Oryx and Crake (The Maddaddam Trilogy, #1)

by Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood's classic novel, THE HANDMAID'S TALE, is about the future. Now, in ORYX AND CRAKE, the future has changed. It's much worse. And we're well on the road to it now. The narrator of Margaret Atwood's riveting new novel is Snowman, self-named though not self-created. As the story begins, he's sleeping in a tree, wearing a dirty old bedsheet, mourning the loss of his beautiful and beloved Oryx and his best friend Crake, and slowly starving to death. Earlier, Snowman's life was one of comparative privilege. How did everything fall apart so quickly? Was he himself in any way responsible? Why is he now left alone with his bizarre memories - except for the more-than-perfect, green-eyed Children of Crake, who think of him as a kind of monster? He explores the answers to these questions in the double journey he takes - into his own past, and back to Crake's high-tech bubble dome, where the Paradice Project unfolded and the world came to grief.
With breathtaking command of her shocking material and with her customary sharp wit and dark humour, Atwood projects us into a less-than-brave new world, an outlandish yet wholly believable space populated by a cast of characters who will continue to inhabit your dreams long after the last chapter. This is Margaret Atwood at the absolute peak of her powers.

• ISBN10: 0747562598
• ISBN13: 9780747562597
• Publish Date: 5 May 2003 (first published 22 April 2003)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 24 May 2010
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 400
• Language: English
• URL: http://bloomsbury.com/Trade/

Reviews

[clementine]

Margaret Atwood imagines a world that has been reduced to a disease-ravaged wasteland. Its (apparent) only inhabitants are a group of genetically-modified superhumans who have the intellectual capacity of children, terrifying animal hybrids, and a human named Snowman, who is apparently the only person who remembers the world as it was. The narrative alternates between the past and present (a trademark of Atwood's writing), and we get to see the segregated, capitalist world that existed before total collapse. There are a lot of interesting things to pick out here: the aggressive advertising of self-improvement products, the obsession with youth, the fact that corporations pretty much own everything. This is a very different dystopia to that of The Handmaid's Tale, one that focuses less on regressive patriarchy and more on how bad capitalism is. Atwood's writing and worldbuiling is always sensational, so no complaints there. And yet this was not really my cup of tea. First of all, there was only one female character in the whole thing, and she's kind of an Orientalist fetish object who exists exclusively as the target of Snowman's sexual obsessions. Like, if a man wrote this book I would probably be really mad. But Margaret Atwood can't just get a pass for being Margaret Atwood! Don't be racist, Peggy! I'm begging you!

[viking2917]

Still trying to decide what I think about the book overall.

I found the biological disaster entirely plausible, perhaps even likely at some point. The world-building was wonderfully well-done. Is there a way to put the genie back in the bottle? I wonder.

Jimmy / Snowman is really well done. Crake somewhat less well done, but still a great character. Oryx is a cipher to me. Doesn't feel fully enfranchised as a character, just kind of a foil to keep Jimmy's emotional state connected to something/someone. The pacing of the book I found slow - I kept losing momentum for some reason.

But a scary exploration of what's entirely possible...

[Amber (The Literary Phoenix)]

Once upon a time humanity didn't need be afraid. The race was thriving. Then came the sickness, then came the compounds. Finally came JUVE. Now it's just Snowman, but he has the whole story. Maybe the children of Crake can take over the planet. Certainly humans never will again.

Oryx and Crake begins Jimmy's memories of the man who called himself Crake - an intellectual genius without much of a moral compass. All the compounds wanted him, to use his intelligence to make themselves money, even if the things that he was willing to do did not take such care for human life. Human are flawed, after all.

Oryx and Crake is scary. Scary, but good. The book is written in the same cadence as The Handmaid's Tale, so popular, but how many people have delved into Margaret Atwood's other work? She's the Queen of Dystopia. Atwood finds the heartbeat of human fear and plays upon it - loss of trust, loss of freedom, loss of future. This book is no exception. It starts slowly, but builds into a careful crescendo that hooks the reader in completely.

Jimmy is an unlikable protagonist in a strange, changed world. But the story he has to tell is incredible. This one requires a little patience, but is definitely worth reading.

[gmcgregor]

One day, something is going to be the end of the world as we know it. Superbacteria and/or a global plague. Nuclear war. Heck, maybe the zombie apocalypse. But why not climate change? In Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake, it's climate that creates the void into which increasingly powerful corporations pour themselves. Soon, the divide between the haves and the have-nots becomes even more literal, with the highly-educated few retreating into city-esque complexes created and owned by business interests, while the masses are walled off into their own zones. Jimmy is born into privilege, to a mother and father who are good worker bees, and it is in the compound school that he meets Glenn, who becomes his best friend...and who ends up changing the world beyond what anyone could have imagined.

