Oryx and Crake

Rating:
Summary: Well, maybe.....
Review: The problem with apocalyptic or "prescient" novels, in general, is that they walk a fine line between prescience and absurdity. Ms. Atwood certainly shows, in what was for me a compelling narrative, that she still has the stuff of which great writers are made, and the book manages to be thought-provoking as well. But a good many of the thoughts provoked tend to be a bit barmy upon further reflection: The possibility of a future filled with rather goofily named genetically engineered animals, for instance. The other reviewers have pretty much covered the literary ancestry of such novels. Orwell's greatly overrated 1984, for instance. It's 2004. Do we live in such a society that Orwell warned against or was predicting? Huxley's Brave New World is a much better comparison (and book) to Oryx And Crake. But still...Do we live in such a world? We are still reading books and even writing reviews of them in our spare time. It is well to remember that Huxley took his title from a line in one of Shakespeare's most fantastical plays, The Tempest. So, in the end, I would read the book for its fine writing and compelling story. Clearly, from the afterword, Writing Oryx And Crake, affixed to the end of my copy, Atwood was shooting a bit "higher" than this level. Perhaps it is a disease of established literary figures to feel the need to explain some grand design pertaining to the future of humanity in their works. But all this "slippery slope" business is a slippery slope in itself. Just read and enjoy.

Rating:
Summary: Thought provoking, funny, disturbing
Review: This is my first Atwood book and based on just the first half of the book alone, I'm now going to find and read all her other works.

Magaret Atwood shows off her keen mind, an analytical mind of a William Gibson or a Neal Stephenson, but unlike those guys she mixes in a strong dose of criticism of today's corporate driven society in this dystopian vision of the near future.

The human race today, in 2004, is perhaps personified in the book by the genetic architect of the new homo sapiens, Crake, a man who apparently has terrifying nightmares, persued in his dreams by the logical outcome of his own genetic creations, but who claims no memory of such dreams and sees nothing but upside in his genetic fiddling. Atwood shows us what genetic engineering driven purely by corporate profiteering could be capable of doing to our world.

One of her ideas struck me particularly: Atwood postulated that society, hardly a decade or two from now, became too complex, too knife edge balanced, too fragile. Having consumed all easily available resources, only advanced science sustained the increasingly isolated lucky few (the "Compound" dwellers). A single devestating blow, and it lost all opportunity to recover .. forced back to a perpetual dark age. With no metals or minerals within easy reach of lo-tech survivors, and a harsh environment, humans are stuck, leaving nothing to show for centuries of development but raped environment, poisoned lands, climate change, and crumbling edifices that are no longer real, explainable, or re-attainable.

If you think a vision of "compounds" protected by private armies and based around corporations, dotted in a sea of dangerous and dirty "pleeblands", is unlikely, then think again: corporations are only gaining power each year (and are pushing courts to affirm constitutional rights previously only accorded to individuals). Every year uber rich individuals (inevitably, tied to those self-same corporations) increase the already obscene wealth gap, and work to isolate themselves further from taxes, laws that limit their influence, unfriendly governments, and the unwashed suburban worker masses, while pressing for patriot-act like legislation that can easily be deployed against anyone who threatens their serenity, grasp of money, or power.

Luckily, apart from all these gloomy ideas that make me want to get tear gassed at the next WTO meeting, the book is, in places, extremely (darkly) funny. It has paragraphs you just have to read aloud to the person sitting next to you.

Rating:
Summary: Atwood has written better books than this
Review: Sorry, but this is just not, in my opinion, anything clsoe to Atwood's best work. Clever, it certainly is, with wolvogs, other mutants, and the nightmares of a post-genetic-apocalypse. It's a skillful take on "Honey-we-blew-up-the-nukes" and "it's-not-nice-to-fool-with-Mother-Nature."

I was impressed with Atwood's ability to write raw prose about nasty subjects in an almost lyrical yet reporterly fashion. But this novel just didn't grab me. I found my self skimming ahead, not to see how it all turned out, but just to get through it. You might like it better than me, but I was underwhelmed compared to "Handmaid's Tale."

Rating:
Summary: Entertaining, thought-provoking, and humorous, but SCARY!
Review: This is the first Atwood book I have read. The comparisons to Orwell's 1984 by literary experts and the puzzling mixture of "love it" and "hate it" customer reviews on this site definitely pushed me to give this book a try.

First, the comparisons to Orwell's 1984 are justified. From the very beginning, the reader is faced with a post-modern apocalytic earth and the central question: WHY? What happened? As the reader follows the main character, Jimmy (aka Snowman), as he journeys to secure additional food and supplies, one slowly learns about the why and, with little conjecture, can relate the book's fictional depiction of world tragedy to the growing potential for similar non-fictional tragedy in the future.

