Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #130795 in Books
• Published on: 2003-05-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 384 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
"In the beginning, there was chaos..." Margaret Atwood's chilling new novel Oryx and Crake moves beyond the futuristic fantasy of her 1985 bestseller The Handmaid’s Tale to an even more dystopian world, a world where language--and with it anything beyond the merest semblance of humanity--has almost entirely vanished.

Snowman may be the last man on earth, the only survivor of an unnamed apocalypse. Once he was Jimmy, a member of a scientific elite; now he lives in bitter isolation and loneliness, his only pleasure the watching of old films on DVD. His mind moves backwards and forwards through time, from an agonising trawl through memory to relive the events that led up to sudden catastrophe (most significantly the disappearance of his mother and the arrival of his mysterious childhood companions Oryx and Crake, symbols of the fractured society in which Snowman now finds himself, to the horrifying present of genetic engineering run amok. His only witnesses, eager to lap up his testimony, are "Crakers", laboratory creatures of varying strengths and abilities, who can offer little comfort. Gradually the reasons behind the disaster begin to unfold as Snowman undertakes a perilous journey to the remains of the bubble-dome complex where the sinister Paradice Project collapsed and near-global devastation began.

This, Atwood’s 11th novel, confirms her as one of our most contemporary novelists. Darkly humorous and icily prescient, Oryx and Crake shows a writer deeply concerned with the stark moral issues facing the human race, and accords a glimpse of a future that lies all too uneasily within reach. --Catherine Taylor

Sunday Times 13th July 2003
‘superbly gripping story of a sole survivor’

Synopsis
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.

Customer Reviews

Dystopic story, myopic author
A good story, thought-provoking and worrying in many ways; but ultimately damaged by the ignorant opinions of the author.
The story traces a short period of time in the life of Jimmy (Snowman) as he failingly attempts to fulfil his promise to protect the "Crakers" in a post-apocalyptic world. Snowman though, is out of his depth, having been a rather selfish individual when he was Jimmy, and showing few signs of change now.
How the world got to this position and Jimmy's role in it, are presented in series of flashbacks: neurotic, jaded mother, a disappointment to his father, bright, but a "word-person" in world that lauds "number-people", a world where morality is subservient to the technological machine. This is where the book fails; it is too obviously a critique of science, scientists and technologists. It assumes that scientists are - too a man - autistic obsessive's, whose only driving motivation is "can it be done"; if you happen to be one of these "number-people" you might feel a little irritated by the implication. Of course, it is fair to say that Margaret Atwood has at least captured the zeitgeist of today's society in taking this position; a society that lauds "word people" over "number people"; a society where it is a tragedy to be illiterate but where innumeracy is not only accepted but positively expected in some circles of "intelligentsia".
On the positive side though "Oryx and Crake" does paint a realistic picture of our possible "first-world" near future. Some of the claims that the book is revolting, or disgusting, are misplaced; child-pornography happens, it is far more damaging to pretend it doesn't and it is pertinent to this story in that it gives a clear example of technology's globalisation of immorality; besides which, the references to child-pornography form only a very small section of the whole, and it is interesting that some take issue with this rather than the greater theme of the book, namely the human destruction of themselves.
On the whole, ignoring the problems with the hard-science and disputes over the initiators of this dystopic future-world, this book makes for a good and effortless read, although a better book with a similar theme is Kevin Brockmeier's "The Brief History of the Dead".

So what's wrong with blue penises?
Others have already discussed, dissected, critiqued, panned or praised it on Amazon, so it's simple enough to get a handle on this novel by wading through the reviews. How about this for brevity? Margaret Atwood is, in my opinion, our greatest living female writer. Her genius amazes and fills this reader with deep admiration. Entirely plausible in every detail, with piquant humour/satire and passages of mindblowing originality, read 'Oryx and Crake' for the phenomenal beauty of the language, the skillful construction, and the author's masterly understanding both of humanity and current technological trends. But please don't feel bad about it afterward, or depressed by the possibilities it enumerates. Just feel thankful that we have such great writers!

An Interesting Read...But Not My Favourite
I have to confess that I didn’t enjoy this as much as other Margaret Atwood books (Blind Assassin, The Handmaid’s Tale). I found the notion of a dystopian future with only a few survivors interesting but the book didn’t fulfil my expectations.

I didn’t like the names used throughout. It’s been said that the names were used as satire but personally terms such as snat – a half snake half rat – didn’t feel very well thought out – perhaps this was the intention but I just didn’t like it.

Nonetheless I was interested from the start to find out how Snowman ended up alone and I enjoyed reading about Crake and Snowman’s childhood and subsequent college years and careers. I thought Snowman’s career as a ‘words person’ was cleverly described, not all that different from the PR men and women of today and perfectly believable. Also Crake’s career I found believable, as the future certainly does look as though it is heading towards things which can be made, modified and changed at will by man.

I didn’t like the Crakers however, mainly because I found the women’s abdomen and buttocks turning blue a bit unbelievable, even for a futuristic story. And I didn’t particularly get Oryx either, she seemed to have little depth and it was hard to understand her attitude and outlook on life (far easier to understand Snowman’s who I did feel I knew and understood better).

All being said this book is still worth a read, it’s certainly a new take of the dystopian future and I didn’t predict the ending. I didn’t like Crake though so I was not particularly surprised that he behaved like this.

I got through the book quite quickly as I did want to find out what happened in the end, but it was not my favourite Margaret Atwood book.