Oryx and Crake

Rating:
Summary: Don't Bother....
Review: Had this novel been written by anyone other than Margaret Atwood, it would be sitting ignored in a bargain bin. Greater than my dismay at forcing my through this trite,tedious exercise in self-indulgence is the fact that I wasted money buying it in hardcover. I am parting ways with Ms Atwood and the publishers and editors who live in fear of her reputation.

Rating:
Summary: Can't Wait for the Movie
Review: I'm reading Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood. (I'm listening to Oryx and Crake on cd, rather). It's great. Margaret Atwood has a real knack for turning of phrases ('alone in the light', for example or describing something useless and sentimental as 'a box of baby teeth').

There's one serious problem with the book, though. Its jacket description (I won't repeat it here, I'm sure you've read it)

There's far more than one serious problem with the jacket description. It's hugely pompous (anyone who spells humour with that second faux-British 'u' is begging for comeuppance), it's extravagantly self-indulgent ('Margaret Atwood at the absolute peak of her powers', as though she were Gandalf about to rid Lower Earth of Orcs) and it's just a tad bit presumptious ('readers may find their view of the world forever changed').

From the jacket, you would expect to be reading the Bible.

Well, my world has not been forever changed, though I am now suffering from a great urge to use the word 'inchoate' in a conversation. (Damn this vague inchoate headache! Is it real or is it not real? Should I take advil, or just pretend to take advil?)

But the funniest thing about the whole book, with it's comically overblown self-description written by someone who surely must have a restraining order in place by Ms. Atwood, is in trying to find the real Margaret, somewhere out in the great white north of Canada, separated from me only by a few clicks of the keyboard in Google.

What I found surely did forever change my view of Margaret Atwood.

First of all, I was surprised that so great a literary figure at the absolute peak of her powers bears a remarkable resemblance to Rhea Perlman.

Also, for someone with such a 'prescient' view of the future, her personal web site is, to quote Snowman from Oryx and Crake, 'toast.'

She does not have her own domain name, rather, she squats on 'Canada's leading provider of website services,' at the following domain name:

http://www.web.net/owtoad/

Unfortunately, by clicking on the domain name, the page you arrive at has the following message:

This Website has been closed for non-payment.

If you are the owner of this website please contact us at 1-800-932-7003 ext. 50

Geez, you'd think a writer at the peak of her powers could keep from bouncing a check.

Anyway, the book Oryx and Crake is a fun loving tale about the end of the world brought about by some disenchanted child geniuses whose love triangle involves a child prostitute. They create a new race of animals mostly from pigs and a new race of humans who eat their own poo. (I'm not kidding, though what they are eating is caecotrophs, much like rabbits).

So real, so prescient, so utterly convincing that it is sure to be made into a movie, "The Island of Doctor Moreau II" starring Robert DeNiro as a young Marlon Brando and a cast of actors who are Canadian, such as Keanu Reeves and Jim Carrey.

Whatever you do, do not read this book! I mean, whatever you do, do read this book.

Unless this is something you already do do. Or did do.

Bravo to Margaret, though, for making the three central characters thin, athletic and beautiful. The 'brilliant genius' (yes, she says this, I guess she's not heard of tautologies) Crake, wears nothing but dark clothing and has green eyes. The womanizer, Snowman runs through one woman after another. Oryx is the cat-faced Asian sexpot who is ultimately the cause of the downfall of civilization (because, of course, Crake and Snowman are both in love with her, and you know what happens when two guys fall in love with the same woman? Yes, jealousy, betrayal, murder, war and the ultimate annihilation of the human race).

And that's just it. Margaret has looked at Hollywood, not the scientific journals, to portend what brings civilization to its knees. Sex is at the root of all life's tragedies. Crake even solves this by creating a perfect race of people who don't have sex, except at pre-established intervals of 3 years, and the sex act comes about through genitalia that glow purple (or green, I forget). One woman with a colored bum like a baboon accepts four men with identically colored, er, devices.

Perfect. No jealousy, no rage, no ownership, no overpopulation, no war, no evil. And you can even eat your own feces.

Tons of symbolism here, but what's genius about the book is not its countless references to erudite words and topics, but to Margaret's undying loyalty to Hollywood. Yes. This book was written with the movie characters in mind. All beautiful and tortured and supercool. And a love triangle that ends the world. (Titanic, anyone?)

She learned her lesson with the movie version of A Handmaiden's Tale. Robert Duval may be a great actor, but Leonardo di Caprio is what brings in the big bucks.

And that's why this damned thing is so freakin entertaining.

Rating:
Summary: Complex, entertaining novel
Review: "Oryx and Crake" is post-apocalyptic fiction in the finest Cold War tradition; while cautionary, it doesn't lecture, and it entertains even as it offers glimpses of something deeper. Set in the not too distant future (roughly the late 21st century), "Oryx and Crake" starts off as the rather traditional narrative of the "last man on earth", in this case Snowman (a.k.a. Jimmy) the slightly addled but utterly sympathetic main character. However, it is quickly set apart by the introduction of the "Crakers" genetically engineered hominids that are true herbivores, and from whom most of the trappings of society have been stripped (art, government, religion, etc.).