Second, despite the depiction of a future that many would not want to envision, the author finds it easy to intersperse humor and sarcasm in an entertaining manner. The reader learns of Pigoons, BlyssPluss, Rakunks, Wolvogs, and other concepts that stir both fear and laughter.

Finally, while many reviewers express disbelief in the apathetic depiction of Jimmy, I believe that Ms. Atwood actually chooses a character that is not especially disturbing given the way that the masses in our culture ridicule and demean anyone who challenges the status quo. Jimmy has learned to respond to culture with a mixture of cynicism, sarcasm, humor, and depression.

Bottom line: if you read to simply be entertained, you probably should skip this book. For those seeking entertainment only, this book deserves 2-3 stars. BUT, for those readers who prefer to be challenged intellectually and don't necessarily demand that everything make sense or turn out great in the end, then this book is deserves 5 stars. I suspect that the readers who didn't like 1984 or Animal Farm would also not like this book.

Rating:
Summary: Stayed with me.
Review: I didn't realize how much this book affected me until I started having dreams about blue people. That's the species bioengineered to replace us. The slowly unfolding explanations in the book make it creepier and creepier, and, as other reviewers have noted, not that far from possible. It was a great read, I couldn't put it down, and afterward, couldn't get it out of my mind, from the despair of the one surviving human, Snowman, to the horror of the predatory pigoons, a bioengineered animal, which stalk Snowman at one point. Read this book. If you like futuristic stuff, I also recommend Updike's Toward the End of Time, although Oryx and Crake is much better.

Rating:
Summary: Frightening wake-up call
Review: I confess that this book sent me into a state of depression. This is because Margaret Atwood has successfully extrapolated several existing global scenarios to their inevitable conclusions. The turning point for me was when I read about the spider-goats and realized that this part wasn't fiction. The future is here. Genetic manipulation of animals is occurring, and we all know what's happening with the corporate-controlled genetic engineering of our food supply (or at least we ought to). To my mind, Snowman ends up questioning how it all came to pass, finally realizing that, on all the occasions when (despite de-sensitizing and conditioning by the corporations in control and by the Internet/media) he questioned the morality of proceedings, he could have done something to prevent their outcome. My fear is that many of us will one day find ourselves in the same position.

Rating:
Summary: Clever
Review: A very fast and clever novel. One must be on somewhat of another planet (metaphorically speaking) to create situations like these. Taking place in the future but dealing with society much like today's, Oryx and Crake explores the world much differently than other futuristic novels. There is a unique language about it which is smooth and almost poetic. There are also so many 'made up' terms included. It reminded me a little of Lord of the Rings in the sense that you read not only a story, but also learn details about a whole new place (ie: new kinds of people, new kinds of places that don't exist in our world today). The novel is pretty creepy at times, and is somewhat similar to the ideas of the Matrix, but it is still entertaining nonetheless and is really fun to discuss with your friends who have read it as well. It is one of those books that people are going to really get into or just not like at all. Some other great books of the year that I read are Three Junes, Lucky Monkeys In The Sky, Life Of Pi, and Aloft

Rating:
Summary: Definitely Atwood's best
Review: The past two books I have read by Atwood ("Alias Grace" and "The Blind Assassin") did not impress me all that much. Really, except for "The Handmaid's Tale" and "The Robber Bride" I hadn't found much to like in Atwood's fiction. "Oryx and Crake" has redeemed her completely. It is without a doubt her best book, better even than "The Handmaid's Tale."

There is very little that can be said about the plot since the whole book is like a detective story. The whole point of reading it is to figure out who and where Snowman is. But here are the basics. The book opens with Snowman, who lives in some future time, in a world empty of all normal humans. All that exists to his knowledge is himself and strange people he calls Crakers. The book then flashes back to Snowman's earlier life, when he was known as Jimmy and was best friends with a boy named Crake. Jimmy and Crake lived in a time not too dissimiliar from our own, but it is obviously still sometime in the future. The rest of the book alternates between the two time frames, explaining in the process how Jimmy became Snowman and how the rest of the world has become extinct. In the course of the novel, we also meet Oryx, who is an amalgam of women Jimmy obsesses over.

Atwood bases her vision of the future on sound science, mainly genetic manipulation. The world she creates runs wild with rakunks (racoon skunk mix) and the spoat/gider, a genetic splice between a spider and a goat that actually does exist in Canada for the purpose of creating a super-silk used in bullet-proof vests. This is a picture of a society so obsessed with security and scientific advancement that it has sacrificed freedom and individual desire. But as in all dystopic novels, Atwood takes these scenarios to their extreme conclusions and apocolyptic implications.