As an adult, Jimmy has renamed himself Snowman (after The Abominable), and as far as he knows, he's the last "real" human left alive. There's a group of genetically engineered people, the Children of Crake, but they're not the same. He's left alone, in a devastated world, with only his memories and his guilt over the role he played in it all. These memories make up the bulk of the book, with very little actually happening in an actual plot sense. Jimmy does venture back to the last place he lived in search of food and sunscreen and medicine, which forces him to confront what happened with Glenn, who became Crake, and the beautiful, reserved Oryx, who was involved with them both. How they died, and how the virus that wreaked havoc on the rest of the world was released.

It's a character study as much as a work of speculative fiction, and that's really Atwood's strength anyways. She loves to dig into the ways our little flaws can set in motion events that spiral out of control, to take the tensions underlying society and drag them up into the open. I find it really interesting that this book was written in 2003, the year I graduated high school, because so much of it seems to apply to the kinds of debates that continue to be relevant even now: just because we have the technology or knowledge to do something, does that mean we should? How do we weigh morality? Whose morality gets weighed? The writing date of the book does mean there are some things that come off anachronistic (she posits a world focused on disc-based storage, in which email is a primary communication method), a lot of it is startlingly prescient.

Clearly I liked it, but it was not without failings. The biggest, for me, was its lack of developed female characters. Jimmy's mother is intriguing, but we see relatively little of her and through mostly his eyes, reflecting on the way her choices impacted him. Oryx remains to the reader just as mystifying as she largely is to Jimmy, and while I could see Atwood intending this as a statement of how men tend to project their own stories only the women they claim to love (Jimmy is convinced he knows parts of Oryx's past, which she herself denies), I wish we'd gotten more of her perspective. And as much as I enjoy character-driven novels, I wish it had been structured differently, so that it was taking place in the present rather than largely in the past. These are relatively minor issues, though. On the whole, this book is fascinating and thought-provoking and one I'd recommend widely (though maybe not younger/less sophisticated teenagers).

[ross91]

So disappointed in this one! It started off great, but tjen I quickly lose interest.
The last part is slightly better, but I’m not gonna continue on this series.

[Artemis]

Couldn't finish this book. Really hard to get into and honestly the writing was not great. I know Atwood usually comes highly recommended (and why I started this book) but not good in my opinion.

[alindstadtcorbeax]

Star Rating: —> 5 STARS

AHHHHH I know I read this years ago but I just HAD to say that you/everyone/ everyone they know needs to READ THIS.

Well, if you/they/they like dystopian novels that is. Also sci-fi (although Atwood calls this work “speculative fiction”) & some weird ass sh*t, haha.

Done right, dystopian novels are one of my favorite genres.

BUT THIS, my friends, is more than just ‘done right,’ it is an absolute MASTERPIECE. It just absolutely BLEW MY MIND. It belongs on everyone’s bookshelves right alongside Anthem, Brave New World, 1984, etc.

I mean... just, wow...

[Michael @ Knowledge Lost]

Jimmy was a member of a scientific elite, living in isolation, suffering through bitter loneliness. Then an unnamed apocalypse came along, now he is known as Snowman and he may be one of the few survivors. This post-apocalyptic hermit resides near; what he refers to as Crakers—strange human-like creatures. In flashbacks the story develops, the Crakers, Wolvogs, Pigoons and Rakunks are assorted life forms that are the products of genetic engineering.

Oryx and Crake are the symbols of a fractured society, which Jimmy was once a part of. This is where trying to explain this novel can get complex. There are two different worlds within this book the post-apocalyptic world but then there are the flashbacks. The dystopian world was far more interesting for me. Much like Super Sad True Love Story. this is a dystopian world that I can see coming, corporation’s rule the world and pornography has become mainstream. It is normal to watch live executions and surgeries, nudie news (apparently watching the news when they are fully clothed is just weird), even child pornography.

I love novels that deal with the dangers of corporations having too much power; Super Sad True Love Story is a prime example of it (I should re-read that novel) and Oryx and Crake is another example of this (need more examples). Science and marketing techniques leave the public as powerless consumers and there is nothing to stop the unprecedented corporate greed.

Genetic engineering is a slippery slope; I seem to find myself attracted to novels that deal with science going too far. Oryx and Crake is a great example of this; Crake is a scientist working in the biotech project that created the Crakers. Genetic engineering progress continued to advance and eventually lead to a complex and sinister project called Paradice, but when that collapsed it caused this global devastation.

Oryx was a girl Jimmy and Crake found on a child pornography site that eventually was hired by Crake as a prostitute and to teach the Crakers. Oryx obviously had a difficult past, and Oryx and Crake attempts to deal with this issue as well. This is not an easy issue to deal with, the majority of the world would say they are against child pornography and yet it continues to happen and we see no signs of it ever being truly dealt with. Margaret Atwood doesn’t have a problem with trying to deal with difficult issues and this novel has plenty to say.

