Book Review: ORYX & CRAKE by Margaret Atwood
Another "Perfectly Wrong" dystopia
Book Review: ORYX AND CRAKE (2003) by Margaret Atwood
Why do dystopian novels so often leave me feeling cheated? It goes for several of the classics of the genre.
ORYX AND CRAKE is likely to achieve the status of a dystopian "classic", because of its many qualities — sharp writing, pitch-black humor, narrative drive, and effective use of existing biotechnology as a plot device.
And yet… it shares the same basic flaw as its peers (such as 1984). That is, to depict a future that is "Perfectly Wrong."
A (fictional) Perfectly Wrong society crushes all resistance and rebellion, despite being so utterly dysfunctional and miserable, that you wonder why anyone would bother to defend it.
A Perfectly Wrong society is led by insane, corrupt morons... and yet it carries out its Perfectly Wrong policies with magical efficiency. Judging by the evidence presented, it should lose — and yet it triumphs.
(I have noticed a similar pattern in conspiracy theories: they also invent scapegoats who are both totally evil and omnipotent at the same time.)
Is the novel supposed to be read as allegory? It is still too heavy-handed. Despite the obvious skill of the author, in the end this novel left me cold.
It’s not so much that “this scenario couldn’t happen.” It’s that every single human character in ORYX & CRAKE is useless. Among its main characters are a nihilistic mad scientist, a good-for-nothing protagonist, and a woman whose role is to have the label "victim" virtually stamped on her forehead.
The plot is that biotechnology runs amok and the useless characters are totally incapable of doing anything about it, except speeding up the disaster.
Seen it before, tired of it.
ORYX & CRAKE is readable, and quite upsetting, and extremely bleak. But in the end it has very little to say, except “people are stupid and self-destructive and therefore it’s all going to hell.” Whether you want to read this, is up to you.
See also my essays
- “Cultural Heresy: What If "1984" Is Overrated?”
- ” ’The [INSERT SCAPEGOATS] Are Behind Everything’ Gets 3 Stars Out of 5.”