Margaret Atwood is a smart writer. She makes smart literary choices, particularly in terms of plot and pacing, but she also has fascinating, often proMargaret Atwood is a smart writer. She makes smart literary choices, particularly in terms of plot and pacing, but she also has fascinating, often provocative things to say about the way we live now, and where we are heading. I enjoyed Oryx and Crake on a plot level but also felt intellectually engaged---even if I often disagreed with Margaret Atwood's speculations about our future or wanted to scream at her for imagining, in 2003, that that twenty-second century would have CD-roms or print outs. (Who are you, my mom?)
My rage at these very occasional miscalculations only underlines how total and convincing Atwood's vision is. So much of it is so good, especially in terms of world-building, that the bad sticks out like a sore thumb. Her depiction of upper-middle class life in the near-ish future feels a bit dated, all very McMansion and Botox rather than locavore fetishism and ABC Home and Carpet cosmopolitanism. (Really, rich people would be happy not being able to travel?) I wished that this imagining of a future full of nightmare GMOs and sanitized ultra gated communities made more of the fact that artisanal, back-to-the-land and small batch are often a sign of class privilege. But her disturbing, deeply real evocation of a world of deep class divides, hallucinogenic weather and global networks of exploitation feels both right-on and never op-ed column dull. The relationship between the two main characters---boyhood friends---also felt real and unexpected. I could totally see Jimmy's easy, compulsive charm (I imagined a young James Spader) and the brilliant Crake felt all too real, both in his dismissal of the "neurotypicals" and in his rationalism bordering on psychopathology. The woman in the piece (Oryx of the title) was a bit a plus-one, almost beside the point. The friendship between two men is really the emotional heart of this book. Bold move and of a piece with this bold, assured novel by a writer at the top of her game....more
Loading...
