Oryx and Crake [Hardcover]

ATWOOD (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: BLOOMSBURY (2005)
• ASIN: B000S7INAY
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (390 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,503,091 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

MARGARET ATWOOD, whose work has been published in over thirty-five countries, is the author of more than forty books of fiction, poetry, and critical essays. In addition to The Handmaid's Tale, her novels include Cat's Eye, shortlisted for the Booker Prize; Alias Grace, which won the Giller Prize in Canada and the Premio Mondello in Italy; The Blind Assassin, winner of the 2000 Booker Prize; and her most recent, Oryx and Crake, shortlisted for the 2003 Booker Prize. She lives in Toronto with writer Graeme Gibson.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

161 of 184 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the year's best novels for 2003, December 14, 2003

By 

Ratmammy "The Ratmammy" (Ratmammy's Town, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Oryx and Crake (Hardcover)

ORYX AND CRAKE by Margaret Atwood

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2003, ORYX AND CRAKE is Margaret Atwood's most apocalyptic story to date. For those of you who have read THE HANDMAID'S TALE, ORYX AND CRAKE is a lot more grim and depressing, in terms of the plight of the human race. It may be a challenge for some to get through this book. Those who are fans of Science Fiction and Speculative Fiction, however, may embrace this novel as I did. It is probably one of the best novels written by Margaret Atwood.

There are two main themes in ORYX AND CRAKE. First, the novel takes place in the distant future, where global warming has changed the earth so much that the coastal cities no longer exist, and New York is now New New York. Going outside in the sun is a death sentence, so the wealthier areas of the world are protected under places known as compounds, although areas known as The Pleebands still exist, where people live and are still exposed to nature in all its glory.

The second major plot line has to do with three central characters. Snowman is the narrator, also known as Jimmy, who at the start of the book is the only known surviving human being on the face of the planet. The book starts off with Snowman sleeping in a tree, barely alive, knowing that he does not have too much longer to live. Food is scarce, the sun is so hot he has blisters all over his body, and the genetically engineered creatures the wolvogs and the pigoons that have escaped are now roaming the grounds.

While he tries to keep alive, Snowman also keeps watch over a group of humanoid creatures called the Crakers, named after his "best" friend Crake, who was somehow responsible over the creation of these people. These Crakers are supposedly the ideal humans. They have no emotional desires, in particular no sex drives, except to pro-create. There is no reason for war, with this new type of human being. They are vegetarians, and do not desire meat. They are very simple people, and Snowman had promised to care for them if anything happened to Crake.

As Snowman goes back in time to reflect on the past, we learn more about Crake, who was an egotistical brilliant young man who had visions of a so-called better world. The third main character is Oryx, a woman whose history takes the reader to a third world Asian country where she was sold into a type of servitude, and eventually becomes a prostitute. She then finds her way to the western world and ends up working with Crake, becoming part of his plan when he creates the Crakers. Their story is revealed in pieces, told while Snowman goes on an adventure to find food and seek out the compound where it had all began. Snowman wants to go back to this place, hoping to find answers and food and supplies, and to remember the reasons why the human race was nearly obliterated. It's the story of these three and their lopsided relationship that leads us to answers of why the world "ended".

The new concepts and horrors that are being introduced in the book may overwhelm the reader. However, the most important theme to focus on is "what really happened"? Why is Snowman the only person left on the planet? What happened to Oryx and Crake? This is what drove me to finish this book. I could not put it down. The reader is left in the dark until the very end, when it is finally revealed how the human race was nearly wiped out. It is a very futuristic and depressing story of how mankind can go wrong in the search of a better world.

I have always had a fascination with books that take on a type of apocalyptic theme. Margaret Atwood's vision of the earth's future is not a pretty sight, but it was her story of Oryx, Crake and Snowman that made the book worthwhile. I am giving this book 5 stars, and it will most likely be in my top 5 for 2003.

48 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A radical departure from Atwood's previous novels, June 3, 2003

By 

D. Cloyce Smith (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Oryx and Crake (Hardcover)

Atwood's latest and strangest novel is truly unlike anything she has previously written, and readers of Atwood's other novels may find themselves flipping to the front, checking to see if her name is really on the title page. Like "The Handmaid's Tale," which was also set in the future, "Oryx and Crake" describes a dystopic tomorrow-land--but there the similarity ends. Featuring an uncharacteristically sparse prose and an abundance of scientific content, Atwood's bitingly satirical and hauntingly apocalyptic novel seems heavily influenced by science fiction novels of the last three decades, even while it recalls such classics as "Frankenstein," "Brave New World" and especially "Robinson Crusoe."

"Oryx and Crake" is technically a single-character novel; "Snowman" (or Jimmy) is the surviving human after a cataclysmic global disaster. He serves as a mentor of sorts to the strange yet harmless "Crakers," who have been so genetically altered that they resemble humans only in their basic appearance. Their blandness is so thorough that neither Snowman nor the reader can tell them apart. Through a series of flashbacks, Snowman describes his closest friends Crake and Oryx and their role in bringing the world to its present state; and he mockingly details his attempts at elevating them to the status of gods for the new species. Atwood doesn't really develop these two characters; instead she (through Snowman's eyes) presents only the basic, painful "truth" behind a new Genesis mythology.

