Oryx & Crake - Margaret Atwood

(Read early July 2006)

I wasn't planning to read this - I was looking for The Penelopiad (which I later did find), but I didn't find it at the Whetstone branch library when I was there, and I did find this one.

Oryx & Crake takes place in a truly frightening world about 100 years in the future. Gene splicing technology has run amok, and society's elite are the scientists and their families, who live in heavily guarded complexes, sheltered from the desperate and dangerous lower classes. It's not merely crime that keeps the elites in their gated cities - fearsome, incurable viruses that have mutated out of control melt people's bodies like "gumdrops" in a matter of hours. A protective suit - or a vaccine - is needed in order to venture out into the "pleeblands." Scientists are able to create new skins for the reluctantly aging, customize babies for picky parents, and grow specially adapted convenience foods.

In the story's present, a man we know as Snowman, but who was once called Jimmy, is the last human alive after a terrible manmade plague wiped out the entire species in a matter of weeks. Snowman spends most of his time searching for edible food, staying out of the scorching sun, and fending off some of the genetically spliced feral animals that threaten his survival: creatures like rakunks (a cross between a skunk and a raccoon, with fun fur patterns but no odor), pigoons (pigs modified to grow multiple extra human organs, for transplant), and wolvogs (fierce dog/wolf crosses).

Jimmy/Snowman is in charge of the curious new race of humans created by his best friend, genius Crake - also the creator of the plague with which he purposely wiped out the rest of humanity. Jimmy was spared to look after the new race of people, whom he calls Crakers. They are genetically modified with special features that improve upon the regular human design - such as a natural scent that functions as an insect repellent, and body parts that change color at appropriate times for mating, eliminating any jealousy or spurned love.

And who is Oryx? She is a mysterious woman involved with both Crake and Jimmy, forming a love triangle of sorts. She is chosen by Crake to educate the new-style people he has created, who live in a sealed-off area where they never see any other regular humans. Jimmy particularly pines for her, never achieving the intimacy he longs for, and in the blasted post-plague world he imagines or dreams that he still hears her talking with him, or that she visits him in spirit.

Although he has taken up Oryx's task, Jimmy doesn't have quite he same ability to teach, and often simply relies on the new beings' view of him as a god - an idea that goes against Crake's original intent. But what will happen to the Crakers if the 'god' dies? While scouting for some increasingly difficult-to-find food - and answers - Jimmy becomes seriously wounded, and the Crakers' unique healing methods don't help him at all. Will mankind as we know it die with Snowman, or is there still hope? Even if I wanted to ruin the story for you, I couldn't, because it's left open at the end.

I think I will never be able to eat a "bucket of chicken" again, after reading the description of the "ChickieNobs" food product created in one of the labs... basically a living creature modified from a chicken, but with a round body that grew many meaty "knobs" (I picture something like that 1990s children's toy, the Bumble Ball) - headless, but with a small slot in the top to insert nutrients... a lab might grow hundreds of them, the new version of a chicken farm... Although he is disgusted when he first sees them in development, Jimmy comes to enjoy the ChickieNobs as his favorite fast food, and remarks that if you can forget everything you know about their provenance, they aren't so bad. I think that is the image that stuck with me the most... because although the bigger premise of the book is easier to dismiss, those little details seem frighteningly achievable.