Moving away from the dystopian world and into the post-apocalyptic one, we have a whole new set of themes and issues. While this is a direct result of the corporate destruction, now we have to deal with survival. The Crakers are like little helpless children that Snowman tries to help; so now we have parental responsibilities as a major theme as well as our social responsibilities. He also has to protect them from the Wolvogs, Pigoons, Rakunks and whatever might disrupt their civilisation.

This is the second Margaret Atwood novel I’ve read and I’m starting to see a familiar theme coming through in her novels. I believe she wants the reader to have a look at civilisation and what we are doing that is beneficial or harmful. I’m sure the rest of the Maddadam trilogy will deal with this; I’m not sure if all her books have a similar theme but I suspect they might.

I love a novel that tells a great story but is also loaded with different themes and symbolism. I feel so fulfilled reading a book like Oryx and Crake and spending time digesting the words and examining what Atwood wants to tell us. I was meaning to read this novel for so long and now I’m left with intense desire to read the next two in the series. Thanks you Bloomsbury Australia for pressuring me into reading this book, I have no regrets.

This review originally appeared on my blog; http://literary-exploration.com/2013/09/09/book-review-oryx-and-crake/

[angelarenea9]

This review is posted on my blog

A dark look at our future, and fragile psyche of society, Oryx and Crake took me a long time to read, firstly because of personal circumstances, and secondly because of the content. I found it a very interesting, but heavy novel, and frighteningly realistic, if somewhat exaggerated in some ways.

The entire book struck me as a bit disturbing, but it really made me think. The slow, but realistic decline and decay of society touched just a bit to close to home for me. So much of what was described in the begininng of the book is exaggerated, if not outright examples of what happens today. This post apocyliptic world is not created by aliens, or vampires, or magic, it is just us. Even the 'science fiction' aspect of it is not far from reality with genetic manipulation and such.

The characters in this book were by far the most interesting part, and they were amazingly written. Oryx, as a character was seen only through Jimmy, and I get the impression it was a romanticized view of her too. I thought that her character was awkward. I felt as though I was being steered in two different directions with her. One direction was the 'nurturing mother' figure that cared about the Crakers and taught them things, and who's dying wish was that they be cared for. On the other hand there was this manipulative girl who knew how to play off of people's emotions as well as how to act. I wasn't sure if I believed anything that she said and I almost feel like she was multiple characters all threaded together. This was, obviously, seen best through the girl from the website, the girl from the news, and then what we know is Oryx herself.

Jimmy, or Snowman, being the main character was obviously the character you are able to best inspect. The thing that I noticed repeatedly throughout the book was Jimmy/Snowman's concern for how he sees himself. I think that for most of this book he acted like he was better than Crake, somehow more moral, and I wasn't sure if the author wanted us as readers to think that too, or if we were meant to pick up on the hypocrisy of it. I think that, although Crake was an extreme individual in an extreme environment, and I don't agree with what he did, I think that he at least stuck to what he genuinely (or at least from what I could see) thought was right, or best for the Earth and intelligent life on it. Crake was upfront about watching the kiddie porn, and enjoying all of the horrible games and shows and websites that they frequented, but Jimmy tried to act like he was better than it all. There is even a passage where he says: //"He'd meant well, or at least he hadn't meant ill" He never wanted to hurt anyone, not seriously, not in real space-time. Fantasies didn't count." // I think that says a lot about his character. Also he created a new name for himself so that he could wipe the slate clean. I didn’t realize how much he had separated himself from his past until he was reading what he had written just after the outbreaks and he says: //”Whatever Jimmy’s speculations might have been on the subject of Crake’s motives, they had not been recorded. Snowman crumples…”// This felt a lot like him separating himself to the point that he thinks of his past self (Jimmy) and him now (Snowman) as two different people. I did not particularly like Jimmy, or Snowman for that matter, and I felt as though he almost represents the masses. Everyone looking for the guy next to them who is 'way worse than me'.

My favorite character was Crake, because he was the most interesting and also I can really appreciate a straight forward person. I think that part of the reason he ended up the way that he did was that he grew up playing God. He graduated from a high school in a development for family members of genetic scientists, went to a college that encouraged creating new species or animals and plants. He spent his whole life playing God while surrounded by a world that was tearing it's self apart, and entertainment that made death into a game. I do not think he was a good person, nor do I think that that is an excuse, but I did find it interesting.

It was interesting that the Crakers did seem to be developing the spiritual/religious aspect regarding Oryx and Crake despite Crake's efforts. I think it is an interesting link the the Nature vs. Nurture question. Were they naturally developing the spiritual aspect or was it more to do with the way Jimmy/Snowman taught them about Oryx and Crake. Is it a part of being alive that makes living things look to a higher power, or were they mimicking Snowman's reverence towards Oryx? I think he turned it into a mythology for them because that is what he understands. When children are young, they get mythology, so that's what he gave the Crakers.

There was plenty more points of interest in this book, and I'd love to hear anyone else's thoughts about it!

Anyone have thoughts on Jimmy & Crake? What about Jimmy and Oryx? What do you think about these characters and who was your favorite?