Oryx and Crake

[vilakins]

I've read several of Margaret Atwood's novels and I've enjoyed them all (if that's the word for The Handmaid's Tale). I was looking forward to Oryx and Crake when I borrowed it last weekend. However I can't read any more. I got as far as the reality TV programs Jimmy and Crake watched as teenagers and was so appalled by the extreme cruelty to animals and the paedophilia that I can't go on. I know it will get worse and I already have images in my head I'd pay good money to a Federation psychostrategist to delete.

Is it worth me giving The Blind Assassin a go? It sounds good from the blurbs I read on the back of Oryx and Crake. I can handle the usual sort of violence; I love the Iain M Banks Culture novels and I know people who found those too violent.

I think I need something light in the meantime though. Yes, some Discworld...

Comments

[labingi.livejournal.com]

I know nothing about The Blind Assassin, but I can say that I enjoyed Oryx and Crake, and if you ever feel you can face it again, I think you'll find that much of the book is not concerned with the dystopian cruelty it opens with. Actually "nature" manages pretty well in this world. Sorry I don't have another book to recommend.

[hafren.livejournal.com]

I have the same trouble as you with images of animal cruelty preying on my mind - there's a Helen Dunmore novel I like very much but I had to tear one page out so I wouldn't light on it by accident again. It is possible to know such things go on without wanting them in your head constantly; I think the ancient Greeks had a good point about keeping certain things offstage.

Human cruelty I tend to be ok with, worryingly... But I value Pratchett for his essential decency.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Human cruelty I tend to be ok with, worryingly

I understand what you mean; it's bad enough, but it's when it's visited on the innocent and trusting--animals or children--that I really can't face it. I still don't like graphic violence or torture against adult humans. I read Tad Williams' huge VR quadrilogy by skipping all the chapters with the woman-hating psychopath in them and I skim all the Honor Harrington battle scenes.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I can risk encountering any more of that nastiness. :-( If an action film has an animal or child in it, I spend the whole time worrying for them. :-P

I loved Atwood's other books Cat's Eye, Good Bones, The Robber Bride, and her earlier humorous works.

[communicator.livejournal.com]

I sometimes feel I am drawn to the borderline between what I can/can't stand. I watch films, or read books, that I know will tread close to that line, and then when it goes over the line I regret it because the images haunt me. I agree about the particular vulnerability and trust of innocent creatures.

'Player of Games' for instance includes images of violence that I hate, utterly hate, and yet it's a very strong book I think. Difficult one.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I was able to read--and enjoy most of--Player of Games despite some horrific images; I'm not sure why. Perhaps it's the lack of innocence. I can't face any more of Orix and Crake though, in case I encounter something as bad or worse than what I've already read. :-(

[executrix.livejournal.com]

I never finished The Blind Assassin, it's not that I was excessively weirded out, I just didn't think it worked.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Thanks for that. Eh, I have lots of other books on my list.

[toft-froggy.livejournal.com]

Have you ever read Iain Banks' 'The Wasp Factory'? I never normally get squicked by violence or anything in books, and although I thought it was brilliant, that book made me feel physically sick at one point.

I'm with you on Margaret Atwood (although I've never read Oryx and Crake), but I'm fundamentally opposed to her because of her insistance that her books are not science fiction but 'speculative fiction'. I go on big rants about how sci-fi is not considered a valid genre in which to write 'proper' literary novels anymore, and it's because of authors like Atwood who enforce the stereotype. 'The Handmaid's Tale' is sci-fi, in the noble tradition of 1984 and Brave New World, and it's still a good book. Get over it. Argh.

[toft-froggy.livejournal.com]

I loved Player of Games, I thought it was a great story and very funny. I think State of the Art, the collection of short stories, is one of his best under his sci-fi hat, though. That might have some disturbing-ish stuff, I don't remember very well. I get a kick out of Banks' black humour.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I've read quite a few of Iain M Banks' Culture novels and enjoyed them despite the high level of violence. The Wasp Factory just didn't appeal.

I suppose some people use 'speculative fiction' because it includes fantasy and doesn't imply hard SF (which actually I like best). But yeah, it can smack of intellectual snobbery.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

So do I. I get a real kick out of black humour and I love Banks'. :-)

[reapermum.livejournal.com]

When a writer says "speculative fiction" then mean I don't understand any science, please don't critisise me when I get things wrong. I found that when I tried reading Doris Lessing's Canopus in Argos sequence years ago. I was so irritated that I gave up on them.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Oh, I think I read those. Are they the ones where an alien researcher comes to Earth? About all I can remember is that Europeans were genetic anomlies--humans were meant to be brown-skinned and black-haired--and the Arab girl in her walled garden, an image that has lasted for some reason.

[reapermum.livejournal.com]

I think those are the ones. I didn't read enough to remember anything other than that they irritated me. Well I say "they", this was a series I came to as the first one was new and never progressed beyond half way through that.