Book Review: Oryx and Crake

Just like you can't pick up a Charles Dickens book without expecting to encounter a multitude of wordy descriptions, or a John Irving book without expecting a story preoccupied with sex, you can't read Margaret Atwood without expecting at least some minor foray into fantasy or science fiction, although when I started Oryx and Crake, I didn't expect it to be yet another unsettling vision of genetic testing and "children of the future," which is all I feel like I've been reading or watching lately. Whereas in Atwood's The Blind Assassin, which has as its primary plot the disintegration of a family (particularly two sisters) over the course of the twentieth century, while interweaving a separate, fantasy-laden story-within-the-story about a blind boy and a sacrificial virgin, Oryx and Crake is science-fiction through and through. Like most science fiction, it's also a satire and an expression of contemporary fears about science and technology, which means that elements of our real world are essential to the story, but the world Atwood creates is also quite different from our own: part of Oryx and Crake is set post-apocalypse, wherein the main character, Snowman, believes himself to be the last living human on earth, but the pre-apocalypse portion of the story still seems to take place in what we would consider the future, after plagues and natural disasters have forced the well-off into gated compounds and left the rest of the world (or at least North America) a chaotic dystopia called the pleeblands.

All of the world is really a dystopia in Oryx and Crake, though, because while the people who live within the compounds lead comfortable lives, they also exist in a state where science and technology rule every aspect of human existence and morality as we know it is almost nonexistent. Scientists splice animals together to create new breeds, sometimes for no other reason than their own amusement, while also altering animals like chickens and pigs to be nothing more than meat machines; executions, assisted suicides, and horrific pornography have overrun the Internet, with no apparent disapproval from the public; and there is the constant threat of viral outbreaks that can breach the walls of the compounds and literally liquify a person in a matter of hours. Even the more mundane aspects of life are stifled in a way we can't currently imagine: each compound is set up around one scientific company or another, with travel between compounds possible only with a special clearance, and life is so intrinsically tied to the father companies that if careers outside these companies exist within the compounds, they aren't mentioned.

From his last-man-standing vantage point, Snowman recalls growing up in these compounds as a boy named Jimmy, and the book is evenly split between his current situation and his recollections of his past, particularly his relationship with his best friend Crake and his obsession with the elusive Oryx. As the title suggests, Oryx and Crake are essential to the development of the story, yet we only ever see them from Jimmy's point of view; I don't want to give away too much, but I would assume that, as Oryx and Crake is the first in a trilogy of books, Atwood provides more information about these two characters in later installments, because as the story reaches its climax Crake, in particular, makes certain decisions that can't be completely explained by Jimmy's interpretation of them. Oryx and Crake is a compelling, if not always pleasant, read, marked by both satiric humor and terrifying premonitions of our possible future, but I do wish Atwood had spent a little less time with Snowman and a bit more time delving into the relationship between Jimmy, Oryx, and Crake, so that we might have a better idea whether this near-extermination of the human race stems from a bad love triangle or is simply the inevitable conclusion of a society too eager to play God.