Saturday, March 21, 2009

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood



4 stars

Oryx and Crake is told from the point of view of Snowman. All we know in the beginning is that Snowman is the last known human alive and he's watching over a group he calls "The Children of Crake". Snowman tells us the story of what happened to the rest of humanity and how The Children of Crake came to be through flashbacks starting in his childhood.

I am a fan of dystopian literature. Brave New World by Huxley and The Stand by Stephen King are two of my favorites. Although this novel starts out a bit slow, it does turn into a very interesting, eye opening story. The best dystopian novels are the ones that you can actually imagine happening and Atwood managed that with Oryx and Crake. I look forward to reading more of her work.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I thought it was pretty good too. Enjoyed it way better than THE ROAD. Gosh, how depressing that was!

Jennifer said...

I liked it a lot more than The Road. I had issues reading The Road because of the lack of punctuation.

susan said...

Jennifer, Come pick up your Splash Award.

Patrick Soon said...

I have to agree to about The Road too. I haven't even finished reading it yet (about 40 pages left) and I'm opposed to picking it up. The punctuation isn't consistent, though mostly lacking appropriation, giving the novel a monotonous, dreary tone.

On the other hand, Oryx and Crake was quite funny and interesting at times (it only slowed a little right before the rapid-paced ending. I was glad to have read it in a dystopic lit class in which I gave a presentation--based on Inside the Actor's Studio--on the novel as a future movie called "The Crakers". We envisioned what Atwood's novel would be like if it featured Joaquin Phoenix (as Jimmy/Snowman), Chloe Sevigny (as Crake), and the direction of George Lucas. It mimics James Lipton's Inside the Actor's Studio.

Jennifer said...

That's very interesting Patrick. Sounds like a class that I would enjoy!