Part 1: Chapter 1-5

[Sam]

Discussion thread for 1st third of Oryx and Crake

[Sam]

I finished part on on my flight to Japan the other day, but I haven't had a chance to share my thoughts.

The story is intriguing. I like the way its being told through flashbacks. I look forward to learning What Happened. It seems like humanity is left in a twisted world of his own making, with many of the animals replaced with genetically altered creatures, the pigoons, wolvogs, rakunks...

I'll admit that I initially thought the pigoons were birds, but I figured that out pretty fast :P

There must be other survivors of the apocalypse. (Not counting the Children of Crake - I think they were created to survive) Other survivors like Snowman.

The flashbacks do a good job of showing a society that's failing, but trying as hard as possible not to. The world is falling apart, climate is changing drastically, humanity is being partitioned into communities based on what they do. It seems people's lives are more controlled by who they work for, not the government that they live in. Its a extremized version of the capitalistic world we live in. The world is already dystopic before it ends.

[Mike]

I finished this a couple days ago as well.

I agree with Sam's take on the world, most of the surviving wildlife sounds like it's from surviving experiments from humanity.

So far, I'm getting the impression from Snowman when he thinks about the whispers from Oryx and/or Crake, is the Oryx might represent good and Crake might represent evil as the good and bad shoulder angels. I think this is also shown in the back story of Crake, where, to me, he comes across a bit dark (because he's quiet and angry/rude seeming) and this is later shown even more when him and Snowman (Jimmy at the time) start getting into watching some pretty nasty videos. Oryx on the other hand, which we haven't heard that much of yet, shows she's kinder (even though she had a rough past). I believe she was the one that told Snowman to save the Pigoons, and maybe the Children of Crake (I can't remember exactly though and couldn't find the quote(s)).

I found it interesting that Snowman made Oryx and Crake both deities.
Which could also represent this good/evil. This seems to be shown from Snowman's history he tells the children. He's made the kids (humans) come from Crake (who is evil). Where humans also could be the cause of the worlds problems, i.e. its destruction. Oryx on the other hand (who is good) is the deity that has created necessities to sustain human life, i.e. wildlife and vegetation (not sure on vegetation). She also takes the remains of anything that has died (and been buried) to reuse, to create more life.

To me, the history of humanity that we've been introduced to so far appears to always have been post-apocalyptic (Or maybe it is just this super capitalistic world). I believe there were references from when Snowman was a kid that some communities or cities were already destroyed (flooded I believe). This caused the formation of the communities we see now, which to me seem more like safe zones than anything (I could be wrong here though).

Now, Snowman seems to be either living away from these communities (run away? or left to save the kids/animals?) or there has been another disaster. I believe another disaster occurred because of the intense sun, where Snowman is unable to go into it, unlike the Children of Crake.

[Renée]

So far I'm finding it difficult to get myself to keep reading this book. But I feel like that may reflect more on me, since I just finished a whirlwind reading of the Hunger Games trilogy, than on the book. The pace is pretty slow and there are few characters. As Sam said, the flashbacks do seem to leave the reader the smallest amount of information possible and much is left to inference.

When I got to the part where Snowman was answering the questions of the Children of Crake in exchange for his fish, I felt under the impression that the book would play out as a warped Adam-and-Eve-new-world-genesis tale, much in the way that Steinbeck's East of Eden is a Cain and Abel tale.

Despite my aversion to the pace of the book I think I'm going to stick it out. I need to break my YA addiction!

[Frank]

Agreed on the story telling through flashbacks. I like that Snowman is going slightly mad, or at least so it seems.

Rather than good and evil for Oryx and Crake it seems to me that they present a sort of class struggle, two different faces of humanity as it was. Crake being the shining product of the privileged, Oryx that of the downtrodden. So far don't know much about Oryx.

Crake is presented as the stereotype of the detached youth of the affluent. The youth or Snowman and Crake seemed to overplay the media dependence of our youth, but I could see that as teenage rebellion against the community confinement. It rings well with Snowman's mother and her story.