I'll begin with a contentious statement: I think Margaret Atwood is our greatest living novelist. She introduced more than one generation of American readers to the largely unexplored world of Canadian literature, and her 1985 novel The Handmaid's Tale is rightfully given a lofty place on the shelf alongside the likes of Orwell and Huxley. Over the course of her nearly half-century career, she has amassed an impressive body of work that ranks her amongst the all time greats. Any attempt I make at critiquing a Margaret Atwood novel is done with the understanding that I am comparing it mostly in relative terms, holding it against the standard set by the rest of her canon.
MaddAddam, probably the most eagerly anticipated novel of Atwood's career, is the final chapter in her dystopian trilogy that began with 2003's Oryx and Crake and left off with 2009's The Year of the Flood. Rather than a plot unfolding in successive chronological sequence, the first two books in the series told parallel coterminous stories of the events leading up to the collapse of human civilization. The structure was interesting, and proved ultimately more satisfying than George R.R. Martin's attempt at using similar techniques with A Feast for Crows and A Dance With Dragons. As with any final piece of a trilogy, MaddAddam has a lot of work to do in terms of tying up loose ends and appeasing the often unrealistically high expectations of fans while also working as a novel in its own right.
MaddAddam succeeds, but, unusually for an Atwood novel, I wasn't entirely certain of its merits until the final few pages. Although Toby once again takes primary narration duties here, chronicling the day to day life of the world's surviving humans as they struggle to survive in the immediate aftermath of a societal collapse in a new world they now share with the "Crakers" , much of the book is spent on the backstory of Zeb, and one's interest in this particular character will factor heavily into one's enjoyment of the novel. That Zeb's story is masterfully written goes without saying -- Atwood's prose has a confidence to it that I love and admire, a voice that is clearly and unmistakably her own: wry, sharp, and direct. It's without comparison, although I can possibly stretch to say that it has something in common with Shirley Jackson if Jackson had decided that she no longer cared about what anyone thought of her, stopped being afraid of the villagers, and wrote with a bit more freedom. The problem is never with the writing (Margaret Atwood's grocery list would probably be a more captivating read than the majority of novels currently in print, and she would somehow make the choice between two different brands of yogurt seem like a haunting tale of alienation that examines the crippling limitations of the human spirit). The problem, for me, is that I was so invested in the story she has built around the people I already care about in this world that I wanted less of Zeb and was preoccupied with that classic question that burns at the core of all good literature: what happens next?
Atwood keeps us asking this question, and when answers do eventually come, they are satisfying. On our way there, we get to see Toby -- a classic Atwoodian protagonist -- wrestle with the personal struggles of aging, jealousy, vanity, and anxiety, against the larger struggles of the post-apocalyptic world that make her feel frustrated by what she views as her own frivolity. Toby is strong, and much of her strength comes from the fact that she perceives herself as weak.
This is a weird novel, and it's refreshing to see a writer so deeply into a career continue to experiment with different kinds of storytelling. Atwood uses an interesting technique here to bring us into this world. The Crakers (a biologically engineered humanoid species created by genius/mad scientist Crake as an experiment in correcting all of humanity's flaws), abandoned and left to die in a lab after the death of Crake and the rest of mankind, are rescued by Jimmy, whom they come to view as a sort of messiah figure. When Jimmy becomes ill, it is Toby who has to assume his duties as storyteller. The Crakers possess a childlike curiosity about their own history as well as the stories of the surviving humans, and the fact that much of the the novel is written as an oral history gives it an unexpectedly mythic quality that wasn't present in the earlier two books. We join the Crakers as Toby's audience, and there is something strange and effective about hearing the stories of our species -- our strengths, our weaknesses, and our eventual downfall -- from this perspective.
The novel also surprised me with its humor -- Atwood's novels are always infused with a dry wit, but this is probably the funniest of her career. The cultural misunderstandings between the two surviving sentient species provide a backdrop not only for laughs (the Crakers come to understand the word "fuck" as a deity to be called upon in times of need), but also as a way of learning more about both. It also serves as a brilliant way to make us question much of what we take for granted as "fact". There were times where I nearly felt as impatient as Toby herself about wanting to get through to the rest of the story, but these scenes are so well written that it doesn't matter.
MaddAddam poses many questions about how best to rebuild a society that is forced to go back to its roots and start over again. Atwood offers some complex and multifaceted ideas to the reader -- there are times where the world of MaddAddamseems to renounce all science and genetic engineering in favor of a more simple return-to-nature lifestyle, yet it is precisely the results of what occurred in those labs that give us our greatest hope for our salvation from the destruction and chaos they brought about in the first place. There are also questions posed about the role of storytelling and myth-making and what defines us as "human". Yet despite the heaviness of the subject and the philosophical and ethical questions it brings, Atwood never moralizes, and infuses the entire novel with enough of her signature wit and self deprecating humor to make it a delight to read. Interestingly, the apocalypse is never exactly mourned or lamented -- when these characters yearn for the past, it's mostly matters of convenience and comfort that they are missing, and one gets the sense that humanity really did need a good culling.
It is a bleak future that Atwood paints -- a world where both the coffee and the chocolate crops have failed is not one that I have any interest in ever seeing -- and throughout this series our species does not always appear in its best light. However, as the novel reaches its final pages, Atwood leaves us with some sense of hope and redemption. "The waterless flood" has cleansed the Earth of most of our past sins, and although the chance that we will be doomed to repeat history is ever present, she offers us the possibility that things may be different. It is not a starry-eyed and sententious hope -- Atwood is way too wry and pragmatic for that -- but it is a realistic, cautious hope. And despite parts of the novel leaving me hungry for more, it is a wonderful message to take away from what is ultimately a satisfying end to this powerful and unforgettable trilogy. Rating: A-
@robrussin
(feel free to comment below and tell me why I'm wrong about my first sentence)
