Oryx and Crake part 6
No preamble today, still recovering fatigue points from Potter binge. I'd give details but GURPS doesn't have mechanics for mental fatigue points. Maybe they could be tied to general fatigue?
Subchapters: Bottle, Oryx, Birdcall
Summary
We left off confirming that Snowman is a petty, impulsive little shit; this subchapter is more of the same. He can't sleep, and the singing of the Crakers, like just about everything else, makes him feel sorry for himself. Crakersong is "beyond the human level, or below it. As if crystals are singing, but not that, either. More like ferns unscrolling -- something old, carboniferous, but at the same time newborn, fragrant, verdant." So the Crakers are lemon-scented Elves, with Tamaranian eyes.
Being the resourceful hero he is, Snowman goes off to drown his sorrows. See, Snowman's been passing the time juicing up on any alcoholic liquid, "not a wise or mature thing for him to have done, granted, but what use are wisdom and maturity to him now?", and right now he's seeking out a third of Scotch he cached in subchapter one. Why care about the future? It's the end of the world!
While boozing up, wallowing in his own self-pity, and howling at the moon, Snowman sees some wolvogs padding around. What are wolvogs? A cross between wolves and dogs. Maggie must've only been doing research by glancing at news sites, the more shocking the better, since she didn't seem able to look up "wolf dog hybrid". Given the tone of this book so far, Atwood's probably intimating wolvogs as yet another disaster of mad science. Truth is we've been breeding wolfdogs for quite a while now, making them no more zomygodMADSCIENCE!1!! than mules.
She does describe wolfdogs accurately though; cunning predators out of a horror movie. Why doesn't Critchton write a made-for-Hollywood book about wolfdogs? My guess is that there's a taboo against negative depictions of dogs. Also, it'd probably be harder for Jeff Goldblum to play the self-rightous know-it-all who respects the Natural Order to give a Platonic dialogue against dog breeding with a straight face.
While drinking and ranting about ill-remembered reference books, Snowman angst and reminisces about Oryx. I'm now at chapter 6, subchapters 17-20, which is all Oryx's backstory. It's a dispassionate account of a child prostitute that may as well've been pasted from a template. Oryx is likewise dispassionate regarding her own life story. I'm actually not really bothered by the generic nature of The Story of [INSERT NAME HERE] but can't keep from noting it. I like -- yes, something in this book I actually like -- the dispassionate nature of the tale. Well, mostly dispassionate since Margaret's unsubtle hints show up here as they do everywhere else.
Since we're talking the child sex trade here, sly digs are actually warranted, unlike genetic engineering which is a crime only in the eyes of the beholder. Now that I think about it, devoting a whole chapter to pedo-sex slavery in a book bemoaning genetic engineering may well be a deliberate symbolic compare-and-contrast. Unless I really am reading too much into what I'm reading, which I doubt since novels are infamous for being symbolic, Atwood's saying that genetic engineering is analogous to child prostitution; ultimately, the theme and fears here are of being made a commodity.
In addition to being small-boned, Oryx "had a triangular face -- big eyes, small jaw -- a Hymenoptera face, a mantid face, the face of a Siamese cat. Skin of the palest yellow, smooth and translucent, like old, expensive porcelain[;]" the stereotypical Asian beauty, in other words. Her early childhood was in a rural village out in the boonies of Asia. The weather was bad for crops, the men were dying of chain smoking, and there was no way of making money but occasionally selling some kids to the local flesh trader, who'd chat with the locals and hand out fresh packs of cigarettes. We also get a blow-by-blow account of Oryx's shipment, with surprising little gross description. It's hot and lonely trekking through the jungle, and the kids get no toilet privacy. It's all very non-wangsty, letting the facts speak for themselves. Is this a deliberate juxtaposition with Jimmy/Snowman's petty wants, symbolizing how we care more about our own vices that real suffering? Have political postmodernists and literati driven me to see double meaning like a high-functioning schizophrenic?
There probably won't be much to say about chapter 6 since you can find identical accounts in the Web. Personally, I think Batman: the Ultimate Evil does a better job handling the child sex trade. I'll leave you with another tidbit from life of Crake: Anitchrist. Crake says that believing in an afterlife makes humans blase about environmental destruction, but it's written in such a way to make it look like atheism is no different than nihilism. Belief in the afterlife is hope; how could you be against hope? The same way I'm against every other grab at my heartstrings. It's not enough for Good to be dumb, it has to be annoying too? No wonder so many fools turn to Evil.
