Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake opens with the main character, who has renamed himself Snowman, waking up, crawling out of the tree he’s been sleeping in, blowing the bugs out of his genuine-replica Boston Red Sox baseball cap, and wrapping himself up in a sheet. A sheet he wears all the time because he has no clothing and can’t bring himself to go naked as the rest of the people who are left—the Crakers, as we come to know them—do so unself-consciously.The world as Snowman (who was called Jimmy back then) knew it has ended.
And he’s the only real person left behind. The Crakers, so called because they are the product of genetic design experiments performed by Jimmy’s old friend—and evil genius—Crake (a name he chose because of the bird), are simple, unquestioning beings whose bodies were engineered to eat only plant matter and whose social group remains peaceful because all aspects of competition, namely that created by sex, that could potentially lead to violence and war have been removed. The Crakers, like most mammals, do not date or marry or bond as pairs. Rather, the females go into heat on a regular cycle, and the males respond by taking turns mating with them.
Crake planned it all out this way. He wanted to reduce the population size and remove the flaws from human nature. But he also wanted to remove critical thinking and art and independence and spirituality. How he thought he could do that without causing major damage, I’ll never know.
The bulk of the story in Oryx and Crake follows Snowman as he journeys away from the home he has made with the Crakers and goes back to the world of the Compounds to scavenge for food and survival materials. In the time before, the elite people all lived in Compounds, each one dedicated to producing a certain type of product and moving science and technology forward. Those less fortunate lived out in the pleeblands and had to struggle against poverty, violence, and life-threatning bioforms (the Atwood word for disease) that were frequently introduced into their environment by unseen, unnamed malevolent forces.
Not much really happens on Snowman’s journey, but that’s okay because he spends a good chunk of it reflecting on what happened, on how he got here and how the world went from the world he knew to this frightening post-apocalyptic place populated with wild pigoons (pigs genetically engineered to grow human organs), snats (a nasty rat/snake combo), and rakunks (racoon/skunk) . Snowman’s memories of his friendship with Crake and of watching Crake grow from a precocious, anti-social young boy into a wickedly smart scientist with the power to change humanity fill in the gaps created at the beginning of the story.
We begin to understand, as Snowman does, that there were signs, clues that Crake’s intentions were not wholly for good, and we join him in wondering why he didn’t attempt to do anything about it and whether any potential attempts would have had any chance of making a difference. And we learn about who Oryx was and what role she played in the events that led up to this present disaster.
Oryx and Crake is Atwoodian dystopia at its very best. The world Atwood creates is so frighteningly believable that it causes us to examine our own ideas about science, religion, humanity, and exactly how much control humans can or should have over nature, and it offers us no choice but to consider the consequences of those ideas and decisions. Atwood never reveals exactly how far in the future Oryx and Crake is set, and that increases the story’s power because it feels like this world—this disaster—might not be that far away.
Despite the heaviness of the subject matter, Oryx and Crake is a relatively fast read that I found impossible to put down. Atwood’s use of language and her reflections (through Snowman) on the comfort and beauty of language are like no one else’s. And though the book has a very clear sociopolitical message—almost a warning—Atwood doesn’t beat us over the head with it. She doesn’t have to.
If you enjoy dystopian fiction (or hell, even if you don’t…Atwood is just that good), you don’t want to miss Oryx and Crake. 4.5 out of 5.
And just in case you hadn’t heard, Atwood’s forthcoming The Year of the Flood (September 22nd) is a parallel story. Word on the street is that you don’t have to read Oryx and Crake first, but I think it might help.
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