Has anyone else out there read Oryx and Crake

[justinsb]

by Margaret Atwood? It paints a realistic, startling and in an interesting way hopeful picture of the future.

[uppityperson]

1. Just finished it again. Have to be in the right mood for Atwood.

Gets me going way to cynically a lot of the time, have to be in either a really postive or really negative mood. She is right on with a lot of what she writes. How about Sheri Tepper?

[justinsb]

3. Sorry? Don't know Sheri Tepper

I found it an interesting possibility in Orxy and Crake though that the entire evolutionary purpose that we were meant to serve was to create a species that didn't have our limitations. I believe that everything in nature happens for a purpose, but with man I have a hard time seeing what that purpose is.

[uppityperson]

9. She writes mostly about womens issues but other stuff too.

Gate to Women's Country was one book that has been around for a while. She has done a little sci-fi too. I liked Family Tree, again dealing with science and genes and spirituality and all. If you like word play also, read it. It starts out with 2 different stories which eventually come together. Some of her books you just don't know what is going on until the middle, then it makes sense. This one is like that.

Turns out she was in charge of the Colorado Planned Parenthood for a while, which explains her feminist/humanist stance.

Crake I don't see as evil, just helping things along, but then I believe that humanity will be extinct in the not too distant future (which doesn't stop me from trying to slow that down).

[justinsb]

10. Thanks

I'll keep an eye out for Tepper. As I said in another post, while Orxy made a good goddess/mother figure, I think that Crake made a good (old testament) god figure. God created man and at at least one point (according to the story) killed all but a handfull of them (see Noah).

[justinsb]

11. Extinction

sorry, didn't mean to finish without commenting on our pending extinction. That is the road we are on. Whether or not we arrive at that destination is still up to us, but preventing it is going to require a very serious shift, one I don't think most are ready for or willing to pay the price of.

[evlbstrd]

2. I read it.

I love Atwood's work, and enjoyed Oryx and Crake.
But I didn't find the hopeful conclusion you found.

[justinsb]

4. Read the post above as to the Crakers

I wouldn't call it hopeful in the sense most people would think, but the possibility that we can leave a better version of ourselves before we manage to arrange our extinction is hopeful in it's own way.

[evlbstrd]

5. I didn't come away from the book with that.

I was more afraid of genetic manipulation, especially in the hands of a megalomaniacs.

[justinsb]

6. Granted, that was there

and I can see that. But, Crakes actions (though certainly evil) seemed, from the tone of the rest of the book, to have only sped up the inevitable. In the world in which the story was set, the outcome was inevitable, only the aftermath changed.

[evlbstrd]

7. I'll have to re-read it.

But there was a striking resemblance to the wish of some Fundies to bring on the End Times.

[justinsb]

8. Yes I do see that

even while reading it I could see both, but in the world Atwood put forward I can't imagine human life continuing for much longer. While Crakes actions were certainly horrible, I can see the desire to re-create man without the flaws that had brought them to that point. A version of man that could survive in the world without destroying it. I think a debate about whether Crake was a good guy or a bad guy could go on for quite some time. Orxy certainly supported him, and I saw no indication that she was evil in any way - she made for a good goddess figure.

[evlbstrd]

14. I thought that Oryx was symbolic of raped innocence.

And that the future was unknowable. How would the engineered creatures evolve?

[justinsb]

15. I do not see any reason

why a creature that is produced by genetic engineering, would fail to evolve naturally thereafter. DNA is still a natural organism, both before and after being altered.

[evlbstrd]

16. We evolved naturally.

How's that turning out? How did that turn out in Atwood's scenario?

[justinsb]

17. Everything evolved naturally.

We are the exception, not the rule. There is no reason why genetically modified animals would not continue to evolve naturally. In the history of life on the planet there have been some creatures that failed to adapt and died out, Of course there is a chance that Crakes creatures would eventually, at some point, meet this fate, but there is also a chance that they will not or at least that they will be around for a very long time before they fail.

[evlbstrd]

18. The point is that there are no certain evolutionary paths.

Crakes' creatures could certainly evolve into another self-destructive race. It was left wide open.

[justinsb]

19. They could, but not likely in the same way

being herbivores, who have natural immunity to predators as well as insects (hence less disease) along with their mating by lottery, they would tend not to be as greedy, agressive, or curious, they would have no need to make tools, or weapons and little fight over and no reason to horde.

[evlbstrd]

20. So they are stuck in an evolutionary dead end.

The higher brain functions have been sacrificed. Again, bleak.

[justinsb]

21. Not necessarily, the brain capacity is still there

the ability to learn is still there, but the triggers which spark that learning would have to be different. In other words, it would not be motivated by agression, lust and greed and would therefore produce different outcomes.

[evlbstrd]

22. Again, what are the triggers?

I think she left that unanswered. And she posited some pretty fierce predators.

[justinsb]

23. She also listed defenses from those predators

such as a natural repellent, and there were many indicators of a natural curiosity - they were always asking questions about everything around them.

[hatrack]

12. I find myself fighting that apocalyptic impulse, but loved the book

There's something about The End Of The World that is irresistably appealing to me - damned if I know why, since God knows (so to speak) it's not from any religious impulse.

Maybe it's the wish for resolution of one kind or another, even if that resolution is nihilistic and fundamentally appalling. Maybe it's the wish for the kind of brutal lessons with which, as I heard the opening battles of World War I described, "God teaches the law to kings". Maybe it's the wish for venal, petty and profoundly stupid political leadership to be revealed as the fools that they are - not giants, but dwarves standing on piles of money.

There is, in fact, a fascinating book called The End Of The World. I can't remember the author's name to save my life, but it's a dark romp through western history, ranging from the fall of Rome to the Black Death to the Lisbon Earthquake to the Albigensian Crusade - came out maybe 20 years ago.

It's in me, and I try to fight it, but it's what made Oryx and Crake so fascinating - that, and the realization that if there's a way to screw things up, human beings will find it. Or, as Harry "Lucky" Towns was heard to exclaim when the torpedo hit the Lusitania (after surviving the Titanic and the Empress of Ireland as a sailor), "Now what?"

[justinsb]

13. lol...I hadn't heard the Harry Towns bit, that's funny

But, As I've been discussing above, Oryx and Crake is both an end and a beginning. Orxy is the mother/goddess and Crake is the (old testament) God, sending the floodwaters (virus) to cleanse a world too far gone for survival, but also planting the seeds of a new beginning, a version of man without our built in limitations (the ones that have lead us to where we are - greed, lust, aggression etc).

[Scout]

24. yes, excellent novel

I love Margaret Atwood. And you're right, it was a hopeful future. I kind of wish a little bit that we were really like the race created by Crake.