Oryx and Crake - Margaret Atwood

This month’s book club pick is the first novel by Margaret Atwood I have read that isn’t The Handmaid’s Tale, or its sequel The Testaments. I think it may present one of the lowest opinions of humanity that I’ve seen in a novel. It’s not told in a bleak manner, it’s nothing like The Road for instance. A lot of it is written in quite a light-hearted style, it’s more that the themes and ideas in it are just particularly grim and pessimistic. There are two narratives in the book, mostly alternating chapter by chapter. Near the end though they start converging, and jumping back and forth in the same chapter. The first of the narratives is telling the story of Snowman, a man that is living in a tree on a beach in what seems like a post-apocalyptic future. There is wreckage in the sea, the sun oppressively burns him, there are no humans around, and he is storing his food and drink in old carrier bags and beer bottles. He does have company however, inquisitive human-like creatures that he…

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