Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood: A review

In the beginning of this book, we meet a character called Snowman. In an earlier life, which we hear about as the story proceeds, he was called Jimmy. But now he's Snowman and he may be the last human survivor of a great apocalypse.

The cause of the apocalypse is not clear to us at first, but it is gradually revealed as having been a quick-acting plague. Moreover, the plague was caused by a virus created at a place called the RejoovenEsense Compound. The character known as Crake (Glenn in his earlier life) worked in a high research position at this compound and he had brought his childhood friend Jimmy/Snowman on board to write ad copy and press releases for RejoovenEsense's products.

When Glenn and Jimmy were growing up together, they engaged in all the usual activities of male adolescents, including watching a lot of porn, often porn featuring children. There was one young girl featured in the films that Jimmy became particularly obsessed with. Years later, when he went to work at RejoovenEsense, imagine his surprise to find that now grown-up woman also working there. She was serving as a teacher to bio-engineered humanoids that will come to be known to us as Crakers. And who is this porn actor grown into woman/teacher? It is Oryx.

Thus, we have the three primary characters, indeed the only characters, that we get to know to any degree in this tale - Snowman, Crake, and Oryx.

This is speculative science fiction and so the story is built on premise rather than upon well-developed characters. The characters exist only to explicate the premise and to push it toward its resolution. The story is set at some undetermined time in the future and its premise is based on scientific initiatives gone awry, not unlike Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and his monster.

While I recognize that the characters here are only pawns in Atwood's greater chess game and really only exist to move the story along, I confess I found it a little disconcerting that we don't learn more about them, about what makes them tick, their psychological motivations. Crake, for example, appears to have a god complex. He is a monomaniac who wants to destroy what he sees as an imperfect creation and then recreate a new and improved biosphere. (Think Jehovah with Noah and the flood.) But why? What led him to this point?

As for Oryx, we know practically nothing about her, except that she was bought from her family to work in porn movies and that she was kept as a prisoner (a sex slave?) in a couple's garage for a time. She is remarkably forgiving of all those who have used her in this way and she is in thrall to Crake whom she greatly admires, even worships. Does she have a sexual relationship with him? That's somewhat ambiguous, but she does have an affair with Snowman, who is still obsessed with her after all these years and maybe in love with her. I think I would have felt a bit more engaged in this tale if Atwood had let us know and empathize a little more with these characters. But who am I to question the plot choices of a master writer?

The book was published in 2003 but it seems very current with our present scientific preoccupation with such things as creating hybrids, cloning, deextinction, and all manner of bioengineering. One senses a clarion warning in there about the possible dangers inherent in such activities. We might do well to heed it and proceed with caution.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Poetry Sunday: Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver

How about we share another Mary Oliver poem? After all, you can never have too many of those. In this one, the poet seems to acknowledge that it is often hard to simply live in and enjoy the moment, perhaps because we are afraid it can't last. She urges us to give in to that moment and fully experience the joy. Although "much can never be redeemed, still, life has some possibility left." Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is no...

Poetry Sunday: Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney

My mother was a farm wife and a prodigious canner. She canned fruit and vegetables from the garden, even occasionally meat. But the best thing that she canned, in my opinion, was blackberry jam. Even as I type those words my mouth waters! Of course, before she could make that jam, somebody had to pick the blackberries. And that somebody was quite often named Dorothy. I think Seamus Heaney might have spent some time among the briars plucking those delicious black fruits as well, so he would have known that "Once off the bush the fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour." They don't keep; you have to get that jam made in a hurry! Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney Late August, given heavy rain and sun For a full week, the blackberries would ripen. At first, just one, a glossy purple clot Among others, red, green, hard as a knot. You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust ...

Poetry Sunday: Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman

You probably remember poet Amanda Gorman from her appearance at the inauguration of President Biden. She read her poem "The Hill We Climb" on that occasion. After the senseless slaughter in Uvalde this week, she was inspired to write another poem which was published in The New York Times. It seemed perfect for the occasion and so I stole it in order to feature it here, just in case you didn't get a chance to read it in the Times . Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman Everything hurts, Our hearts shadowed and strange, Minds made muddied and mute. We carry tragedy, terrifying and true. And yet none of it is new; We knew it as home, As horror, As heritage. Even our children Cannot be children, Cannot be. Everything hurts. It’s a hard time to be alive, And even harder to stay that way. We’re burdened to live out these days, While at the same time, blessed to outlive them. This alarm is how we know We must be altered — That we must differ or die, That we must triumph or try. ...

The Nature of Things

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