Reflecting on Oryx and Crake

Intro:

Alright ladies and gentlemen, we did it. We all managed to read through our respected books on our own and blog about it. Some blogs have been fairly interesting, some less interesting. I hope that if you are reading this, than you have found my blog to be one of the more interesting ones. Some people liked their books, some people did not. However we found our books or blogs, we still made it to this point.

Anyway I wanted to use this last post to reflect a bit on my experience with Oryx and Crake. As you may have seen if you skimmed the sub-headings, I wanted to talk about my thoughts about the book, including what I liked and disliked, as well as if I would read it again or suggest it to another. So without making this intro any longer than need be, let me begin with my reflection.

Some overall thoughts: 

Overall, Oryx and Crake was a very interesting book. I certainly did not expect much of what I received from it, however that does not make it bad. With that being said, I really could not have forseen the casual child porn that would become foundational for one of the characters. When Kevin and I picked this book, we picked it under the original idea that it would be a satire. I am not sure if I would say it is or is not a satire, but it definitely makes some legitimate comments and observations about genetic engineering and religion.

Things I liked:

I would say that I really liked Atwood’s style of writing for the book. I think that making the book confusing for the reader makes them pay more attention to what is happening. If I idly read the book not being aware of what was going on, I would have missed some major details. This idea of small details in confusing order also adds to the value of reading the book a second time. I bet that if I read it a second time, I would probably understand considerably more than I understand now. I think this is one of the things that I probably liked the most about it. I understand and accept that I missed information while reading, and I would be interested to read it again to get a better understanding.

Things I disliked:

In my opinion, I would say that the beginning the book was slow. In a way, it was interesting because of the introduction to the characters, however this is countered by what felt like an incredible length. I felt that the introduction to the characters and the setting was foundational to understanding the rest of the plot, however I felt bored during some of the passages. For example, I felt like the book was dragging on when explaining the seemingly random games that Jimmy and Crake were playing. In reality only one of the games ever ended up mattering, however each of them were explained in what seemed like extreme detail. Also as much as I did like the confusion after having finished the book, while reading the book it felt like there was no way I was ever going to understand anything. What I mean by this is that I think I would personally like reading the book more the second time around because I actually know the plot of the book now and can focus on the minor details.

Would I suggest it/Read it again?

I think that I would suggest it to others, as long as they enjoyed the writing style of The Handmaid’s Tale. I found it an enjoyable book to read, however if I did not like the writing style I would have probably not liked it as much. It was kind of difficult for me in the beginning with the combination of introducing characters and style. I think that if I were suggesting it to someone similar to myself I would say that the book is worth reading, however the beginning will be a little slow and difficult. I think that I would also read it again. As mentioned earlier, there is so much content to the book that cannot be picked up on in one read that it is worth reading twice. I think that I will certainly take a break from it for a bit before picking it up again, but I do plan on reading it again. Overall I would suggest it to others, as I did enjoy it, however it was a bit difficult to get through at some parts and the writing style may be a deterrence for some.

I swear I'm not complaining anymore

Non-Whiny Intro:

I think it is fair to say, now that I have finished the book and read the ending, that I can and will stop complaining about the formerly confusing writing style. So, in short: It all came together for the ending. Boy it sure was an ending too, a real cliff hanger, not to give anything away. I am a little bit confused with the direction that Atwood plans to go with the way that the book ends. I am unsure if I want to keep reading the series and finish it, but I have no idea what is to come based on the way things were wrapped up.

Basically, the timelines converged. That is to say, as Snowman continued in his trek toward Crake’s dome, the story of Jimmy began to catch up faster than Snowman’s story could run. With this happening, I feel so rewarded for paying attention to all of the cutaways from Snowman’s main plot.

For example, as I mentioned in my last post, Snowman has a flashback to an intimate time he had with Oryx while looking at the skeleton of a woman whose house he was raiding. This flashback makes much more sense now that Snowman explained his erotic relationship with Oryx. He explains that it happens and tells the reader about some of the details, but it is a flashback like this that reveals more to the readers than what Snowman actually tells us. We know from Snowman directly telling us, that Oryx was sexually creative, however without this flashback, we would not have such a specific example of their love live. So this seemingly random flashback ended up giving definition to the story as long as the reader was willing to wait long enough to get the full details.