Subchapters: Bottle, Oryx, Birdcall
Summary
We left off confirming that Snowman is a petty, impulsive little shit; this subchapter is more of the same. He can't sleep, and the singing of the Crakers, like just about everything else, makes him feel sorry for himself. Crakersong is "beyond the human level, or below it. As if crystals are singing, but not that, either. More like ferns unscrolling -- something old, carboniferous, but at the same time newborn, fragrant, verdant." So the Crakers are lemon-scented Elves, with Tamaranian eyes.
Being the resourceful hero he is, Snowman goes off to drown his sorrows. See, Snowman's been passing the time juicing up on any alcoholic liquid, "not a wise or mature thing for him to have done, granted, but what use are wisdom and maturity to him now?", and right now he's seeking out a third of Scotch he cached in subchapter one. Why care about the future? It's the end of the world!
While boozing up, wallowing in his own self-pity, and howling at the moon, Snowman sees some wolvogs padding around. What are wolvogs? A cross between wolves and dogs. Maggie must've only been doing research by glancing at news sites, the more shocking the better, since she didn't seem able to look up "wolf dog hybrid". Given the tone of this book so far, Atwood's probably intimating wolvogs as yet another disaster of mad science. Truth is we've been breeding wolfdogs for quite a while now, making them no more zomygodMADSCIENCE!1!! than mules.
She does describe wolfdogs accurately though; cunning predators out of a horror movie. Why doesn't Critchton write a made-for-Hollywood book about wolfdogs? My guess is that there's a taboo against negative depictions of dogs. Also, it'd probably be harder for Jeff Goldblum to play the self-rightous know-it-all who respects the Natural Order to give a Platonic dialogue against dog breeding with a straight face.
While drinking and ranting about ill-remembered reference books, Snowman angst and reminisces about Oryx. I'm now at chapter 6, subchapters 17-20, which is all Oryx's backstory. It's a dispassionate account of a child prostitute that may as well've been pasted from a template. Oryx is likewise dispassionate regarding her own life story. I'm actually not really bothered by the generic nature of The Story of [INSERT NAME HERE] but can't keep from noting it. I like -- yes, something in this book I actually like -- the dispassionate nature of the tale. Well, mostly dispassionate since Margaret's unsubtle hints show up here as they do everywhere else.
Since we're talking the child sex trade here, sly digs are actually warranted, unlike genetic engineering which is a crime only in the eyes of the beholder. Now that I think about it, devoting a whole chapter to pedo-sex slavery in a book bemoaning genetic engineering may well be a deliberate symbolic compare-and-contrast. Unless I really am reading too much into what I'm reading, which I doubt since novels are infamous for being symbolic, Atwood's saying that genetic engineering is analogous to child prostitution; ultimately, the theme and fears here are of being made a commodity.
In addition to being small-boned, Oryx "had a triangular face -- big eyes, small jaw -- a Hymenoptera face, a mantid face, the face of a Siamese cat. Skin of the palest yellow, smooth and translucent, like old, expensive porcelain[;]" the stereotypical Asian beauty, in other words. Her early childhood was in a rural village out in the boonies of Asia. The weather was bad for crops, the men were dying of chain smoking, and there was no way of making money but occasionally selling some kids to the local flesh trader, who'd chat with the locals and hand out fresh packs of cigarettes. We also get a blow-by-blow account of Oryx's shipment, with surprising little gross description. It's hot and lonely trekking through the jungle, and the kids get no toilet privacy. It's all very non-wangsty, letting the facts speak for themselves. Is this a deliberate juxtaposition with Jimmy/Snowman's petty wants, symbolizing how we care more about our own vices that real suffering? Have political postmodernists and literati driven me to see double meaning like a high-functioning schizophrenic?
There probably won't be much to say about chapter 6 since you can find identical accounts in the Web. Personally, I think Batman: the Ultimate Evil does a better job handling the child sex trade. I'll leave you with another tidbit from life of Crake: Anitchrist. Crake says that believing in an afterlife makes humans blase about environmental destruction, but it's written in such a way to make it look like atheism is no different than nihilism. Belief in the afterlife is hope; how could you be against hope? The same way I'm against every other grab at my heartstrings. It's not enough for Good to be dumb, it has to be annoying too? No wonder so many fools turn to Evil.