The Year of the Flood: A Novel
by Margaret Atwood
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Book Summary Information
Author: Margaret AtwoodEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Format: Deckle Edge
Published: 2009-09-22
ISBN: 0385528779
Number of pages: 448
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Book Reviews of The Year of the Flood: A Novel
Book Review: A great complement to Oryx & Crake
Summary: 5 Stars
It's lucky that we have another MaddAddam book to read, lucky because Atwood didn't initially plan to write another book like Oryx and Crake, lucky that The Year of the Flood fleshes out her frightening dystopian world and gives us much more to hope for.
The Year of the Flood isn't a sequel to Oryx and Crake. It works as a companion book, following the timeline of events leading up to and around our experience with Jimmy and Glenn (a.k.a. Crake). One of the biggest differences, aside from point of view, is the inclusion of religion in the text and the influential presence it has to the characters and their motivations. God's Gardeners is a religious group formed out of a mutual dislike of the direction science and society has taken. Under their leader, Adam One, the Gardeners are strict vegetarians--when the situation allows this to be the healthiest outcome--and waste nothing. Their reversion to crafting, cooking, and hand-sewing clothes or recyclables is in reaction to society's heavy dependence on technology. Coincidentally, it also becomes their saving grace when technology (more specifically, electricity) breaks down in the days, weeks, and months following the mysterious plague (this, too, is a technological terror) that wipes out most of civilization. Unlike other dystopian books where this pre-modern state is adopted out of necessity, the Gardeners have chosen this way of life as part of their religious doctrine. As a result, they're tough survivors.
As the book opens, we're given two narrators (three if we could Adam One's proselytizing speeches; four if we count the religious songs of the Gardeners): Ren and Toby. Both were once Gardeners, but now find themselves alone in the middle of a ravaged city, teetering on the edge of total destruction, with quickly depleting food supplies and no idea of knowing if they're the only ones left alive. Ren is trapped in an isolation suite above a dance studio--the kind of dancing done on the SeksMarket--with all the amenities of a small hotel at her disposal. Toby has taken up shelter at a women's day spa with lots of organic moisturizers that double as semi-nutritious snacks. If the two are to survive another day, they need to venture outside to find other sources of calories, protein, and weapons to protect them from the vicious wolvogs (unnamed here, but prior knowledge having read Oryx and Crake helps) and scheming pigoons (explained finally as "pig balloons").
Chapter by chapter, Atwood takes us into the past of these two women, showing us how they came to be members of God's Gardeners and how that seems to have saved them from Certain Doom. Delving into their past also reveals several cameos from both Jimmy and Crake. The two storylines of each book are entangled with one another to the point where at times Jimmy is featured heavily in the narrative and plays an integral role to what happens to Ren and Toby. Ren and Toby, though, are the stars. I think it's safe to say Atwood is infinitely better at writing female protagonists than she is at writing them male. Seeing Jimmy and Crake through Ren and Toby's eyes didn't ingratiate them to me any more than Oryx and Crake did, it actually made me like Ren and Toby more. They're both so different, but sympathetic and relatable in ways Jimmy and Crake were not.
When I thought about Oryx and Crake in relation to this book, I decided it had the larger, consequential duty of introducing us to the "bad guy." The Year of the Flood has more of the everydayness that was missing from Jimmy's daydreams and ruminations on the past that centered wholly on Crake and his love affair with Oryx. The world and everything that happened around Jimmy came off as second fiddle, background information to his need to understand his friend and his crush. That anything bad happened at all is as a result of those two being involved and Jimmy's struggle to figure out what went wrong--not that anything necessarily had an impact on Jimmy as an innocent bystander, genuinely scared for his life and wondering if he, too, will deteriorate to his death.
The Gardener's are presented as innocent victims, true victims, and Toby and Ren are wrapped up in Crake's mess. We learn about Crake's manipulation of the Gardeners to serve his agenda by threat. It doesn't matter what order you read the books in, they're both very complementary to each other and in fact, I recommend reading Oryx and Crake first. That way you get all of the nitty gritty out of the way and can end with what I think is a much more beautiful and hopeful book. It also fills in a lot of the expository gaps we would have gotten from Jimmy if he wasn't so preoccupied with Crake and Oryx.
There are a few inconsistencies, though, for as much as I liked this book. The Gardeners rarely shower and get clean clothes only once a week and yet are extremely germ-conscious, "worried about microbes" (p. 68). I don't know about you, but that makes little to no sense to me. If they're so concerned with germs, they'd wash more often. Also, I'm not sure how Ren knew about the healing abilities of the Crakers purring. I tried to re-read and see if I glazed over the part where Shackie told her about their weird habits, but I didn't see a single thing where he explains past the point where they purr. Neither one of those is particularly important to the book, but I did notice them.
Not that Jimmy is without feeling, but I think the perspective the women provide in The Year of the Flood is considerably more intricate and emotional than anything Jimmy (oh, poor Jimmy) could have given us. Since Ren and Toby must deal with a lot (running away from their past, learning the tenets of the Gardeners, trying to survive the waterless flood), it serves their purpose to entwine their lives with that of religion, one thing people tend to turn to in times of crisis to cope and find answers to frustrating or hopeless situations.
I do have some further questions about some of the terms used in the book. I still can't figure out the path Atwood took to come up with racial terms like "Tex-Mexicans" (this one is actually explained a little bit, but why not Arizona-Mexicans or California-Mexicans? or just, you know, Mexicans?), "Asian Fusions," "Eurotrash," or "Redfish." Sometimes I think both of these books need glossaries for the times when I don't want to think about the implications of her futuristic vocabulary, but that's no fault of hers. I just wish I could figure out the wit behind Sea/H/Ear Candy. Are they headphones, iPod clones? Video devices with sound? I don't have a clue. Maybe "see and hear" entertainment (hence, the candy--addicting, alluring, and probably not that healthy for you)?
