Oryx and Crake

Good thing it's a trilogy, this feels like laying groundwork - a long, slow reveal. Atwood does a stellar job stringing it together and keeping it interesting but it feels like the payoff is still a few books off.

Apparently Atwood is not fond of the “science fiction” label for her work. Here we have science extrapolated. Genetic modification of animals, internet sensationalism, have and have-nots, environmental chaos and viral catastrophe. While ChickieNobs and deathrowlive.com may be a bit on the nose, I enjoyed the funhouse mirror look at the world that once was - I'm eager to see how the characters inhabit the world they've inherited.

I started this in audiobook format in 2010 and, for some reason, gave up on it. I'm slowly coming to the conclusion that some books are actually better in written form than audio. That said, my second and successful attempt were also with the audiobook and I thoroughly enjoyed it, although I would like to return to it in written form some day, because the language is so good. This here is no pulp fiction, this is literature, baby!

As many others have stated in their reviews, what is so striking about this dystopian science-fiction story is its plausibility. We're kind of half way there already with genetic engineering and gene splicing. It's like the Frankenstein conundrum, but in the modern age. just because we can doesn't mean we should.

I see from the header on Goodreads that this is the first of a trilogy. I'll have to look into that, although I did think the ending of the story was just right. I could imagine high-school and university students discussing the ending in tutorials and essays. Brilliant!

This was four stars until the ending, because what the hell, ending.Kind of generic post-apocalyptic dystopian last-man-on-earth etcetera... but well-written and very readable. Wanting to find out what happened and how all the pieces fit together made for a compelling read.But. None of the three characters seemed especially like multidimensional people with real personalities. It was like...CRAKE: The immoral scientist who doesn't really have or understand human emotions, and thus thinks it's a good idea to destroy civilization and create a new, "better" species to replace humans on the planet.ORYX: The remarkably beautiful, compassionate, perfect woman who teaches the Children of Crake about empathy and stuff, and whom both of the other characters idolize and love.SNOWMAN: The ordinary guy who just happened to end up in the middle of events.Crake, meh, I'm sick of the “scientists just don't understand ART or EMOTIONS or WHAT MAKES HUMANS HUMAN and therefore they are going to destroy the world” trope. I don't buy it, it's an unrealistic strawman – a projection of people's fear of technology. And anyway Vonnegut already did it, so can we just move on?Oryx, cringe. She was a symbol, not a person. Presumably because that's what she was to Snowman and Crake, but ugh. She'd been through all sorts of shit but her fucked up past basically only affected Snowman, she didn't really seem bothered by any of it. She was sort of canonically ineffable and mysterious and blah blah women they are such strange creatures, like goddesses, so full of wisdom but you can never understand them, and then of course she gets put in charge of the realm of emotional stuff for the Children of Crake. She spends the whole book being a symbol and providing oblique, pseudo-deep non-answers to questions, and then gets killed without even being conscious for it, so that's cool I guess. I don't have enough suspension of disbelief for Oryx.Snowman/Jimmy, he's just this guy, you know? He makes a bunch of stupid mistakes throughout the book which I assume is supposed to show that he's JUST AN AVERAGE GUY and not really that bright or anything. I get that he's supposed to be pathetic, I just spent the book not really caring what happened to him and not being able to identify with him at all. Oh, he's also really passive and basically just lets stuff happen to him for the entire book.Then in the end you finally find out what led up to the destruction of civilization, but Crake's behavior isn't explained, and Oryx's true feelings are never revealed, and then the first really exciting thing happens in the present day and Snowman is hesitating, trying to decide what to do about it AND THEN THE BOOK JUST ENDS.Literally almost threw this one across the room when I got to the end.Actually, the more I think about the plot, the more I suspect it of being somewhat moralistic... e.g. Oryx and Jimmy, by their actions, convinced Crake that he was right about humanity (or just made him jealous), therefore them sleeping together indirectly brought about the fall of civilization. Which means it's just another book where an honest conversation or two (and maybe some open relationships) would have solved all problems, but NOPE, BETTER JUST DESTROY CIVILIZATION.Second edit: It's possible I'm just sick of dystopian stories about how basically human nature is going to inevitably lead to the apocalypse. It's even in the story that humanity destroys more than it creates (in the Blood and Roses game, where artistic and cultural achievements are weighed against acts of violence). I read this book right after [b:Cloud Atlas 49628 Cloud Atlas David Mitchell http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1344305390s/49628.jpg 1871423], and feel like Cloud Atlas tackled that message better and in a way that makes more sense to me. Or at least made me feel less like not getting out of bed for a week.

Wow. Oryx and Crake is a masterpiece of literature. I almost didn't read it because of my disappointment in [b:The Blind Assassin 78433 The Blind Assassin Margaret Atwood http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/416HQRCQjnL.SL75.jpg 3246409], which I mention not to further disparage but rather because I'm the third person I've spoken to who feels similarly, and I would hate for anyone else to miss out.Oryx and Crake is phenomenal. Yes, it hits on the major tropes of our time: commercialization, corporate ownership (of ideas, culture, people), isolation via computers and instant gratification and, of course, genetic engineering. And in all of those areas, Atwood draws apt, occasionally chill-worthy parallels. Even without agreeing with all of her conclusions, the skill is evident. But nearly all of those points have been made by roughly a trillion other dystopic fantasy novels and reading it yet another time, even if superlatively done, would not be worth it in and of itself.Rather, where Atwood shines is the novel's treatment of existential questions: how easy it is to exterminate a species, a language, a culture, an idea. How irrevocable extinguishing something can be. And yet, underneath that, the converse: how honed the survival mechanism is. How a single organism still carrying a philosophy can seed it universally until it is impossible to extricate. These ideas are so fascinating that I spent probably hours with Oryx and Crake propped on my lap thinking about the implications.The other existential theme is what the nature of humanity really is and what can be sanitized to make a better world versus what are the qualities that are necessary to call a being actually human. Atwood's handling of these themes is unapproached by any other modern novel, making Oryx and Crake a must-read for everyone.

Atwood has a unique flair for creating a dystopian future that seems entirely possible, but also a world with little descriptive spices of ironic humor that relieves the horror. Definitely have [bc:The Year of the Flood 6080337 The Year of the Flood Margaret Atwood http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1282858720s/6080337.jpg 6257025][b:The Year of the Flood 6080337 The Year of the Flood Margaret Atwood http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1282858720s/6080337.jpg 6257025] ready to read next when you're finished with this one.

This has been on my shelf since it was first released, and I am determined to read it in 2010. Summer camping trip seems ideal. Lots of pretty scenery to counteract the bleak story.

The ending was abrupt but interesting, and I quite liked the book. I was surprised, I didn't expect to enjoy it as much as I did.

It seems like it took forever to finish this book. I've only read one other book by Margaret Atwood (The Handmaid's Tale), so I decided to check out some more of her writings. I was very disappointed in this one. I thought it was poorly written & the ending was just terrible.