Thus, instead of humanity hanging on a knife's edge, it instead stands to be gently shoved aside by the benign, but perfectly adapted Crakers. By using the power of genetics, Atwood is able to turn the classic "what if a manmade killer virus got loose?" question on end by changing it into, "what if someone decided to willfully destroy the human race in order to make room for something better?" In this case, the eponymous Crake is a thoroughly brilliant scientist, with dire, if not altogether sinister motives. The boyhood friend of Snowman, he presents an utterly logical façade, even to the point of implying that the planet would be better off without humans. Finally, there is Oryx, who is in many ways a total mystery. While definitely a real person, her history is revealed entirely through Snowman, and it is unclear if it is a reflection of his own emotional issues, or actual fact. In either case, she, along with Snowman and Crake form a quite unintentional holy trinity for the Crakers.

The book is arranged in more or less alternating chapters with one set in the present and the other set in Jimmy/Snowman's past. As such, the plot is only fully revealed at the book's conclusion, and I am therefore reluctant to offer much more in the way of a synopsis. That said, there are some elements I can comment on generally without offering any spoilers. The first is that Atwood's writing perfectly suits her subject matter; the rather spare prose of the present tense mirrors the newly emptied world and the simple lives of the Crakers. At the same time, the flashback chapters are intense and descriptive, nicely matching the frenetic waning years of Homo sapiens sapiens.

Moreover, Atwood offers just the right amount of descriptive elements for her new world; all too often post-apocalyptic literature bogs down in scene setting, forsaking character development. Fortunately, Atwood wisely offers enough detail to create a fully realized world, but not so much that it cripples the novel's pacing. At the same time the lack of significant temporal or geographic settings allows the reader's imagination significant leeway, which makes the book much more personal in its impact.

Finally, Atwood offers a fascinating exploration of humanity as a concept rather than a collection of human beings. She poses numerous questions that range from the moral, for example, is it ethical to make a decision you are certain is right if the outcome deprives others of their freedom of choice? To the anthropological, for example, does the belief in the unknown, the spirtual, God, or what have you, fulfill a fundamental and necessary requirement of any intelligent animal? Like all good authors, Atwood offers hints as to her own feelings, but doesn't presume to offer answers.

In the end "Oryx and Crake" represent the ideal form of science fiction: the use of a place distant from our own both temporally and technologically in order to offer insight into our own lives. Atwood has succeeded admirably that is entertaining and thought-provoking at the same time. She tackles issues that cut to the core of who we are as a species, but never bogs down in high-blown exposition. Finally, her thoroughly enigmatic conclusion leaves plenty for the reader to mull upon, and depending upon how it is interpreted, significantly different conclusions about Atwood's message can be drawn. Enaging, fascinating and entertaining, "Oryx and Crake" is well deserving of the numerous literary accolades it has received.

Jake Mohlman

Rating:
Summary: Canada's Best-Kept Secret
Review: One of Canadian literature's best-kept secrets is that many of Canada's best-know authors write science fiction. William Gibson, Steve Stirling, even
William Shatner are (or were) Canadian and are among the best-selling science fiction authors in the world. Add Margaret Atwood (arguably Canada's best-know literary figure) to that list. Over the years Atwood has written several novels that cross over into the science fiction genre. The Booker-nominated Oryx and Crake is her most recent novel and her furthest foray into the world of science fiction.

Oryx and Crake is set in the aftermath of a biological catastrophy that killed off most of humanity and left the world ecology dominated by genetically modified plants and animals. The story jumps between this post-apocalyptic future and the years before the catastrophy when genetic engineering was seen as the panacea that would bring a better life to all (with not-too-subtle allusions to the Better Living Through Chemistry themes of the 1950s and 1960s). Atwood leaves no doubt where her sympathies lie. Oryx and Crake is a cautionary tale of what can happen if biotechnology is allowed to run out of control. Oryx and Crake, however, is also a cautionary tale about what can happen to amoral people. Atwood's story is at its strongest when she is dealing with her characters and how their psyches respond to the situations around them. In many ways her characters feel much more real and plausible than the future world that she writes about.

Oryx and Crake is one of Atwood's best books yet, and also one of her most accessible. Literary purists may dislike it for this, but science fiction fans are in for a treat.

