other work from the science fiction genre, "The Handmaid's Tale". However, I understand that that book was one of Atwood's most popular works probably because it was a favorite among feminists. I doubt feminists would find much to relate to in this book unless it was how men have managed to finally screw everything up completely. I have never been much of a fan of science fiction but I admit that it reads better when a writer of Atwood's skills is the author.
This book starts out a bit confusing and left me unsure if I should re-read the first 20 or so pages to try and figure out what was going on. However, I soon found myself in the groove of the novel and was able to piece things together as I went along. I believe this is how Atwood meant it to be as she shifts back and forth in time. We begin with what seems like an armageddon scenario and, by the end of the book, understand how it came to be.
The author seems to have a fixation on how genetic engineering will be the cause of the fall of mankind. Essentially, the message is passed along that, if we create a health system that preserves us all, then we'll have to find some other way to destroy ourselves. (At least that's what I got out of the book). Along the way, Atwood has her usual keen insight to how we all interact with one another as well as how our inner thoughts seem to work. I admit that I was left wondering if I had missed a bigger theme but I was content with the one I detected.
To my knowledge, Margaret Atwood has never written a bad book although I never read her poetry or essays. Sometimes the story line isn't as interesting or absorbing as others but there is always a lot to pick up on along the way. This book got better as I kept reading but then it ended rather abruptly. I believe the author left it up to us to figure out the way it should properly end.
Perhaps not. In terms of her use of language, form, depth of charaterisation etc. the 'The Blind Assassin' is technically Atwood's greatest novel so far.
But having read all her novels, I've got to say that 'Oryx and Crake' is my personal favourite. I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed this book, how engrossed I was with every word, and how moving, shocking and disturbing I found it. It's one of the best books I've ever read. It's one of those books that, once you've finished the last page, stays with you, and when you're not reading it you're thinking of it.
And it's one of those books that, when you finally close it, you so wish that you could've put your name to it yourself. It's an immense work of imagination. I finished it well over a week ago and still think of it. I found it extraordinary. The way Atwood evokes her distopian futuristic world in every detail and makes it come alive and breathe is quite incredible. I was hooked.
I was hoping it would be good but it far exceeded my expectations. The book's nightmarish vision of the future makes 'The Handmaid's Tale' look like a picnic, and while you're reading Atwood makes you live in that world, makes you feel what Snowman is feeling. What horror. Frighteningly, plausibly, brilliant!
I was disappointed because Oryx and Crake is uninspiring literature. Even on the level of just "story", I would opt for Jurassic Park for gripping narrative and vivid imagination. If I read Atwood, Golding, Grasse or others that I consider accomplished "literary" writers, I look for an aesthetic pleasure. Oryx and Crake just plods; there is little beyond the events and a few clever (and distracting) neologisms to carry one along. I wouldn't even take it on the plane for a good read.
This is arguably one of the darkest dystopias I've read in a very long time. Atwood's genius lies in the fact she can take concepts in the present-day and extrapolate them to the furthest fictional limits without detaching from reality. If you think O & C is a brilliant book, go check out her earlier dystopia - The Handmaid's Tale. Oddly enough, her predictions in that book about America's future are starting to come true...
Though Atwood has said that she does not write science fiction, I believe that this book proves that statement to be misleading. To me this book is an excellent example of well-written soft science fiction. The story's somewhat disjointed narrative works well to evoke the narrator's jumbled memories of the events leading to the decimation of the human population. The character of Oryx doesn't seem very well fleshed out, and there is the sense that she just functions as a narrative jumping off point for the changing relationship between Snowman and Crake, but as a whole, the characters were still believable to me. Atwood doesn't describe the science used in much depth, and what she does explain is a bit questionable in places, but I found the story to be very effective and literate nonetheless. And the pigoons freaked me out.
I only finished the book because there has been a lot of discussion of it. I found it badly written, pretentious, technically unknowledgeable, ..., and pandering to the sexuality of 14 year old boys (lots of discussion of penises and the only female character is a child prostitute).
