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Oryx and Crake (MaddAddam, #1)

Margaret Atwood

Start date: May 17, 2011

Finish date: August 11, 2011

Discussion: Oryx and Crake

Discussion leader: Carley

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Oryx and Crake

Thoughts...(may contain spoilers!)
By Carley · 8 posts · 90 views

last updated Aug 10, 2022 08:48PM

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Apr 14, 2013 Lit Bug (Foram) rated it liked it

Shelves: dystopia, novels, sf, owned, fiction, other-science-fiction, canadian, female-authors-challenge, post-apocalyptic

I have terribly mixed feelings about this one, though it tends to lean more towards sheer disappointment. I'd expected a lot more from a writer of Atwood's stature. She retains her trademark lyrical narrative, which is perhaps the only thing that makes this work bearable. Technically, I find too many flaws, and to put it simply, I found the whole work too long, often disinteresting, though sometimes, it was sheer brilliance. I'm sad to rate it thus, despite being perfectly aware of the sheer amo ...more

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Dec 13, 2012 David Mills rated it really liked it

Shelves: science-fiction

In the narthex (or lobby for you "broad church" types) of the church I am currently serving is a triangular pool approximately three and a half feet deep. Its the baptistry, the place where, according to sacramental theology, believers immerse themselves into the life of God. It just so happens that this particular baptistry is also at the eye level of under seven children who have just entered the building. As a parishoner who is a lawyer often notes "that thing is a liability case just waiting In the narthex (or lobby for you "broad church" types) of the church I am currently serving is a triangular pool approximately three and a half feet deep. Its the baptistry, the place where, according to sacramental theology, believers immerse themselves into the life of God. It just so happens that this particular baptistry is also at the eye level of under seven children who have just entered the building. As a parishoner who is a lawyer often notes "that thing is a liability case just waiting to happen." Extensive training has equipped our cadre of greeter to forgo wildly waving their arms or screaming "get the Hell away from that" at newly arrived children. Instead they have learned to accompany kids the low hand rail that surrounds the baptistry and quietly observe "Ooh, that's deep isn't? I wouldn't want to fall in there would you?"

In Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood bears a striking resemblance to those greeters. She walks the reader up to the edge of an extremely unsettling future and enables them to see the connection between their present choices and her potential future. Her simple and direct (is minimalistic too strong a word here?) story of three friends (Snowman, Crake, and Oryx) living in a very probable future leads the reader to the very edge of the far reaching devastating consequences of the materialistic (which is just a theologians superior way of referring to human being's penchant for that which appears to be controllable. No Platonist am I)outlook on life. At no time does she seek to alarm us. She doesn't shriek. She doesn't leap about. She quietly tells her story and let's us think about what would happen if we thoughtlessly become immersed in it. Mulling over my connection to her tale convinced me that she is damned near prophetic. Here's two reason why I hold this view.

I reside next to a "preeminent" center of scientific research in a state bent on sparing nothing (not even conversations with administrators, teachers, parents, or apparently most of the registered voters) to raise science and math skills. Atwood's description of a two-tiered educational system that culminates in an auction where professors bid for students gave me the shivers. Part of my unease comes from spending the last two years touring potential colleges with my son. There's a bit of deja vu between Atwood's auction and one student recruiter I encountered. Or maybe I was shivering because I am a product (Atwood would love calling students "products" don't you think?). In the world of Oryx and Crake "numbers people" are quickly snapped up by well heeled schools that act as feeder programs for corporations and "word people" (a lovely euphemism for liberal arts) are sent to amuse themselves in decaying academic warehouses. Whatever it was the common denominator seemed to be that the line between fiction and non-fiction was becoming a bit hazy.

Also, I, along with roughly half of all Americans of voting age, have just emerged from a national election in which we heard repeatedly about the importance of the economy. Both candidates tended to speak of "progress" and "decline" in purely economic terms probably because they know that their audience is accustomed to thinking in these categories. Atwood's book sheds light on what may happen if ethics are confined to the tangible. She describes an America in which government has been disappeared (the tea party folks dream come true!). In its place stand corporate city-states where both supply and demand are, by way of genetic engineering, manipulated so as to maximizing earnings are familiarly frightening.

Throughout Oryx and Crake Atwood quietly and yet prophetically asks us to look deep into the pool of the future and ponder the liabilities of our current uninformed enthusiasms. I did and didn't like what I saw. How about you? Read the book and let me know what you see in it as well as around us.

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