COMMENTARY: Oryx and Crake (2003)
The following are thoughts and reactions I had while reading Oryx and Crake (2003) by Margaret Atwood. They do not reflect my overall post-reading opinion of the work.
⚠️ SPOILER ALERTS AHEAD (obviously). ⚠️
- Pg.58 - because she’s a literary writer first, she captures the emotional trauma of a dysfunctional family and the dynamics so damn well. The science is still well researched but it’s not the star. Character is. Deeply flawed, broken people playing god. It’s lovely.
- Pg.92 - was totally not expecting child porn to show up as a subject matter and for the title character to be the subject…
- Pg. 92 - you know you’re reading literary fiction when absolutely nothing happens in the present timeline while all the action if any is in the past reflection and flashbacks. Genre fiction would’ve had someone or something attack him in the first few pages and he’d be on the run or chasing something or looking for some magic object.
- Pg. 114 - was Oryx created from scratch by Crake and Snowman?
- Pg. 156 - holy cow what? Cats purr to self heal???
- Pg. 164 - wtf. Preprogrammed mating.
- Pg. 188 - I dunno. Artsy people are always afraid society will stop supporting the arts or something. It’s such a paper tiger.
- Pg. 247 - ha ah aha ha . Jimmy is a self-help copywriter!!!
- Pg. 250 - book was written in 2003. Atwood could predict textile technology (email on sleeve of shirt) which still hasn’t received critical mass adoption… but couldn’t predict the extinction of physical digital media (DVDs and CDs). When did streaming and bit torrents go vogue?
- Pg. 314 - it ends in a love triangle of jealousy… contrasted with Crakers who don’t have any of that. Not sure how I feel about it. It feels too literary again. Trying to inject meaning and commentary at the cost of the plot.
- Pg. 323 - religious allegory. Oryx and Crake are asking Jimmy as if Jesus asking Simon son of John to take care of his sheep. Crake is God/Jesus. Who is Oryx?
- Pg. 329 - this is getting too Shakespearean for me. It’s forced dramatics.
Snowman = Advertising - Man
Crake = Genetic engineering - God
Oryx = Sexuality - Jesus