Rating:
Summary: Creative psychological thriller
Review: Margaret Atwood specializes in the psychology of her characters, especially that of the antagonist/arch-nemesis. In a science fiction framework, Atwood has a broader template with which to explore the line between genius and insanity, between good intentions and bad. This novel takes place in an unspecified number of years in the future, in a post-genetic engineering armageddon. The narrator, Snowman (aka Jimmy), recounts what the world was like just before the final disaster: earth has become so overpopulated that a select few--scientists, businesspeople, etc--live in heavily-guarded compounds while the vast majority is left to fend for themselves in the brutal wastelands without. Humankind has been splicing together all sorts of species to overcome the environmental problems (one of the most haunting is the ChickieNob, a sea anemone/chicken model, which enables farmers to grow immobile, brainless chickens like plants, and then be harvested for their copious amounts of legs, thighs, etc). Jimmy's best friend Crake, a genetic genius, is working on a new type of human--one that is UV-resistant, sweats natural insect repellant, and has no concept of ideas like hate, power, or religion. Somehow this experiment goes awry and is responsible for the armageddon, but we don't know exactly how or why until the end of the book.
This novel is a creative exploration of environmental balance as well as genetic engineering's current morality issues. It is also a psychological thriller that will have readers looking over their shoulders quite often.

Rating:
Summary: Ms. Atwood, please stick to the here and now
Review: I was very conflicted reading this book. If it were by anyone else, I'd say it was a superior treatment of the subject. Far better, probably, than most conventional sci-fi authors would do. But as a Margaret Atwood novel, I think it falls far short of her best or even her norm.

To me, Margaret Atwood's strengths lie in her exploration of the interior of her characters; the interplay between their current circumstances and their memories of their pasts. Her stories don't normally move forward through exterior plot development, but by the inner development of the characters, or the revalation to the reader of aspects of the character hitherto unmentioned.

This book relies four-square on exterior plot development, namely how messed up the world's environmental situation is and how it got that way. The characters in this book are nearly an afterthought and the development of them nearly non-existent. They seem more like the cardboard set-ups of B-movie science fiction than the astonishingly well realized characters of Atwood's standard fiction. The only very interesting relationship between characters is between Jimmy and his parents, which in some ways recapitulates the relationship between the character Tony of "The Robber Bride" and her parents.

As an eco-polemic, this book does a pretty creditable job. As a Margaret Atwood novel, it fares less well. I find it odd that this book is so unsatisfying when her earlier sci-fi-ish novel "The Handmaids Tale" did not leave me with this feeling.

Rating:
Summary: Joyless, miserable read
Review: To sum this up most succinctly, this is an eco-thriller turned on its ear, a Jerry Bruckheimer thriller written by Joyce Carol Oates. A book in which the action, adventure and science all take place in the background while the foreground is focused squarely on the characters and their development. This isn't a bad thing, nor did it come as a surprise to me as I read it. In another author's hands this could have been a fascinating exploration of personalities against a stark reality (a la Canticle for Leibowitz)

Instead, Atwood's excessively passive voice served only to distance me and diminish my interest in the narrator's plight. We are shown and told that Jimmy/Snowman came from a dysfunctional family and a bad situation but never given a reason to care. Further, the constant jerking between time periods (pre- and post-apocalypse) didn't allow me to engage with the plot up until its conclusion and even then I thought that the book was struggling to overcome its neutrality to convey the chaos of a world-wide disaster. When I finished it I was left with nothing but the feeling that I had just been preached to in a tediously strident voice.

I wanted to care, I was curious about the events that brought about the end of the world, but I was let down by a frustratingly indifferent voice for a character that never changed and never grew. That I finished the book is more a testament to the inertia of reading than my interest.

Rating:
Summary: a brilliant narration
Review: This is a book that I could not put down not only because the subject seems eerily familiar. Atwood's portrayla of the near future for some reason seems more probable then most science fiction novels out there. Once again, English language is the star, masterfully utilized. Campbell Scott's delivery is exceptional, I could not think of anyone else who could have read this novel better. A must have!!!

Rating:
Summary: Just say "no" to frankenfoods and corporate control!
Review: Atwood does it again. Of course you must compare this to the Handmaid's Tale of the 80's. Only this is more timely. Beautifully written, poetic . It's flows easily and the character(s) are interesting . You want the book to keep going - even though the subject matter is on the whole , awful- the detail and explanation for everything that has happened in Snowman's world is so interesting that you can't put it down.

Of course this is a thin veiled expression of Atwood's concern for the planet we all share. A cautionary tale that everyone should read!

Rating:
Summary: You'll never listen to the nightly news the same way again.
Review: The reader is forewarned, as Atwood begins with this quote from Jonathan Swift in Gulliver's Travels: "I could perhaps have astonished you with strange improbable tales; but I rather chose to relate plain matter of fact in the simplest manner and style; because my principal design was to inform you, and not to amuse you." Thus, the novel is unlike any that Atwood has written before.

Based on actual news clippings that the author has collected in the last few years, this is a futuristic novel about a world created by man's carelessness and greed. A world of cloned animals, extreme makeovers, genetically engineered foods and people, where new diseases pop up faster than new medications and supplements.

Atwood's sardonic wit and quick pacing make this novel hard to put down, and leave you thinking about it long after you've put it down.