Oryx and Crake

I'm late to the game reading Margaret Atwood's "Oryx and Crake." It caught my attention when it was banned here in Utah under HB29 for containing "sensitive materials." I guess that's one outcome of a book ban—it draws more attention to the book.

I started a Book Club here in Salt Lake City at one of Utah's most unique and inviting bookstores, The King's English Bookshop. This book was our first selection.

Being part of this book club was a genuinely inspiring experience. It provided a wonderful place to connect with fellow book lovers and engage in stimulating discussion. The diverse interpretations and perspectives shared during our meeting shed new light on the book and challenged my understanding of the novel.

"Oryx and Crake" is set in a post-apocalyptic landscape. The story follows Snowman, possibly the last human survivor, navigating a world populated by genetically engineered beings.

This was my first Atwood novel, but I know her reputation. Her strength lies in weaving complex themes into a compelling narrative. The book explores genetic engineering, corporate power, environmental collapse, and the consequences of unchecked scientific advancement. Her world-building is intricate and believable, drawing fascinating and alarming parallels to our current society. This may be why it was banned: Too shocking, too close to home. (Although there are references to child pornography and quite a few sexual acts are referenced. I don’t believe this is for a young teenager; I do believe it is for a mature high school student. During our Book Club discussion, parents felt that they would have access to everything in this book if they had a smartphone. At least this book isn’t showing what it references, but it does help spark conversations that should be had between a responsible parent and their teenager).

I also appreciated her use of mixing present tense and flashbacks. This technique aids character development, builds suspense and intrigue, and provides context for present events. You're constantly learning new things about Snowman, Crake, and Oryx and their intertwined pasts that explain their present lives.

Where it fell short for me was Crake's lack of likability. He felt Elon Musk-like to me—but with this written 20+ years ago, Atwood certainly had a sense of things to come. Also, it felt like the pace of the world that was built didn’t match the pace of the book. I wanted it to move along quickly.

Many people felt unsatisfied with the ending's ambiguity. It was the best way to end the novel. Not only does it keep the door open for sequels, but it also left me pondering what might have been versus what was.

As we see headlines of more intense natural disasters, inventors pushing the limits of what's possible, and genetic engineering of food, this book—as "old" as it might be—is prescient and timely. It should be included in great dystopian fiction alongside works like "1984" and "Brave New World." Perhaps it shouldn't be banned because it raises the questions future generations should be considering so they can create a future they want to live in.

I rarely do this, but I abandoned this book just about 3/4 of the way through.

I realized that I just wasn't enjoying it anymore. Atwood's dystopia is a broad caricature of a hyper-capitalist future filled with clichéd, George Saunders-esque portmanteau satires on corporate naming (CorpSeCorps, Pigoon). With a more generous scholar's eye I can see how that vision may have been prescient and counter-cultural when it was published in 2003 in the shadow of 9/11, but dystopia has been fleshed out and deconstructed in media in the years since, and now it reads as flat and thinly characterized.

Her imagination of a teen boyhood in which these adolescents have been so numbed to exploitation that child pornography, executions, and animal torture are treated as normal entertainment options among many seems heavily influenced by A Clockwork Orange and maybe this is my old age speaking—one of the great surprises of adulthood is learning that I basically have no interest in the hyper-violent media that would have lit me up in high school—but I think that Clockwork came out of a particular context and it's assumptions about how culture and morality interact should be looked at a little more critically than they are in Oryx and Crake.

One more critique:

I thought the whole storyline involving how the boys "met" Oryx was tasteless and irresponsible. There are many real life stories about men getting obsessed by girls they encounter in porn, and I think that there's a certain seriousness and gravity to those stories that demand good, rigorous storytelling if they are to be fictionalized.

