Second half!jawastewDecember 19 2009, 02:39:39 UTC
With regards to Jimmy, I thought he came off as interesting only in the way I kept thinking about him and his situation long after I'd put the book down. He's really only a piece of what represents Oryx and Crake--they're so larger than life in the book, these huge figures that have become elevated (I hesitate to say, deified) by the end of the book that I began to wonder if Jimmy didn't struggle with their celebrity, so to say, himself. Jimmy could never figure out his two friends. In that way, I sympathized--Oryx and Crake were almost as elusive to him as they were to me, albeit Jimmy's a bit slow on the uptake
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1) Target audience: the SF audience IN GENERAL versus lit-fic audiences. Sub-genres be damned.
2) I wonder if part of Atwood's stance comes from the time period she was growing up and what SF meant at that time? Certainly SF has EVOLVED and it's not quite the embarrassment (although maybe it is?) as it may used to be, but if you grew up when SF was a certain THING, then I can see where she's coming from.
3) Aside from THE HANDMAID'S TALE, ORYX AND CRAKE and THE YEAR OF THE FLOOD, has she written any other SF-based books? I've pondered her other titles, but haven't come across an Atwood fan to guide me in the right direction. :)
It's really interesting how the sci-fi/lit aspect didn't register for me (mostly because I don't know anything about Margaret Atwood, and I usually don't care what an author say about their books, I just read them). For me, it was obvious that this novel was sci-fi.
And, for once, I didn't care about the characterization. It's true Jimmy isn't a driving force in the world, he's mostly passive, but I wasn't surprised by this because Atwood already did it with Offred in The Handmaid's Tale. And Jimmy is here so he can tell his story, it wouldn't work as well in my opinion if he were someone interesting, who used to do things. If Atwood had wanted to create such a narrator, she could have simply told the story from Crake's POV
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The bogus reference made more sense to me than the others, particularly because he kind of explained it, you know?
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1) Target audience: the SF audience IN GENERAL versus lit-fic audiences. Sub-genres be damned.
2) I wonder if part of Atwood's stance comes from the time period she was growing up and what SF meant at that time? Certainly SF has EVOLVED and it's not quite the embarrassment (although maybe it is?) as it may used to be, but if you grew up when SF was a certain THING, then I can see where she's coming from.
3) Aside from THE HANDMAID'S TALE, ORYX AND CRAKE and THE YEAR OF THE FLOOD, has she written any other SF-based books? I've pondered her other titles, but haven't come across an Atwood fan to guide me in the right direction. :)
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And I noticed that the link to Amazon, up at the top of the page, takes you to Give Up the Ghost instead of Oryx and Crake.
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It's really interesting how the sci-fi/lit aspect didn't register for me (mostly because I don't know anything about Margaret Atwood, and I usually don't care what an author say about their books, I just read them). For me, it was obvious that this novel was sci-fi.
And, for once, I didn't care about the characterization. It's true Jimmy isn't a driving force in the world, he's mostly passive, but I wasn't surprised by this because Atwood already did it with Offred in The Handmaid's Tale. And Jimmy is here so he can tell his story, it wouldn't work as well in my opinion if he were someone interesting, who used to do things. If Atwood had wanted to create such a narrator, she could have simply told the story from Crake's POV ( ... )
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