I know Atwood is one of Canada's National Treasures but something about her style just doesn't work for me.

Having also read "Handmaid" and "Testaments," with the same hollow unsatisfied feeling upon closing each book, I simply don't think the writing is on par with the ideas.

I do agree she has some interesting messages, and some aspects of her WorldBuilding are remarkably original and/or well-drawn.

But, particularly in this book, very little about the characters, pacing or the writing itself does enough to engage my interest and compel me to keep reading with anticipation.

What at first seemed interestingly odd eventually turned into tedium. Long stretches in Crake bored me; none of the characters had redeeming qualities; the gimmicky wordplay was excessive and the Important Messages were overplayed.

After plodding through all that, the eventual disclosure of events precipitating the end of civilization was underwhelming and the ambiguous ending simply fell flat. ( )

Wow. Oryx and Crake is a masterpiece of literature. I almost didn't read it because of my disappointment in [b:The Blind Assassin|78433|The Blind Assassin|Margaret Atwood|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/416HQRCQjnL._SL75_.jpg|3246409], which I mention not to further disparage but rather because I'm the third person I've spoken to who feels similarly, and I would hate for anyone else to miss out.

Oryx and Crake is phenomenal. Yes, it hits on the major tropes of our time: commercialization, corporate ownership (of ideas, culture, people), isolation via computers and instant gratification and, of course, genetic engineering. And in all of those areas, Atwood draws apt, occasionally chill-worthy parallels. Even without agreeing with all of her conclusions, the skill is evident. But nearly all of those points have been made by roughly a trillion other dystopic fantasy novels and reading it yet another time, even if superlatively done, would not be worth it in and of itself.

Rather, where Atwood shines is the novel's treatment of existential questions: how easy it is to exterminate a species, a language, a culture, an idea. How irrevocable extinguishing something can be. And yet, underneath that, the converse: how honed the survival mechanism is. How a single organism still carrying a philosophy can seed it universally until it is impossible to extricate. These ideas are so fascinating that I spent probably hours with Oryx and Crake propped on my lap thinking about the implications.

The other existential theme is what the nature of humanity really is and what can be sanitized to make a better world versus what are the qualities that are necessary to call a being actually human. Atwood's handling of these themes is unapproached by any other modern novel, making Oryx and Crake a must-read for everyone. ( )

Tough going here. The writing flows brilliantly, but the content twists and writhes as it enters your mind. Atwood's imaginative prowess shines in the deeply dark future where one lone human lives in a world created by genius and greed. Themes include memory, what it means to be human, and who we could become if consumerism and capitalism play out to their ultimate conclusion. ( )

This was too dystopian and too confused for my liking, making it one of the few Atwood books I didn't care for. ( )

Oryx and Crake
by Margaret Atwood
Seal (2004), Mass Market Paperback, 464 pages

“To stay human is to break a limitation.” (page 362)

Snowman is an hermit who lives among the Crakers, a bio-genetic modification of human-like creatures. The Crakers are also called The Children of Crake.
Snowman, a man once known as Jimmy, tells to the Crakers about Oryx and Crake: a woman and a man of the past.
Snowman invents for the Crakers a religion based on Oryx, the guardian of the animals, and Crake, the creator God.
In flashbacks, Snowman reveals his past: Jimmy and Crake were friends since their childhood. Their favourite pastimes was to play computer-games: one of these is called Extinctathon, a game which requires an immense knowledge of extinct animals and plants species.
Surfing on the web, Jimmy and Crake find an Asian child website where both friends are affected by the eyes of a young girl.
After finishing school, Jimmy becomes a writer, and Crake a bio-engineer.
Although many years had passed, Crake haunted by the girl of the Asian website, finds her, and she takes the pseudonym of Oryx.
Jimmy and Crake become Oryx’s lovers.
Crake creates a virulent genetic disease that kills most humans, except for Jimmy (he was unknowingly vaccinated by Crake).
Crake’s project was to create a world of intelligent life: the Crakers. He wants to replace all Homo Sapiens with the Crakers, a peaceful and environmentally friendly human-like creatures.
Crake also wants that Jimmy acts as a Guardian of the Crakers.
When Crake meets Jimmy they talk about the disease, already spread throughout the world. The meeting ends up with Crake killing Oryx, and Jimmy shooting Crake.
Jimmy, now Snowman, reminds his promise to Oryx and becomes the Guardian of the Crakers.
Jimmy’s job with the Crakers could be hopeless: “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 didn’t or else because they would give you money if you did.
What is money?
No, he can’t say any of that. Crake is watching over you, he’ll say.
Oryx loves you.” (page 436)

Margaret Atwood gathers from all around the world suggestions about genetics, diseases, and ideas about present and future of the world.
“Maybe that’s the real him, the last Homo Sapiens - a white illusion of a man, here today, gone tomorrow, so easily shoved over, left to melt in the sun, getting thinner and thinner until he liquefies and trickles away altogether. As Snowman is doing now.” (page 271)

Snowman wears a watch (not-working) suggesting that the world-time has stopped, or better the time works like a circle:
every a while returns the Genesis.

The main character of Oryx and Crake is Snowman (the Yeti, the abominable snowman: an ape-like creature), maybe Atwood is referring to Darwin’s idea about the humankind coming from the apes. This time Snowman is a witness (as Guardian) of the new race (the Crakers).

Atwood suggesting her secular version of the Genesis abandons the unanswered questions of the Bible, recovering, resuming, and telling about a new ape (Snowman) picking up broken pieces so to start again the circle of life.
Like the apes, Snowman has to abandon the stage: “Time to go.”

Although Oryx and Crake reminds other ‘bleak’ books (such as The Road by Cormac McCarthy), the second part of the book (when Snowman starts the journey searching for food), is narrated under a new light: the light of knowledge, knowing the future means knowing where the circle of the time has to start again. ( )