Get to the Point:

Anyway I just wanted to say how satisfied I am with how attentiveness has payed off. I could honestly write an entire blog post on just this topic, however instead I am going to talk about some of the main themes of the book. Overall I thought the two main themes were: The dangers of genetic engineering and the dangers of blindly following religion. I do not think I have the space to talk about both of these, and to be honest I don’t have the space to even fully develop one.

Dangers of Genetic Engineering:

I think this is definitely the clearest theme of the book. Even from reading the back cover of the book it was foreseeable. With that being said, I don’t think that it is a bad theme or one that is unimportant. Genetic engineering is developing more and more as the days go by, and with this, so is the relevance of this book. Anyway, even from the beginning of the book, the dangers of genetic engineering are made clear. Nearly all of chapter two is spent laying the groundwork for this theme.

For example, the Pigoons, who Jimmy felt bad for as a child, became an merciless adversary for Snowman toward the end of the book. Snowman described the pigoons as “escape artists” and even said “if they’d had fingers they’d have ruled the world.”(Chapter 11). This intelligence nearly caused the downfall of Snowman when the pigoons trapped him and then proceeded to bait him into near death. This clearly showed the audience that although the pigoons were valuable for harvesting organs, when unregulated and let loose, they could use their genetically heightened intelligence to elaborate murder humans.

The same can be said for nearly every other animal that Snowman mentions. The bobkittens, wolvogs, and snats all became loose and were incredibly dangerous for people. The bobkittens, who were originally engineered to hunt the big green rabbits, however ultimately “Small dogs went missing from backyards, babies from prams; short joggers were mauled”(Chapter 7). The wolvogs were originally engineered to be the ultimate form of security, however even after Jimmy asked Crake in Chapter 8 “What if they get out? Go on the rampage? Start breeding, then the population spirals out of control – like those big green rabbits?”, he was assured that they would not escape. But despite mankind’s best intentions, that is again exactly what happened. The snats appeared to be a failed pet idea that became lethal. Apparently they had all been destroyed, which would assume that they had to have done no good to earn themselves that fate.

So what?

So it is pretty clear that the genetic engineering in Oryx and Crake resulted in some pretty awful outcomes. The only genetically created animal that did not have this outcome was the rakunk. Sadly, this pet for Jimmy as a kid was named “Killer”, when in reality it was the only animal that was not actually a killer. Atwood uses these genetic failures to show the danger in playing god with life. None of the animals were made with bad intentions, many were good, however as the saying goes “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

Post blog note

Also I should mention, as I am bound to be asked in the comments, I did not talk about the artificially created diseases for special reasons. This blog would be like at least 50% longer if I went into detail about the dangers and ethics of genetically manufactured diseases. I recognize their importance to the novel as a theme, however I would have to write an essay to do all of the themes the justice they deserve.

I think its confusing for a reason

Clever and Witty Intro

Just in case you were wondering, the book has not gotten less confusing yet. Reading Oryx and Crake is no easy task for that reason. Trying to auto-pilot read through sections of this book is like trying to complete a jigsaw puzzle when like 2 of the pieces are stuck under the couch. You can get most of it done, but the picture will never be quite full and make sense, and sometimes you will have to cram a piece into a slot where it isn't supposed to fit. All this cramming isn’t going to do anything in the end other than leave you with a feeling saying “That's not quite right”. So long drawn out simile aside, I think that the confusion of the book is starting to make more sense though, if that makes sense.

Being completely honest, I had to think for a little bit what exactly makes Oryx and Crake and AP level book. This is not to say that the book is not good, or that I outright don’t think that the book is worthy of AP status, however what I mean is that it is difficult to pinpoint what gives the book AP merit. So after thinking for a while, what makes the book AP level, for me, is the non-linear storytelling combined with the readers need to connect information not given to them.

Why AP?

