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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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... was mildly entertaining, but it came across like a low-wattage The Stand. Old-school King at his best could kick just about anyone's ass, including Atwood's. Maybe it's time I read Atwood again, just to see if she, unlike SK, has improved with age...
I fist read it as "Oxy and Crack" and wondered why Slashdot was running a story on drugs.
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!
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...
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).
This is a repost from the amazon review of the book.
"Atwood has said that she does not write science fiction"
Science Fiction can't be good. This is good. Therefore it can't be SF. Its the same annoying argument that has English professors claiming 1984 and Slaughterhouse 5 are greats, while refusing to have anything to do with the latest Stephenson or whatever. Banksie must drive them up the wall.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
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...
I didn't hate the book and found it a quick and reasonably compelling read, but it didn't really leave any lasting impression or make me feel like I had learned anything. I've generally liked Atwaters writing and in particular the Handmaid's Tale, so this particular opinion may be best judged by that taste. The book just seemed pretty slight to me, despite the end-of-the-world type premise. I'd say if you're an Atwater fan it's worth a read but if you dig on hard-science speculative fiction you'll probably be dissapointed.
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
You AC whoring McWhores!
Hi! I find it interesting that googling for "Atwood deliberately mutilates words" comes up with a result in Google! In fact, those couple of sentences are ripped directly from this much more complete review. Nice try though!
I'll take Canadian Literature for $1000, Alex.
What are "Things I Never Want To Be In A Position To Say To Margaret Atwood?"
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?
You have a lot of balls for calling someone up on reposting from another source, when you did exactly the same thing not half-an-hour ago.
& th reshold=0&commentsort=0&tid=186&tid=214&mode=threa d&pid=7903959#7904430
http://books.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=91901
In my opinion, this kind of thing deserves banishment from slashdot.. and maybe bamboo spikes shoved under the nails.
Exactly. There's no new ideas there, just the old mildewy mad scientist meme, that goes all the way to Frankenstein and actually even further into the medieval legend of Dr. Faustus.
I wrote a review of the book shortly after returning from four years living in Canada, where Atwood is of course revered.
Oryx and Crake
Margaret Atwood, 2003
Doubleday
Margaret Atwood is probably the most famous living Canadian author. However, despite living in Canada for four years, I never got around to reading any of her works, and so I resolved to rectify this by reading her latest novel, "Oryx and Crake". Atwood is well known to write speculative fiction that addresses trends in society that she finds distressing -- if her literary credentials weren't so impeccable, she would be called a science fiction author. In the case of "Oryx and Crake", the trend she is addressing is biotechnology.
Now, I'll admit that I am not the most receptive audience to books attacking biotech -- I am after all a microbiologist, and, although my own research is more basic than applied, I am naturally sympathetic to applications of biotechnology. On the other hand, I agree that there are ethical problems with some applications of biotechnology that cannot be ignored. So, does "Oryx and Crake" address these ethical problems?
In a word, no. Basically, Atwood's arguments boil down to the assertions that 1) tampering with organisms is creepy and disgusting and 2) scientists are insane and will destroy society for the hell of it. Oh, and they're also pedophiles to boot.
The book is written as a flashback, as the hero, Jimmy (or Snowman), describes how he ended up as one of the last human survivors on Earth. He was a high school friend of Glenn (or Crake), the guy who later created a plague to kill everyone off. This is all evident in the first few pages, so I'm not giving much away here. Plotwise, the only reason to continue reading is to learn Crake's motivation, but this is never fully revealed in any case. I suspect we are to accept that Crake was warped by attending a university dedicated to molecular biology, while noble Jimmy attended a liberal arts college and thus became a better person.
But enough about plot. This isn't a novel by a hack like Crichton, but a work by a serious author. How is the writing? I'd have to say somewhat disappointing. While certainly much better than that of Crichton, I'd have to say that the more literary science fiction authors such as William Gibson and Neal Stephenson actually write better prose than Atwood, if "Oryx and Crake" is representative of her work.
In summary, I don't think that Atwood's high reputation could have been based on such cartoonish work. I can only assume this is one of her lesser works.
Anyway, I'm happy to see something besides Flash Gordon science fiction getting reviews here.
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Long-term effects of Bush deficits
I don't know about your reading of Snow Crash. Stephenson didn't seem too interested in warning us of "dangerous corporatism" - Gibson had done that already, and Snow Crash is more like a parody of the corporate feudalism theme. Nor was Stephenson pining for a "tranditional government social balance" - the remains of the government are treated more harshly than any other organization in Snow Crash.
Finally, the book was not apocalyptic. It was placed in a setting most would associate with apocalyptic fiction, true, but this environment was played for laughs and came across as genuinely optimistic in the end. That unexpected reversal is exactly how Snow Crash brought cyberpunk to an end - the corporate dystopia idea seemed kind of ridiculous afterward.
eikimartinson.com