Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake


Book Review of Oryx and Crake


“Oh, Snowman, what happened to Richard Nixon?”

“Shit! I mean, egad. He has offended Almighty Crake and His wrath was upon him. The spraygun is holy unto Crake and only Snowman could touch it. As Dick touched it, the Great Crake smote him unto death.”

“Oh, Snowman, tell us what we must do to please Almighty Crake.”

“Well, Abe, first off, get Snowman four fish daily, make that six. You must understand the more fish, the more it would please Crake. And hear this all Crakers. Never touch the spraygun or thou shall be struck dead like Dick.”

“But oh, Snowman, why this object and not others?”

“Thus spake Crake, Thou shall not touch the spraygun.”

“Oh, Snowman, how did this world came to be?”

“What? Well, Marie, in the beginning, there was Crake and He…”

Damn Crake, it all your fault. You created this mess and now I have to clean up your cesspool. I should’ve killed you earlier. I just want to eat my ChickieNob and drink my Happicuppa coffee. But no, you have to create a new heaven and a new earth.

“And where did Crake come from?”

“Shit!”

Snowman knows he will soon follow the footsteps of the dinosaurs and the Crakers will inherit the earth. He must leave them before he dies. And they would say he has rode a chariot of fire into the heavens where Crake dwells. They would venerate him as The Prophet and tell stories of how he slew the dragons, well, maybe just the wolvogs and pigoons.

                                             Margaret Atwood (Source: Vanwaffle at Wikimedia)

Oryx and Crake is Margaret Atwood’s apocalypse, a bioengineering nightmare of wolvogs and pigoons and rakunks and of viruses embedded in aphrodisiac pills. Crake engineered a new species, the Crakers, and eliminated humans with an eboli-type virus. After killing Crake to avenge the death of his beloved Oryx, Snowman became the guardian of the new species and must protect them against the genetically engineered beasts as well as from knowledge and wisdom. When he discovers three human survivors, he must decide whether to befriend them or eliminate them.

Emily Antles in the nonfiction Frankenstein’s Cat depicted the current advances in genetic engineering. Today, bioengineers have created balding mice, glow-in-the-dark cats and cows that give therapeutic milk and they could just as easily make wolvogs, pigoons and rakunks.

The novel’s premise supplies food for thought, and though the writing isn’t as compelling as that in The Handmaid’s Tale, it is a worthwhile read.

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