I have complained to what seems like no end about the storytelling of Oryx and Crake, but I think that is really what makes it a higher level book to read. If the book was not confusing and jumping from different time period to time period following a character that goes by two different names, then it would probably be really easy to read. As much as I didn’t like in the beginning how Snowman would casually hint at some worldwide catastrophe that led to the current fallout of a world, I appreciate now that the story did not just chronologically follow Jimmy.

This is where I find Oryx and Crake to be much like The Handmaid’s Tale. In both stories, the storytelling is nonlinear and seemingly very random at times. This writing style was very central in our reading of The Handmaid’s Tale and without it the story would just be a chronological telling of a revolution in America resulting in a corrupted new government. None of those ideas would be original or profound, however with this stylistic choice, they are accented in a new and interesting way. The same can be said for Oryx and Crake. If it were simply chronological, it would be a telling of a futuristic capitalist society that went too far with genetics and low key ruined civilized mankind. This would also not be that interesting, but it would make more sense to a simpler reader. Instead, giving an unreliable narrator and a weird nonlinear story telling produces a higher level of reading necessary for the audience to understand.

For example, in Chapter 9, while Snowman is rummaging through a house on his way further into the city, he finds a skeleton of a woman who reminds him of Oryx. There then proceeds to be a short sequence of Snowman remembering a time he had with Oryx. This flashback vaguely gives us more information about his relationship with her, specifically what she may have been into in the bed. Then it is almost as quickly and abruptly as it had started, it is cut off by Snowman actively continuing his ransacking of the house.

This is a good example of Atwood making the reader not only wait to hear the actual story on how Jimmy and Oryx became together, but what the actual context of that flashback was. She makes the reader remember what they know about Oryx so far and about her background, and makes the reader try to combine that with their inference skills of how this flashback may have occurred. This story telling is the exact kind that is random enough that it would deter lower level readers from wanting to continue reading. That is to say because the writing style combined with the storytelling creates a difficult atmosphere to easily understand the narrative.

          This is much like how in The Handmaid’s Tale, Atwood did not outright tell the readers that the story was set in Boston. She made the readers think about the context of the river, the wall, and the subways into and out of the city to make this conclusion. Not all readers would have even figured out where the book took place, which is the same style as is used in Oryx and Crake. So like I said in the beginning of the post, I think that the confusion of the story is starting to make more sense as I read on.

I think Atwood may be going for some Christopher Nolan Inception with her narration

Intro(with clever Inception joke):

Do you remember how in my last blog post I said that Oryx and Crake “definitely has Atwood's writing style written all over it”? As I continue to read I think I am starting to progressively see that. It can get confusing trying to figure out if a character is thinking something, or if it is one character thinking that another character is thinking something. So to be fair, I think Margaret Atwood was for certain all over the whole “Inception” idea before Christopher Nolan even had the thought. Anyway I still find myself often confused with what is going on, I think I am starting to understand more and more of the book as I continue to go on.

Do you also remember how in the last blog I said I wanted to get into tone and style? Previously, I felt that it was important to establish some main characters, so now that I have gotten that out of the way, I can talk about Atwood’s style. As you may remember with reading The Handmaid’s Tale, her stylistic choices of writing and storytelling were critical to the progression of the book. Oryx and Crake is very similar in how it is told, and it is equally similar in how important the style is to the book.

 Narration:

One important thing that I would definitely like to talk about first is the narration of the book. Being fully honest, I am still confused on how the book is narrated, and accordingly I am open to suggestions on how to understand it better. The narration is in the 3rd person, I believe that is something that I can say definitively. Through the entire story so far, the book has described actions as “Jimmy wondered” or “Snowman wished for more Scotch”(These are both examples and not actual quotes). The problem arises with deciding if the narrator is omniscient or not. In some cases where a character other than Snowman or Jimmy is thinking something, it is unclear if it is their actual thoughts, or Snowman/Jimmy’s thoughts about what they may be thinking. So this idea puts into question our ability to rely upon the narrator, because if it is Snowman/Jimmy’s thoughts about what they are thinking, then we know the possible bias or unreliability of the narrator. So it's fair to say I may be getting confused.

