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A review by znorgaard
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
3.0
This novel has some major flaws, but was enjoyable overall.
The novel is narrated by Snowman (aka Jimmy), a survivor of something (initially it's unclear what exactly happened). He operates as a sort of caretaker for a group of highly divergent humans that seem to have been created by Crake.
The novel jumps across temporal perspectives with Jimmy giving us ramblings of his past life. What makes this so convoluted is the non-chronological nature of the jumps. In one section he's 12, in the next he's in his 20s, and then back to present post-collapse reality. The jumps are well defined but make for a stutter-stop narrative that fails to create a natural flow.
The jumps aren't strongly related to the events taking place in the present until one scene near the very end of the novel. I'm not sure it was worth sacrificing narrative cohesion for a single interesting scene. If there had been parallels throughout the entire novel, I think it would have worked much better.
The characters also come across as surprisingly flat. We're expected to believe Jimmy was madly in love with Oryx, but I don't believe we're given a convincing image of love. We're just repeatedly told that he loves her. This is true for many of the more involved character relationships and personalities as well.
The book also focuses on the few corporations that are genetically modifying organisms and developing wonder drugs to control the vast majority of the world's food supply and wealth. It also touches on the moral dilemmas associated with genetically modifying humans. Despite such an amazing set up for a deep dive into explorations of the ambiguous nature of right and wrong the subjects are merely hinted at with proposed questions left unexplored.
What the book does well is think up outrageous genetically modified plants and animals that could be seen as the ultimate conclusion of current research. It creates an interesting hero villain but fails to ever give us an insight to his motives or rationale.
I liked the subject and the plot moves quickly in the last 40% of the book, but getting there was a slog.
The novel is narrated by Snowman (aka Jimmy), a survivor of something (initially it's unclear what exactly happened). He operates as a sort of caretaker for a group of highly divergent humans that seem to have been created by Crake.
The novel jumps across temporal perspectives with Jimmy giving us ramblings of his past life. What makes this so convoluted is the non-chronological nature of the jumps. In one section he's 12, in the next he's in his 20s, and then back to present post-collapse reality. The jumps are well defined but make for a stutter-stop narrative that fails to create a natural flow.
The jumps aren't strongly related to the events taking place in the present until one scene near the very end of the novel. I'm not sure it was worth sacrificing narrative cohesion for a single interesting scene. If there had been parallels throughout the entire novel, I think it would have worked much better.
The characters also come across as surprisingly flat. We're expected to believe Jimmy was madly in love with Oryx, but I don't believe we're given a convincing image of love. We're just repeatedly told that he loves her. This is true for many of the more involved character relationships and personalities as well.
The book also focuses on the few corporations that are genetically modifying organisms and developing wonder drugs to control the vast majority of the world's food supply and wealth. It also touches on the moral dilemmas associated with genetically modifying humans. Despite such an amazing set up for a deep dive into explorations of the ambiguous nature of right and wrong the subjects are merely hinted at with proposed questions left unexplored.
What the book does well is think up outrageous genetically modified plants and animals that could be seen as the ultimate conclusion of current research. It creates an interesting hero villain but fails to ever give us an insight to his motives or rationale.
I liked the subject and the plot moves quickly in the last 40% of the book, but getting there was a slog.