What a book!
I am giving it 5 stars, but I am not sure what to feel... this story has so many ups and downs... so many raw and interesting reflections. It is a book about loss, trust, love, and friendship.
It is a dystopia genre, but it is also a complicated love story. Generally, relationships are not easy to deal with. In this world, without conventional rules, they get worst. Especially the relationships between two friends!
Here we also discover a loss of your identity or what you believe you once were.
I can't explain how many things this book has!
It was a terrifying read and also really entertaining.

Atwood has a unique flair for creating a dystopian future that seems entirely possible, but also a world with little descriptive spices of ironic humor that relieves the horror. Definitely have [bc:The Year of the Flood 6080337 The Year of the Flood Margaret Atwood http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1282858720s/6080337.jpg 6257025][b:The Year of the Flood 6080337 The Year of the Flood Margaret Atwood http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1282858720s/6080337.jpg 6257025] ready to read next when you're finished with this one.

This neurotypical found Oryx and Crake surprisingly humorous, especially for the dystopia-to-apocalypse variety of science fiction.The world Atwood created starts out with people in a corporate-dominated society, who have no freedom, no fresh food, no regard for humanity, and the WORST PART no value for any kind of art or romantic love. Humanity just puts up with it, which is the most devastating thought of all. (Okay, there is a resistance movement but we don't know much about them.) That doesn't sound so amusing but something in the way Jimmy/Snowman tells the tale makes it that way. The so-called genius known as Crake has a negative fixation with sex and sexuality which is over-the-top to the point of being funny. For instance, when a clinical trial participant of a Viagra-like pill called “Blysspluss” gets a giant genital wart over her entire body, I have to figure Atwood is pulling my leg. Nothing in [b:The Handmaid's Tale 38447 The Handmaid's Tale (The Handmaid's Tale, #1) Margaret Atwood https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1578028274l/38447.SY75.jpg 1119185] led me to believe that Atwood had any sense of humor whatsoever but maybe I misjudged her. Anyone who can find the humor in dark topics is tops with me.

In my opinion, the first half of this book moved too slowly. The first 200 pages could have been condensed to 50 without losing anything of interest. They have an unbelievable level of control over designer genetics - and I mean that literally - I can't bring myself to believe these manipulations are possible.

Wow. Oryx and Crake is a masterpiece of literature. I almost didn't read it because of my disappointment in [b:The Blind Assassin 78433 The Blind Assassin Margaret Atwood http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/416HQRCQjnL.SL75.jpg 3246409], which I mention not to further disparage but rather because I'm the third person I've spoken to who feels similarly, and I would hate for anyone else to miss out.Oryx and Crake is phenomenal. Yes, it hits on the major tropes of our time: commercialization, corporate ownership (of ideas, culture, people), isolation via computers and instant gratification and, of course, genetic engineering. And in all of those areas, Atwood draws apt, occasionally chill-worthy parallels. Even without agreeing with all of her conclusions, the skill is evident. But nearly all of those points have been made by roughly a trillion other dystopic fantasy novels and reading it yet another time, even if superlatively done, would not be worth it in and of itself.Rather, where Atwood shines is the novel's treatment of existential questions: how easy it is to exterminate a species, a language, a culture, an idea. How irrevocable extinguishing something can be. And yet, underneath that, the converse: how honed the survival mechanism is. How a single organism still carrying a philosophy can seed it universally until it is impossible to extricate. These ideas are so fascinating that I spent probably hours with Oryx and Crake propped on my lap thinking about the implications.The other existential theme is what the nature of humanity really is and what can be sanitized to make a better world versus what are the qualities that are necessary to call a being actually human. Atwood's handling of these themes is unapproached by any other modern novel, making Oryx and Crake a must-read for everyone.

I started this in audiobook format in 2010 and, for some reason, gave up on it. I'm slowly coming to the conclusion that some books are actually better in written form than audio. That said, my second and successful attempt were also with the audiobook and I thoroughly enjoyed it, although I would like to return to it in written form some day, because the language is so good. This here is no pulp fiction, this is literature, baby!

