WEEK THIRTEEN: Atwood and Oryx and Crake

This week, I looked into Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake. I started this novel and hopped around, doing some research of my own. Filled with intriguing content and paired with Atwood’s distinctively witty style, I can already feel that I will be going back to finish the story. Oryx and Crake features a bizarre cast of characters who are dealing with a sort of post-apocalyptic world created by Crake (a mad scientist of sorts) who wanted to create a world of his own devices. Crake essentially annihilates the human race and wants to see how moldable the world can be. I found a particularly interesting and relevant quote that seems to sum up how I feel about the book from The Daily Telegraph, stating, “The bioengineered apocalypse she imagines is impeccably researched and sickeningly possible: a direct consequence of short-term science outstripping long-term responsibility.” 

The novel is relevant to today’s world. We see science recreating the world and politics intermingling with the evolution of man/nature. It is a descent into manmade chaos wherein only we are to blame for the atrocities brought upon us. Atwood writes this not only as a piece of literary genius but as a forewarning.

I think it is important to address how Atwood’s writing differs from genre writing. Oryx and Crake, in my opinion, relates to a broader audience than other more genre-specific, fan-service type writings that can also a part of speculative fiction. Atwood wants to reach out to a broader audience. Her writing, in content, discusses loftier and more psychological subjects. She herself has openly argued that her writing is not science fiction (filled with monsters and aliens) and rather that her ideas could actually happen to us, by us. Not to say that other authors don’t write well, but Atwood’s writing is thoughtful and interesting to read for the way it is written. It reminds me of Murakami in the sense that they are both dealing with speculative fiction but while writing it in their own, highly literary, voices.