Margaret Atwood
Knopf Doubleday, USA (May 2004)
389 pg.
Review by Maria Andrade
The first novel of the MaddAddam trilogy, Oryx and Crake takes us to a future world as it is experienced by Snowman, its protagonist. As is frequent in Atwood’s novels, readers need to pay attention to the clues that the author provides so that they may slowly find their bearings in a strange, unpredictable world. How to talk, then, about this novel, without giving things away? Much of the pleasure lies in the discovery, in slowly putting together the pieces of a puzzle and figuring out what each of the new, strange terms may mean, so it is important to give away as little as possible in order not to spoil the fun.
We encounter Snowman on the top of a tree, waking up to a dreary dawn. From his vantage point, he can see the birds perched on the watchtowers in the sea and the pink of dawn somehow still seems strangely beautiful. He is wrapped in a bedsheet and apparently has no clothes on, except for his “authentic-replica Red Sox baseball cap.” After he climbs down from the tree, and carefully checks his surroundings, he finds his stash and treats himself to breakfast, a mango that he keeps in a bag in order to protect it from hungry, savage ants. As we follow Snowman’s morning routine, we get a sense of things not being right, of a menace lurking, and of the precariousness of his situation. Food and water are scarce, and he seems to hoard random canned or bottled goods. Sunscreen seems to be very important, but he has none, and he must be on the constant lookout so as not to be attacked by something or someone. A group of multicolored children comes to him and asks him questions, which he answers in devious and enigmatic ways. He calls them “the children of Crake,” but he claims to be alone and to long for a real human voice —other than the voices in his head. What has happened to the world? Who or what are Oryx and Crake? Where are they? As we read the novel, we try to uncover the enigma.
The narrative moves along two levels: Snowman’s present and urgent task of finding supplies, and flashbacks that tell us who he once was and how he got there. These memories introduce us to an absurd and decadent future world, and which in fact seems to be close to our own, in which capitalism goes unchecked and genetic engineering has entered every aspect of life. Atwood is never heavy-handed, and her portrayal of this world is darkly humorous. Cities have become “the pleeblands,” and are rampant with crime and disease, while more affluent people live in company-owned compounds, completely isolated, although they visit the pleeblands for illicit sex and drugs. Instead of a public police, there are now company-sponsored CorpSeCorps, which ”protect,” monitor, and possibly eliminate citizens. Teens spend their free time watching endless hours of child pornography or public executions on their computer, and they play video games such as “Extincathon,” where they encounter animals like the dodo and the polar bear. There is no “natural” food any more, and everything has been modified genetically or resembles something else: there is even a new “animal” (or machine?) that only grows chicken breasts.
One of the wittiest aspects of Oryx and Crake is its take on the marginalization of all non-scientific forms of thought as a kind of useless divertimento or as an acolyte for industrial production. Science and technology have conquered society, and writing exists only in order to help sell industrial products. Snowman, a relic from the past, memorizes lists of words that have fallen into disuse as a way of hanging on to humanity, and he alone questions the ethics of genetic experimentation and the definition of what it means, or meant, to be human. Like other works of post-apocalyptic fiction, Oryx and Crake invites us to look at our own reality with critical eyes.