Canadian author Margaret Atwood’s 2003 novel 'Oryx and Crake', is a fable about a virus destroying the world. It was published just as the SARS epidemic was breaking out, and it became a bestseller. Now that the world is in the grip of another outbreak, reading it again in the uncertain atmosphere of the “pandemic apocalypse” certainly provides readers with a new experience.
'Oryx and Crake' depicts the near extinction of civilisation after a biotechnology and virus mutation catastrophe. After a cataclysmic event in which very few humans survived, one of them, the “Snowman”, lives in the memory of the past, slowly uncovering the causes and consequences of this “species extinction”. The story is told in a cross between the present and the past… 'Oryx and Crake' is a science fiction allegory with multiple metaphors, such as gender protest, social critique, exploration of civilisation and the fragility of memory.
In 1985, Atwood published her first ‘technology-dystopian’ novel, 'The Handmaid’s Tale', a ‘futuristic’ novel set in Massachusetts, USA, telling the story of the future country of Gilead and offering readers a sad imagining of a world of “fundamentalist” extremes. In the new millennium, the author has written 'Oryx and Crake' beginning her MaddAddam trilogy, written over the course of a decade, which is about the wreckage of civilisation after a biological crisis sweeps through humanity in a future world plagued by the misuse of biotechnology. The ‘second part’ of the trilogy 'Year of the Flood' was published in 2009, and features two female characters retelling their experiences in a horrific and panicked world: outside the dictatorial corporations that rule the world. The ‘Gardeners of God’, who appeared in 'Oryx and Crake', are gradually becoming a new force as a religious faction, in addition to the dictatorial corporations that rule the world. 'MaddAddam' (2013) completes the trilogy, bringing together the characters from the two previous novels to give an account of their role in this horrific world, how their lives evolved before and after the catastrophe, and revealing the hope of rebuilding a new civilisation from the ruins of the past.
The shelves of ‘dystopian’ future fiction are full of well-known classics: Aldous Huxley wrote 'Brave New World' in 1932, and George Orwell imagined a sad future of centralised rule in '1984'. With the rapid development of science and technology, the human world may not always move in the direction of ‘progress’. Stagnation, disorientation and even regression are entirely possible. Atwood’s work continues this lineage of ‘dystopian’ literature, and is deafening and thought-provoking in a real world beset by epidemics, national conflicts and economic turmoil. It is certainly worthwhile reading these fictional stories and thinking about how they apply to us living in the real world today.
Joe's Reading Life
Joe Tang – Author and Playwright
