Don't Mess with those Chromosomes

While the first half of the novel hinted at most of the themes, this most recent section hammers them in and backs them up with the actions resulting in the reality Snowman lives in (partially at least).

Some Style and Character Updates

A lot has happened since my analysis of style and characters in Oryx and Crake.  I am getting less skeptical of the truthfulness of the narration, but certain journalistic interjections keep me heightened (mostly the “revisions” that the narrator makes to Jimmy/Snowman’s thoughts).  It appears that the narration has converged on third person limited omniscient even in the flashbacks and the stories that Snowman remembers of Jimmy and his friends is Jimmy/Snowman’s understanding of them.

We finally have some confirmation on the timeline.  It’s been around 2-3 months since the incident happened and human activities have died down significantly (pun intended).  It still unclear, however, how Snowman survived it all, although my suspicion tells me it has something to do with Crake.

In General

Most of the ideas introduced in this novel are fresh to my youthful, poorly-read eyes, but the kinds of issues it deals with are very similar to those in The Handmaid’s Tale.  Where The Handmaid’s Tale focuses on the extrapolation of extremist religion, Oryx and Crake focuses on the dangers of science and genetic engineering.  Both novels use these messages to convey the same overall message that the leaders of these societies use religious ideas and the power of science to suppress the masses, further empower the elites, and widen the wage gap (maybe not widen the wage gap, but you know what I mean).

The Big Hitters

The novel is based around a post-disaster world caused by an outbreak of invented diseases: a clear vehicle for sending a message.  It isn’t lightly hinted at either when Crake tells Jimmy, “’The best diseases … would be those that cause lingering illnesses … the patient should either get well or die just before all of his or her money runs out.  It’s a fine calculation’” (211).  By distributing these diseases and providing treatment for them, the big genetic engineering companies with funny names can rake in the Franklins that fall their way.  Not only do they spread the diseases, but Crake’s father, who was a potential whistleblower, was killed, “for the general good” (212).  The general good for whom may I ask?  Sections like these that beg similar rhetorical questions from the reader are commonplace and make the book interesting to read (unlike Song of Solomon).

It isn’t only the genetic engineering firms that exploit the poor living in the slums, called “pleeblands”.  The also funny-named self-help company AnooYoo (say it out loud and it makes sense) does just the same.  Even though Jimmy takes a drastically different path through life than Crake, they still end up working for big, crooked companies.  Now, I’d like to think economically for a second; these companies are not inherently evil because they are large, but since their goal is to manipulate the needy into buying expensive products that don’t help them, thus causing them to spend more money on them, I can call that crooked.  It is simply good advertising “to describe and extol, to present the vision of what – oh, so easily! – could come to be,” (248) but Jimmy even, “[made] up a word … [and] [h]is proprietors like those because they sounded scientific and had a convincing effect” (248).

Other Critical Organs

The supporting theme of genetic engineering takes another form.  The animals that are invented get loose and live in an environment not prepared for them, but they seem to get by just fine (quite well in fact).  Atwood utilizes some spicy dramatic irony when Jimmy and Crake are talking about, “if [the wolvogs] got out … then the population spirals out of control.’” (206).  Crake astutely observes that, “’[t]hat would be a problem … but they won’t get out’” (206).  The irony is that earlier in the novel, in the Snowman time, the wolvogs are a persistent problem for Snowman for just this reason.

The other issue with these animals is that by creating a new species to solve a problem, new problems arise that may be worse than the old problem.  Bobkittens are a prime example of this.  They were supposed to solve the overpopulation of genetically engineered rabbits that got out and reproduced like crazy, but “small dogs went missing from backyards, babies from prams; short joggers were mauled … “ (164).  The question of genetic modification and adding foreign species to ecosystems is a hot topic among the ecology and biological community today.  While beneficial in some situations, Atwood reminds us of the consequences if done incorrectly.

Complementing the big-hitting idea of synthesized diseases, many medical treatment facilities are available for the upper class to essentially live forever.  A very early example in the novel is the pigoons, which are pigs designed to grow human organs for harvest.  All kinds of options are available, from kidneys to livers and even full sets of skin, anyone who could pay the price can get fixed up.  Atwood paints these services as impossibly evil through Snowman/Jimmy, but in reality, they are only a few steps further from the Botox injections that people get today to try and stay young.  She criticizes the obsession with staying young and living in your golden years forever.

Some Social Commentary

There are numerous different references to recent events of the time of publishing the novel.  One is the 9/11 attack and an extrapolation on the fear that it caused in our country.  In Jimmy’s art and creativity college, “live performance had suffered in the sabotage panics of the early twenty-first century – no one during those decades had wanted to form part of a large group at a public event in a dark, easily destructible walled space” (187).  This is a warning that we cannot let the fear of the past dictate the future so strictly.

Overall, the novel is critical of the hard-core fanatic activists.  Bernice is oh-so-memorable in this regard.  Her initial description repulsively renders her as, “a fundamentalist vegan … [who] wore a succession of God’s Gardeners T-shirts, which – due to her aversion to chemical compounds such as underarm deodorants – stank even when freshly laundered” (189).  The other similar, although less extreme, characters that Jimmy meets harass him for how he appeases the big corporations and eats ChickieNobs (imagine a plant that grows chicken wings).  Since Jimmy thinks his mother plays a role in this community, I suspect we will get more information about it.

Some New Uneasiness

I am getting worried that all the questions I am accumulating as I read this novel won’t be answered by the end, because Oryx and Crake is the first in a trilogy!  Without spoiling too much, I wish I could know how well the book can stand on its own.