Sentence Structure:

The sentence structure is very objective and often blunt. Because of the type of narrator we have and because of our main character, we have a narrator that often describes things and explains them simply as they are. When Snowman is narrating, his depiction of his surroundings and his storytelling abilities are limited to his mental capacity, thus it would not make sense for there to be complex, intricate sentences, like that of The Handmaid’s Tale. This combination of the sentence structure and narration of an otherwise complex scene can be boiled down to something like this, “The act involved whipped cream and a lot of licking”(Pg 90). This scene describes Jimmy and Crake watching child porn, but without the context of the reading around it, the reader may be left confused. So this combination of sometimes jarring simplicity and our narrator fits very nicely together for a reading experience.

Outro:

Overall the narration and the blunt, objective descriptions helps define Atwood’s style. So although it is similar to The Handmaid’s Tale, Oryx and Crake differs in its narration and simple sentence structure. I am having quite a bit of fun with the reading so far, and look forward to getting further into the story. The only thing I can hope for is that I start to understand a bit more of what is going on.

Oryx and Crake I think is actually The Handmaid's Tale²

Cleverly Worded Intro?

I definitely don’t think I knew what I was getting into when I agreed to read Oryx and Crake with Kevin. Being honest though, he probably didn’t know what he was getting into either. Basically imagine reading Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, but instead of a societally different America, it is a post apocalyptic genetic and chemical fallout that hops between 3rd person omniscient narration across 3 different time periods. So it definitely has Atwood’s writing style written all over it.

As much as I would like to immediately go into the style and tone of the book thus far, I think it will be more important to know a little bit about the characters themselves. Unlike The Handmaid’s Tale, Oryx and Crake is not afraid to tell you who the main characters are right off the bat. The 3rd person omniscient narrator doesn’t beat around the bush with telling the audience who is talking, who the characters are, and where they came from. But in the same way the style of Atwood’s writing does manage to still remain ambiguous in some spots about who is who. Anyway the main characters that I have taken note of thus far are:

Snowman/Jimmy

Snowman is our present tense main character. He is a survivor in the chemical fallout and he may also be the last human alive on earth. Much of his time thus far seems to be spent going through his daily tasks for survival. Even though his memory is, to his understanding, actively decaying, he still manages to recite a personal mantra that goes, “It is the strict adherence to daily routine that tends towards the maintenance of good morale and the preservation of sanity”. He also largely spends his time during the day recalling the events of his past, not always happily however. It seems to the audience that whenever he finishes recalling a sequence, that he does not reflect positively upon it.

When Snowman is recollecting his past in before “this situation”, he calls himself by the name “Jimmy.” This suggests that there may be something in the book to come to cause this personal change in his character. It certainly bothers me that it seems I will simply have to keep reading to get there. If there is one thing that bothers me, it is when the author keeps implying that something really important happened in the past, but keeps waiting to actually reveal to the readers what happened. I am getting off topic, but boy it grinds my gears.

Jimmy is basically the kid version of Snowman though who lives in one of the housing compounds where his parents work. His parents both work, or at one time worked, for a genetics company specifically attempting to grow human organs in genetically modified animals. This really creepy concept is quite important to Jimmy as a character because of his being a child at the time. This leaves room for his childhood interpretation of the events around him to give a new perspective to the readers. From his earliest memories up into his teenage years we watch Jimmy grow from a curious child seeking his parents attention, to a teenager who resents his parents’ lack of interest in his personality

Crake

Crake is the name that was given to one of Jimmy’s better friends when he was a teenager. From the audience’s first introduction to Crake, he is a very objective and seemingly emotionless character. He is very centered on winning and being the absolute best he can be at what he does. This is explained to the readers in Jimmy’s explanation of how they would play video games and how Crake would methodically figure out how to win 9/10 times and then move on. Also a considerable amount of time is spent just explaining what each of the games are and how they are played, not to mention strategy, which, in my opinion, was just not necessary for the reader.

Wrap it up

Now that you may have a basic idea of the characters, and boy do I mean basic, I think that later I can get into tone and style of Atwood’s writing. The characters are definitely more complicated than their descriptions here, but I think I would have trouble really describing them without putting readers to sleep with the length required for that.