This book is one of the finest dystopic novels I have ever read. It is more readable and less preachy than "A Brave New World" and less political than "1984." "Oryx and Crake" has a little bit of everything. I didn't expect it to be as funny as it is. The Crakers that Snowman cohabits with are naive and know nothing of the world or the humans who used to inhabit it. As such, Snowman creates a mythology for them, which leads to some laugh-out-loud scenes. Jimmy/Snowman as a whole is a likeable and hilarious narrator. The story is engrossing and I could not put it down. The fact that it reads like a detective story makes it all the more compelling. Overall, this is a nearly perfect read...interesting, smart, funny, and thought-provoking. Highly recommended

Rating:
Summary: dull; trite; meaningless
Review: Oryx and Crake is a poorly written, aimless novel. Atwood's writing style is extrememly trite, her characters are flat, and her plot is unimaginative.

I am a fan of dystopic novels, but this one failed to engage me in any meaningful way. The main character is unbelievably dull and at no time evinces even a modicum of understanding about his own inane life pre-chaos, the state of affairs post-chaos, or the human condition in general. Unfortunately, the author evinces just as little understanding.

The ending of this novel, is, if possible, worse than the rest of it. Why on earth did Jimmy/Snowman do the things he did? The true horror of reading this book is the realization that one day the human race could be in the hands of a half-wit such as him [or by extension, the author].

Why is Margaret Atwood praised so highly? If this is the new literature of modern times, we are headed toward chaos for sure.

Rating:
Summary: Needed More Complex Characters
Review: I usually avoid books set in the future and anything that even remotely resembles science fiction, so I put off reading ORYX AND CRAKE for a long time. While I wouldn't call ORYX AND CRAKE hard core science fiction, it is definitely futuristic.

The protagonist of ORYX AND CRAKE is a character known as Snowman, whose birth name, we learn, is Jimmy. Despite ORYX AND CRAKE being set in the future, I really liked the scene in which we're introduced to Jimmy. Instead of a dark, grim cityscape, Atwood gives us a seascape instead. And, instead of some post-nuclear holocaust, we're given a world that was destroyed by a particularly deadly form of plague. As Snowman walks along the deserted beach, he encounters a group of children who are obviously not "from the past." For one thing, they are too young to be "from the past." For another, they aren't even "normal human beings." This sets the stage for the book.

At this point, Atwood begins to tell us what happened to the earth in a series of flashbacks that alternate with the present day story. In general, I'm definitely not a fan of flashbacks, but Atwood is a masterful writer and these flashbacks are so skillfully woven into the fabric of the present day narrative so as to be seamless.

Jimmy, we learn, was actually one of the "lucky" ones. His father worked at OrganInc Farms and this kept Jimmy, his mother and his father away from the dangerous "pleeblands," the cities that once were great but then only breed violence and corruption.

We also learn about Jimmy's friendship with Glenn, a boy/man, who in the present day narrative, is known as Crake. While Jimmy and Glenn were the best of friends during their high school years, their lives took very different turns when they went to college. Jimmy attended the Martha Graham Academy (very ordinary), while Glenn went to the Watson-Crick Institute (extremely prestigious and scientific, reminded me of MIT).

Just when Jimmy is ready to give up on life and throw in the towel, Glenn (now Crake) comes back into his life and offers him a job at the RejoovenEsense Compound. There, in a unit called Paradice, Jimmy comes fact to face with a "vision" from his past...the beautiful Oryx.

The plot of ORYX AND CRAKE is complex, well-crafted and sometimes surprising, though I think some readers are going to find its unfolding a bit too slow for their taste. (I didn't; I liked it.) Atwood's writing is, as always, first rate and a joy to read. What I think ORYX AND CRAKE lacks are complex characters. Crake is simply too much of a "god" while Snowman is simply too much of a "follower" and a "victim." Even Oryx is far too enigmatic to be "real." While I enjoyed the story of ORYX AND CRAKE, the characters were simply too one dimensional and lacking in depth and complexity for me to find any emotional engagement with them. I don't even blame Margaret Atwood for this; I think a lack of character development is just part and parcel of science fiction/futuristic stories which are, by necessity, plot driven rather than character driven.

Even though I found ORYX AND CRAKE to be lacking in complex characterization, I still liked the book. The story itself held my interest and I enjoyed reading it, even reading far into the night, which is something I don't usually do.

Atwood fans will love ORYX AND CRAKE (though it isn't nearly as good as THE HANDMAID'S TALE or ALIAS GRACE) but hard core science fiction fans may find it a little too "soft" for their liking. Still, it's masterfully structured and beautifully written.