Overall I think this is a book that can't be read without Oryx and Crake and vice versa. The experience is more well-rounded with both and I think serves the story better that way (although I think The Year of the Flood is more intelligent and wittier). What's missing from one book is sure to be found in the other. Don't miss out on The Year of the Flood! I can't say if we're ever going to get a third, but if we do, it's sure to add another dimension to an already dynamic pair of books. I'm hoping for, maybe, an Oryx-centric point of view.
Summary of The Year of the Flood: A Novel
The long-awaited new novel from Margaret Atwood. The Year of the Flood is a dystopic masterpiece and a testament to her visionary power.The times and species have been changing at a rapid rate, and the social compact is wearing as thin as environmental stability. Adam One, the kindly leader of the God's Gardeners?a religion devoted to the melding of science and religion, as well as the preservation of all plant and animal life?has long predicted a natural disaster that will alter Earth as we know it. Now it has occurred, obliterating most human life. Two women have survived: Ren, a young trapeze dancer locked inside the high-end sex club Scales and Tails, and Toby, a God's Gardener barricaded inside a luxurious spa where many of the treatments are edible.
Have others survived? Ren's bioartist friend Amanda? Zeb, her eco-fighter stepfather? Her onetime lover, Jimmy? Or the murderous Painballers, survivors of the mutual-elimination Painball prison? Not to mention the shadowy, corrupt policing force of the ruling powers . . .
Meanwhile, gene-spliced life forms are proliferating: the lion/lamb blends, the Mo'hair sheep with human hair, the pigs with human brain tissue. As Adam One and his intrepid hemp-clad band make their way through this strange new world, Ren and Toby will have to decide on their next move. They can't stay locked away . . .
By turns dark, tender, violent, thoughtful, and uneasily hilarious, The Year of the Flood is Atwood at her most brilliant and inventive.
Book Description
The long-awaited new novel from Margaret Atwood. The Year of the Flood is a dystopic masterpiece and a testament to her visionary power.
The times and species have been changing at a rapid rate, and the social compact is wearing as thin as environmental stability. Adam One, the kindly leader of the God's Gardeners--a religion devoted to the melding of science and religion, as well as the preservation of all plant and animal life--has long predicted a natural disaster that will alter Earth as we know it. Now it has occurred, obliterating most human life. Two women have survived: Ren, a young trapeze dancer locked inside the high-end sex club Scales and Tails, and Toby, a God's Gardener barricaded inside a luxurious spa where many of the treatments are edible.
Have others survived? Ren's bioartist friend Amanda? Zeb, her eco-fighter stepfather? Her onetime lover, Jimmy? Or the murderous Painballers, survivors of the mutual-elimination Painball prison? Not to mention the shadowy, corrupt policing force of the ruling powers...
Meanwhile, gene-spliced life forms are proliferating: the lion/lamb blends, the Mo'hair sheep with human hair, the pigs with human brain tissue. As Adam One and his intrepid hemp-clad band make their way through this strange new world, Ren and Toby will have to decide on their next move. They can't stay locked away...
By turns dark, tender, violent, thoughtful, and uneasily hilarious, The Year of the Flood is Atwood at her most brilliant and inventive.
Margaret Atwood on The Year of the Flood
I?ve never before gone back to a novel and written another novel related to it. Why this time? Partly because so many people asked me what happened right after the end of the 2003 novel, Oryx and Crake. I didn?t actually know, but the questions made me think about it. That was one reason. Another was that the core subject matter has continued to preoccupy me. When Oryx and Crake came out, it seemed to many like science fiction--way out there, too weird to be possible--but in the three years that passed before I began writing The Year of the Flood, the perceived gap between that supposedly unreal future and the harsh one we might very well live through was narrowing fast. What is happening to our world? What can we do to reverse the damage? How long have we got? And, most importantly--what kind of "we"? In other words, what kind of people might undertake the challenge? Dedicated ones--they?d have to be. And unless you believe our planet is worth saving, why bother?
So the question of inspirational belief entered the picture, and once you have a set of beliefs--as distinct from a body of measurable knowledge--you have a religion. The God?s Gardeners appear briefly in Oryx and Crake, but in The Year of the Flood, they?re central. Like all religions, the Gardeners have their own leader, Adam One. They also have their own honoured saints and martyrs, their special days, their theology. They may look strange and obsessive and even foolish to non-members, but they?re serious about what they profess; as are their predecessors, who are with us today. I?ve found out a great deal about rooftop gardens and urban beekeeping while writing this book!
Another question frequently asked about Oryx and Crake concerned gender. Why was the story told by a man? How would it have been different if the narrator had been a woman? Such questions led me to Ren and Toby, and then to their respective lives, and also to their places of refuge. A high-end sex club and a luxury spa would in fact be quite good locations in which to wait out a pandemic plague: at least you?d have bar snacks, and a lot of clean towels.
In his book, The Art Instinct, Denis Dutton proposes that our interest in narrative is built in--selected during the very long period the human race spent in the Pleistocene--because any species with the ability to tell stories about both past and future would have an evolutionary edge. Will there be a crocodile in the river tomorrow, as there was last year? If so, better not go there. Speculative fictions about the future, like The Year of the Flood, are narratives of that kind. Where will the crocodiles be? How will we avoid them? What are our chances? --Margaret Atwood
(Photo © George Whiteside)
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