As many others have stated in their reviews, what is so striking about this dystopian science-fiction story is its plausibility. We're kind of half way there already with genetic engineering and gene splicing. It's like the Frankenstein conundrum, but in the modern age. just because we can doesn't mean we should.

I see from the header on Goodreads that this is the first of a trilogy. I'll have to look into that, although I did think the ending of the story was just right. I could imagine high-school and university students discussing the ending in tutorials and essays. Brilliant!

This has been on my shelf since it was first released, and I am determined to read it in 2010. Summer camping trip seems ideal. Lots of pretty scenery to counteract the bleak story.

The ending was abrupt but interesting, and I quite liked the book. I was surprised, I didn't expect to enjoy it as much as I did.

Honestly I am a little in awe of this book. It manages to hold your curosity and intrest and never let bit go to the last page. I liked the way it jumps from past to present time constently.
I am still in shock by the ending, finnaly understanding why it is how ti is in the presnt time. It just shocked me so much.
The story was a little TOO messy for me but yes I did enjoy it in general.

One can rely on Margaret Atwood. She is always good.
But heavy. It is painful to read this book. Too painful so that I would read the other parts of this series. Maybe one day, in the future.

I am participating in several reading challenges and have 56 books to read this February :-D
I don't think I'll manage... the books I have chosen have over 20.000 pages, so I should read some 750 pages every day. I read about a page a minute, so it would take me 12-13 hours to read my daily dose...
nevertheless, I read The Eternal Champion yesterday, and in that there was a discussion between two characters, about how two humanoid races cannot coexist like cows and horses can... because cows and horses don't know they compete about the living space and resources, and cannot calculate and speculate about the future... I find it interesting how everything is connected...

After reading the Handmaids Tale I wanted to read more Margarte Atwood. The premise of this book intrigued me.

This is a world that is post apocalyptic world after Genetic Enginerring companies have unleased a plague that destroys humanity.

This book has been described as a love story but I would not described as such. While our main character who goes by snowman does in fact have a love interest that is not really the point of the story as a whole.

Much of the book is backstory describing events that lead up to our main characters current place in the story so I found there was not alot of actual plot progression, but despite that the narrative was for me very compelling and a read that would just not let go leaving me anxious to get back to where I was in the story.

This book does contain trigger warnings for some highly controversial and senstive content relating to child sex slavery.

Oh snowman, guardian of the children of Crake and the children of Oryx, thank you for taking me on this journey.

I found the ending rather abrupt, but really enjoyed everything else about this apocalyptic novel. We explore the before and the after, of a plague that cleared earth of most its inhabitants. What's left is an engineered tribe of new humans, and our narrator Snowman, who is haunted by the voices of his past, who might have played a crucial part in the downfall of humanity.

Campbell Scott has a great voice for audio narrations.

Book Review: Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood - first in a dystopian trilogy. I almost stopped several times, but I kept reading because of the good reviews of later books in this trilogy. The problem is that you have no idea what is going on for the first 3rd of the book. And then it is really not until the end that you really get the whole story. But by the time I get the story I am not really sure I wanted it. I also had a problem with crassness of the story. I think it was intentional, showing culture as well as technology had been corrupted.

The full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/oryx/

Some parts of this review are more subjective, and I just want to warn about that. Also spoilers are discussed, but it's not detail-heavy.

I thought the world pre-dystopia was interesting, though on the generic side. It isn't anything that i haven't seen before. Genetically modified animals, rampant consumerism centered around vanity, massive and unethical corporations, people fully giving into vices such as lust and gluttony, a world made up of 1% elites and 99% poverty-stricken masses...But I guess sometimes things don't have to be super interesting or mind-bending to still be engaging to read about. But there were some really interesting parts, parts that I wish were expanded upon more. Without going too much into detail, the relationship between the Crakers and Snowman was something I wish we got more of. Their interactions were always kind of fascinating for me to read. The sub-story of progressing through society through the eyes of a character growing up in it was also a neat way to explore it.

