Oryx and Crake - the first book of Margaret Atwood's recently
concluded MaddAddam Trilogy - disconcertingly projects a
myriad of current realities into what seems to be a not-too-distant future,
characterised by all-powerful multi-national companies, paranoia, rising
fanaticism, extreme poverty, mass surveillance, total mechanisation of nonhuman
others – the list goes on interminably. Atwood’s suspected future has multiple
settings that are divided by “the waterless flood”. This event serves within
the novel to separate human created “Paradice” (354) from a post-apocalyptic
earth and does so within the ever-present context of radical climate change.
Before Crake’s worldwide annihilation of humans, corrupt multinational
companies with unimaginable wealth and non-existent ethics shape society, and
are posited against the lowlife of “the pleeblands” (31) and the distant
“peasants” (210). These companies are portrayed as an element of current
reality that will morph to become increasingly dangerous on both local and
global scales. A number of clues to their power are illuminated through the
flashbacks to the protagonist, Jimmy’s childhood, through which the readership
learns that his family’s existence and all the material things within their
lives “belonged to the OrganInc Compound” (30), that many educated people were
fooled into believing that institutions such as “the CorpSeCorps” were their
people (32) as opposed to corrupt protectors of industry secrets, and that
dangerous individuals could be literally “dissolve[d]” (208), as seen through
the death of Crake’s mother. These memories – all of which occur within
claustrophobic imagery of “walls and gates and searchlights” (31) and daily
thunderstorms with accompanying deluges (49) – reveal just some aspects of a
society in which life is penetrated by global institutions that have a lot at
stake and a lot of enemies. The concluding scenes of Oryx and Crake show
the fulfilment of Crake's project, in which his Crakers have taken
the place of humans, who have been virtually wiped from earth by his
BlyssPlus pill. The innocent routines of the Crakeres emerge as
they gather indigenous flora for food, copulate when necessary, and
urinate to protect themselves and these activities contrast the desperation and
creativity of Snowman’s survival. Whilst the contrast is stark, it is difficult
for the readership to decide which existence is better - and which group Atwood
endorses. This can be seen in Atwood's inclusion of Snowman’s stream of
consciousness that anticipates a conversation with the Crakers, in which they
ask a repetitive string of “what” questions
“Oh Snowman,
please, what is violence? – or if they attempt to rape (What is rape?)
then women, or molest (What?) the children, or if they try to force
others to work for them…Hopeless, hopeless. What is work? Work is when
you build things – What is build? – or grow things – What is grow? – either
because people would hit and kill you if you don’t, or else because they would
give you money if you did.What is money?” (426)
Taking up half a page, this
internal dialogue is long and tedious. The Crakers’ lack of understanding
renders them perpetual children, who must be protected and cannot, at any stage,
be part of complex conversation. As a human reader it is difficult to decide
which is better, a world inhabited by humans with all their accompanying
anxieties, destructive habits, health issues, and differences, or a
world of eternally happy, healthy, sustainable, and undifferentiated
post-humans. Because Atwood endorses neither, or does so only subtly, readers
must decide based on their own priorities and values. A technique that makes
this decision difficult is the shaping of Jimmy’s character to be a wordsmith
and man of impressive memory, evidenced when he recalls “the book in his head”
which suggests he is to “ignore minor irritants, to avoid pointless
repinings, and to turn one’s mental energies to immediate realities and to the
task at hand” (51). This and similar expressions of human intellect work to
inflame the readers’ love for the power of the human brain and consequently the
Crakers’ world – without literature and art – seems empty of meaning. All this
said, one line prompts me to suggest that Atwood does not endorse Crake’s
project, and this is Jimmy’s recollection of Crake’s specific words: “symbolic
thinking of any kind would signal downfall” (419-420) after the Crakers made a
picture of him. Having begun the process of creating symbols, this scene
foreshadows the evolution of the Crakers’ into something more human than was
intended, which would render Crake’s project a waste.