The novel, one could argue, depicts a second character: the scientific community. Through extrapolation (one might say exaggeration--but I'm not so optimistic about industrial self-control), Atwood projects into the future the topics of today's headlines: anthrax, genetically modified foods, cloning, gene splicing, weapons of mass destruction, the overuse and abuse of psychiatric drugs, Internet porn, SARS, ecoterrorism, globalization. On a lighter level, she also skewers the moronic corporate brand names flooding the market these days: anyone who thinks her inventions are far-fetched should consider such mind-numbingly lame (and inexplicably popular) trademarks as Verizon, ImClone, MyoZap, Swole, Biocidin, and Rejuven-8.

"Oryx and Crake" may well fall short of some readers' expectations for "a Margaret Atwood novel." But judged as an entry in the genre of science fiction, it's a powerful and visionary masterpiece.

41 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Doesn't quite cut the "mustchup", June 17, 2004

By 

L. Feld "lowkell" (Arlington, VA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Oryx and Crake (Paperback)

Yes, I said "mustchup." See, I just invented a new word - in this case, a combination of "mustard" and "ketchup" (yum!) - just like Margaret Atwood does in her novel, "Oryx and Crake." Wasn't that fun? OK, maybe not. Well, then, how about some of Atwood's neologisms: wolvog (wolverine+dog); snat (snake+rat); rakunk (racoon+skunk); bobkitten (bocat+kitten); and of course the dreaded pigoon (pig+something or other)? Do you find this whole exercise to be fun? clever? hilarious? thought provoking? intriguing? If "all of the above" is your answer, then it's highly likely you'll love "Oryx and Crake." If "goofy," "weird," "silly," and even "pointless" are adjectives that spring to your mind, I'd strongly recommend that you read another book.

Personally, I have mixed feelings about "Oryx and Crake," including the made-up words. On the plus side, I thought the book was well written from a stylistic point of view. Plain and simple, Margaret Atwood knows how to write, and that's no small thing when you think about all the godawful stuff that passes for fiction out there in our nation's bookstores. Besides that, Atwood has an excellent, dark sense of humor, as in her fascinating "Blood and Roses" game, where the "Blood" side plays with human atrocities and the "Roses" side with human achievements. Thus, we have "one Mona Lisa equaled Bergen-Belsen, one Armenian genocide equaled the Ninth Symphony plus three Great Pyramids...but there was room for haggling." As I said, Atwood's sense of humor is dark. Besides style and humor, Atwood's certainly got something to say, with strong opinions about morality, bioethics, technology, power, society, human nature, sexuality, and much more. Finally, Atwood has a talent for creating plausible scenarios, characters, and future worlds playing off of our own present. In other words, Atwood's got all the makings of a fine science fiction writer.

So, with all those positives, why do I have mixed feelings about "Oryx and Crake?" Basically, because I feel that Atwood's talents are largely wasted here. True, she's creative, but what's the point of this book? Ultimately, it's hard to know; Atwood is frustratingly vague. Just as importantly, why should we care about the world and characters Atwood creates, starting with the title characters, Oryx and Crake. As far as Oryx is concerned, my feeling at the end of the book was, "goodbye Oryx, sorry I don't care very much, but frankly, I hardly knew ya!" I mean, you'd think that the character whose name is listed first in the book's title would get a bit more fleshing out than the measly treatment Oryx receives in "Oryx and Crake." But, sadly, she doesn't. After nearly 400 pages, I honestly couldn't tell you the most basic things about Oryx: who is she; where does she come from; what makes her tick; why should we care? And yes, I had the same problem with Crake, the other character of the book's title. Unfortunately, these questions apply in many ways to the book as a whole: what is this book all about; where does the world described here come from; what makes it all tick; why should we care?

Another problem with "Oryx and Crake" is that, while it's inventive on a certain level, it's really not very original or interesting. At times, I found myself wondering if Atwood simply took bits and pieces from some of her favorite books and movies -- Blade Runner; Twelve Monkeys; The Island of Dr. Moreau; Gattaca; The Time Machine; Frankenstein, Brave New World - and spliced them together like the rakunks and snats populating the world of "Oryx and Crake." The problem is that, like pigoons and wolvogs, there's something artificial, uninteresting, and strangely cool/devoid of emotion about the synthetic creations, human and animal, that Margaret Atwood gives us in "Oryx and Crake."

Still, lest I completely slam "Oryx and Crake," let me just end by stating that there is a lot of good material here, and I was glad I read it, frustrating though it was. If you've read Atwood's fiction previously and are a fan, I would certainly recommend that you read "Oryx and Crake." If not, you might want to spend you r time reading something else in the dystopia/sci-fi genres, perhaps by Philip Dick, Alfred Bester, or HG Wells. Now THOSE guys really cut the "mustchup!"