The prose...I'm mixed on. I was also reading The Handmaid's Tale by the same author (though I'm not far into it) and for some reason, it just feels so much more weighty in Oryx and Crake, and not in a really good connotation. I really appreciate how poetic Atwood can get in her writing. It's beautiful and almost musical in some places. In other places, it's so bothersome to work through. It's a jumble of complicated words and sentence structure and lots of word play. I don't know, maybe if I was in a different mood while reading this, I'd feel different about it. This is pretty subjective, and it's probably based on my own shortcomings. It's strange because in the few pages I've read of the Handmaid's Tale, it seems to be executed so much better? The prose there seems to have that same poetic quality without making it feel like I have to decipher a paragraph. This was especially evident in Crake's dialogue. Oh god, it was a struggle not to just skim through all his dialogue. I'm glad that not everyone talked like him, I don't know if I'd be able to get through the book if that were the case.

I'll be honest and say I have mixed feelings about the “two stories/timelines going on at once” method of writing. It really all depends on the execution. I've read books that do really great with it, and it offers a way of unraveling mysteries in a gripping way as you progress through the story. On the other hand, it becomes a jumble of stories that not very coherent and hard to keep up with. This book was in the middle of the two. There's the initial fascination and wonder of wondering how Snowman and the world got into the current predicament, and the anticipation of seeing Jimmy go through the world and wondering at one point do they coalesce. At the same time...wow, did Atwood screw it up with changing tenses and random sparse interjections that come off as jarring. It felt sloppy in a way, and she kind of ruined what could've been an otherwise engrossing set-up to reveal the story.

(spoilers ahead)

For the characters...the only remotely interesting one was Snowman, and I was really only interested in his change to Snowman and his interactions with the Crakers and how that shaped his identity (of which we get little of). I cared little for Jimmy. Crake was only interesting in his goals and not in the character in himself, and Oryx...she was just implemented so weird. She hardly felt like a character at all, more like a last minute addition. She's alluded to as a symbol throughout much of the story and there's a gigantic build-up to her eventually being introduced into the story, and when she is introduced...it was weird. Most of her inclusion was just through her backstory, and I have no clue what that was supposed to add to the story, since it didn't really add anything at all. It was almost like a big tangent, like Atwood made up this character and had trouble fitting her into the story, and just shoved her in there because she didn't want to waste time. It would've worked so much better if Oryx had a bigger impact earlier on, so she didn't feel like a disappointing “pay off.” Or maybe just stay as a symbol instead of feeling like she was shoved in to justify the giant childhood sex slave story that Atwood felt she had to put in the middle of the book.

Also, I note that the official summary calls this story a “love story.” Uh...did I miss that? Where does it become a love story? You mean when Oryx pointlessly starts narrating her life story to Jimmy to emphasize that child porn is bad (or not even that, since Oryx apparently isn't all that broken up at being sold as a child and being forced into doing child porn)? You mean the two pages that say “Crake loved Oryx (though we're never really shown or have it elaborated on) but Jimmy starts to sleep with her” and then the book ends about 30 pages later? That's an “unforgettable love story?” Really?

All in all, it was a book with redeeming qualities that kept me reading through the end, but was bogged down by its flaws that keep me from confidently saying it's a great book. I guess I could say it's a good book? For me, it hovers in that in-between area of “ok” and “good.”

But there is one thing I want to say in this review: The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson kept on popping up in my head at certain times when I read this. They have some similarities but they're totally different books, I think it was just in the speculative fiction nature of them both and how they touch upon some similar themes at times? I feel like the prose in the two books are near opposites, and they both have a habit of jumping around different places, though Atwood's book focuses more on different times and Stephenson focuses more on different characters. I prefer The Diamond Age to Oryx and Crake so...I don't know, if you found this book disappointing, try that one, I guess. A weird note to end a review on, but it would've bothered me if I didn't say it.