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Oryx and Crake (Atwood, Margaret Eleanor) (Hardcover)

by Margaret Atwood (Author) "Snowman wakes before dawn ..." (more)
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Hardcover: 383 pages
  • Publisher: Nan A. Talese (May 2003)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0385503857
  • ISBN-13: 978-0385503853
  • Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 15.5 x 3.3 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 1,211,954 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Inside This Book (Learn More)
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Snowman wakes before dawn. Read the first page
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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars "The elimination of one generation means game over forever.", 4 Sep 2003
By Mary Whipple (New England) - See all my reviews
(TOP 10 REVIEWER)   
Set sometime in the future, this post-apocalyptic novel offers cautionary notes about the environment, bioengineering, the sacrifice of civil liberties, and the possible loss of those human values which make life more than just a physical experience. As the novel opens, some unknown catastrophe has occurred, effectively wiping out all human life.

Snowman (known as Jimmy in his youth) is the lone survivor, a man on the verge of starvation in this desolate new world, now living in a tree for protection against "wolvogs" (part dog, part wolf) and serving as the protector of a bioengineered strain of humanoid children. As Atwood alternates between the unexplained disaster in which Snowman finds himself at the outset of the novel and flashbacks to his youth and early adulthood, which he shared with his best friend Crake, she brings a dismal future-world to life.

We never see Jimmy/Snowman engaging in the kind of personal conflict which would have led to such a grand-scale disaster, nor do we ever really experience the intense reader involvement which might have developed from observing such a conflict. Most of the real conflict, in fact, takes place in the past and is revealed only in flashbacks. Snowman’s primary conflict is his final, lonely battle with the environment to stay alive, something which advances an environmental message at the expense of dramatic tension. Characters also are subordinated to message. We know only as much about Jimmy/Snowman as we need to know in order to empathize with him in his predicament as possibly the last man on earth. The other characters are remote and distanced.

Despite its grim subject and cautionary message, the novel has a great deal of humor. With trenchant satire, Atwood pokes fun at aspects of our contemporary lives carried to extremes. Not hard science fiction, the novel is a vividly described picture of scientists run amok in a society which has failed in its guardianship of the environment and of life itself. The novel is more light-hearted than terrifying, and more allegorical than heart-stopping. Mary Whipple

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4.0 out of 5 stars Thoughtful message for the planet, 21 Aug 2008
By Hooligween "Rowena the Red" (Kernow, Great Britain) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   
I enjoy Science Fiction (or Speculative Fantasy, if you prefer) when it extrapolates from the current situation and develops themes to give us a 'What If?' world of the future. What If... we used pigs to grow organs for human transplant? What If... we developed guard dogs that couldn't be tamed? What If... a mad scientist tried to wipe the slate clean and return the world back to its Garden of Eden status?

Margaret Atwood has neatly and enjoyably tied all these threads together, and thrown in half a tonne more social commentary about parental relationships, child abuse, sexual trafficing, globalisation, the ethics of genetics and whether it's right to lie to your girlfriend (or boyfriend).
Her exceptional talent is that you don't feel as if you're being lectured, nor do you get bogged down in a sudden deluge of righteousness. This big novel scampers along at a good pace. You can empathise with Jimmy-the-Snowman who is our lead character, and you can hope for his eventual redemption (even if it is a touch unlikely). I suspect it panders to the audience a little, in that we can feel smug when the idiot-savant genius mad scientists inevitably destroy their own world, but that's no bad thing.

Atwood has pulled together the threads of SF to build a relevant novel which comments on our society, but which is entertaining and involving even if you don't much care for the underlying message. It's easy to read in chunks -- took me four or five days of a half hour each day -- and is the kind of book which inspires you to take an extra half hour off, just so youy can see how it turns out.
Will it date? No more than Animal Farm, 1984, Frankenstein or The Time Machine have dated, and they all use much the same format. Science Runs Wild! Humanity Perishes! Serves us Right! Etc.

I've not read any Atwood for a while -- this was probably the first of her novels I've picked up for 7 or 8 years -- but enjoyed this one so much I'll look out for her next.
9/10
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