Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

Give me a book that has a pretty fucked-up situation and the biggest possibility is I'd be loving it no matter how hard I struggle to finish the book. For example: Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood.

I love Margaret Atwood's short stories but I have never read her books until I decided to take this title which belongs to Maddaddam Trilogy. Honestly, this is such a shame because actually I've been keeping Oryx and Crake in my bookshelf for like, a year? 2 years? That's quite awhile I'm sure, but I never brought myself to reading this majestic piece of work and now I fully regret it. This book turns out awesome.

However, I'm not that much to blame. Frankly speaking, the opening pages of Oryx and Crake are not that compelling. Curious, yes, but they couldn't get me to stick to it without struggling with yawns -- especially with my too-short attention span and my escapist trait. Too little details given at the beginning, though I understand this is how this novel works. But I was totally clueless when I first opened Oryx and Crake. I only knew that this is a dystopian, speculative fiction (according to Margaret Atwood herself), but that was all. I didn't even bother to glance at the reviews because I am that type of person who reads reviews only after I've finished the last page, but I hate it when the author doesn't feed me anything and make me feel bloody clueless. At least I've got to know a glimpse and that's enough.

Nonetheless, thanks to the unknown force that pulled me to continuing the not-a-happy-ending-but-still-satisfying journey, now I'm able to be here, writing this review. Shall we start now?

In Oryx and Crake, you'll meet Snowman, a curious man who seems to be all alone and lonely, and loves to talk to himself. It also seems that he is stranded in some island, until comes a band of children that chant over Snowman. And hey, although they are humanlike, they are just not like us. And apparently, Snowman and these children, who are referred as Children of Crake know each other. But who the hell is this Crake and why do I find his name mentioned several times in the first pages without any clearer explanation?

You'll find the answer just as you go further into the story. It includes series of flashbacks to the past life of Snowman when he was still Jimmy. Jimmy's life and Snowman's life are two distinguished tales and they go back and forth, but the way Atwood writes is neat, and instead of confusing you, they will give you a complete understanding of what is actually happening. They will shock you just fine.

What I love the most is how Atwood portrays Snowman slash Jimmy's loneliness and his desperation. How, when he was Jimmy, he had to deal with emotionally-distant parents: a disturbed mother and a father who silently hoped Jimmy to be what he wanted, how he had to deal with his desolation from very young age, how he had to deal with being ordinary. I suppose this is why Jimmy was addicted to creating jokes, women, and sex. He tried to ease his pain inside with all those, finding a temporary consolation that at least could make him feel better for a brief time. He is neither a nihilist nor an optimist.

The twist is epic as well. It comes shocking and terrifying, not in a visual kind of horror, but more to a highly developed mental conflict. I think I can see why Oryx and Crake can't be fully labelled as a science fiction because although the setting for the story is chaos and end of humanity, the real problem in this book is very personal. Oh, speaking of which, although the dystopian theme in Oryx and Crake is not so much like 1984's or Brave New World's, it does not only appear as a mere flavour. In fact, the futuristic one in here gives you thrill all right although political scheme is not the hot issue in this book.

Well, I'm looking forward to reading the next title of the trilogy, but I suppose I still need some time to recover myself from the turbulence I have got from Oryx and Crake. Because seriously, even now, days after I arrived at the ending, sometimes I still find myself wondering what I'd do and become if I had to be in Snowman's shoes. I mean, even with myself sometimes can turn very misanthropic, this horrific story still haunts me the worst.