Monday 6 August 2012

Oryx and Crake

The Handmaid's Tale is one of my favourite books so therefore I was looking forward to reading Margaret Atwood's later dystopian novel.  Mostly I enjoyed it a lot but at times it got a bit downright strangely weird.   Even now I am still unsure if Oryx was a real character or a computer implanted figment of the imagination.

Anyway,this book is set in the near future and is about what will happen if  the unimpeded progression of scientific advances of today continue  and therefore,the consequential  terrible results.

People who work for big corporations live in heavily protected compounds whilst the world around them collapses as people die due to uncontrollable airborne viruses, wars,floods, storms and famines.  Society has ceased to function at any level and corporations run the show/world.

the world has no fish or meat to eat due to extinction and there is a severe lack of natural food. The corporations have bred new spliced animals. For instance..  Pigs mixed with racoons (Pigoons) for human transplants and a new kind of chemical chicken for 'natural' protein, which has no brain (hence can feel no pain) and is just a load of chicken breasts growing around a central point. People mostly just live on bland fake soy and piles of pills and drugs.

Droughts mean nothing really successfullly grows any more and the people who are lucky enough to live within the corporation boundaries literally live in a bubble, protected from the horrors of the outside world.

Crake is a super intelligent, delusional scientist who also suffers from believing he is God. He decides to kill off all humanity with an uber-super drug after splicing the perfect human beings called the Crakers; who eat nothing but grass, have no need for language or sun cream and are peace loving and incredibly beautiful.   Love and jealousy don't exist either because women just go into heat like dogs and four guys are chosen to service the  woman for a 3 day shagathon. Children are bought up as part of an extended faimily.

One poor guy is left alive to look after the Crakers. (Crake chooses his best mate and secretly immunises him against the killer virus.)  His name is Snowman (due to always being wrapped in a bed sheet to keep the intense sun rays off his skin). 

  The book is really just a stream of consciousness based around Snowman and his memories.  Parts of it are really funny (Especially when he remembers the food he used to eat and the  computer games and shows he used to watch as a kid).  Other bits are just down right weird.  But hey, I respect Atwood for writing such a mad book.  Parts of it make no sense and I feel like she was off her head whilst writing it...but hey, she's passionate and her energy and ideas kept me hooked. 

The ending is really unclear too which would have annoyed me if I didn't have the second book to read... I've already started that.  Bring on the horrors!  Let's hope it all starts to make a bit more sense after book two.

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