I've had an audible subscription for three months now, but *THIS* book was one of the best I've heard so far. Shit, I picked up my iPod two years back solely to use for Books on CD and things like that, but it was too damn annoying to use until Apple licensed the Audible content and decided to allow you to pause the chapter and listen to music and then come back to the same pause in that file.
I picked up Ender's Game on Audible as well, and it was cool (I actually got more out of Speaker of the Dead in dead tree format) but it just didn't do it as well as this one did.
Great oration and it enhances the story instead of detracting from it (I've picked up serveral tha I got part of the way into the dead tree versions and had to stop because of workloads...and thought I'd finish them up on an airflight -- I can't read while in the air for some reason -- or one one of my many drives to Nashville lately...7 hours of mundate pushings of the gas pedal).
If you were ever interested in checking out these kinds of services, check it out...the only problem I had was there wasn't a real resolution to the book...it feels like a halfway end...it finishes the story of Crake and Oryx (characters in the book), while never finishing the story of the 'Snowman' -- the lead narrator telling the story of C&O, but far more interesting than it seems eiher of them ever were. Oryx is too one dimensional to care about as anything but a prop, and Crake is just...well, he too is one dimensional, but that is mainly from the narriation as opposed to his actual being. I just couldn't bring myself to caring whatever happened to Oryx, and Crake just projected himself too far into the future (especially since this is a latter retelling of the tale...hindsight is always 20/20) that his end of the story was told far before ya ever got the intimate details...no, the REAL story is about Snowman, and it was left unfinished.
Lets hope this is a big enough seller that Atwood feels like revisiting it soon and gives it a proper ending...
Back in the 80s, I picked up a copy of "The Gunslinger", first in a series by King that his fans (at least some of them) were calling his masterwork. It read like it had been written by a high school student, very flat writing and an unengaging plot.
Was this book in particular overhyped? Or is King just another highly-succesful mediocre author?
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Language of the Future in literature has always interested me, so I'm curious to see some examples of her literary "mutiliations and grotesqueries."
The greatest books that ever used altered/mutated language as metaphors for the state of humanity were 1984 and A Clockwork Orange. Something about "Ultraviolence" and "Doubleplusungood" strikes just how society has evolved.
How does this compare?
"The Gunslinger" is the first book in the "Dark Tower" series. It was written something like 15 years before the second book. I agree that the writing in a bit dull and the book is not entirely entertaining, but it does set the stage for the series. The next books are, to me at least, amazing pieces of literature. Maybe not the best writing ever, but the characters and story-line more than make up for it. Book II is cool, but the 3rd book, "The Wastelands" is by far my favorite in the series. Excellent story with a cliffhanger ending. (The books always seem better if you read the series as they are released. The waiting seem to intensify the experience.) Book 4 wraps up the cliffhanger (nothing too exciting) but then branches off into flashback. I would argue that this book is, by far, the best written of the series, and has a dramatic and epic ministory. It's only disappointing in that it doesn't advance the plot much. It does, however, provide some excellent character development. I just read the latest book, Wolves of Calla. I must admit that it was a bit of a disappointment. The series is getting rather "odd." All his books seem to intertwine with the Dark Tower Universe, sometimes in clever and subtle ways, sometimes in obvious, but this one just blantantly merges characters from previous books into the story. *SPOILER* Near the end, the main character even picks up a copy of "Salem's Lot - by Stephen King." This, after already meeting Father Callahan and hearing his story of vampires. It might be interesting to see where this is going..
Anyway, I'm sure my opinion is rather biased.
Um, no...
King is at best a mildly okay Hollywood script writer, whereas Atwood is one of the finest authors of recent years.
The Handmaid's Tale is a magnificent example of postmodern writing that subtly subverts our understanding of "the narrator". If you read the "Historical Notes" you'll notice that the entire narrative up until that point consisted of random unordered tapes collected by chauvanistic historians. This subverts our whole understanding about truth and chronological order in the text. Pure genius.
"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." --George Orwell