Rather than start things on a positive note, I'm going to begin by ripping apart a book I had to read for English. It's called Oryx and Crake, by Margaret Atwood, and it's the kind of politically-charged satire, set in the not-too-distant-future, that teachers love to assign.
Unfortunately, the parallels between this book's plot and the author's political paranoias were even more overt than those between the plot of 1984 and Communism. The author must have negative feelings towards drug companies, because in Oryx and Crake, they take over the world. She is clearly opposed to genetic engineering, as we find out when intelligent mutant pigs (created by an organ-transplant company) try to eat the protagonist. In the story, small boys watch televised lethal injections, suicides, and porn almost daily on the Internet. They watch these things often, and eventually get bored of them and relatively de-sensitized. I wonder if she's opposed to reality TV, violent movies, and the porn industry? And I couldn't help but notice her mistrust of scientists when a very important scientist developed a pill to kill everyone on Earth at the same time, and marketed it as an aphrodisiac.
Even in a book full of agendas, I can usually enjoy the characters. In Oryx and Crake, however, the protagonist is a boy named Jimmy who is an insecure sex-addict who has a pathetic adoration of his best friend (the one who kills almost every last human with those pills I mentioned) and little care for anyone or anything else. He has no problem watching child porn, visiting prostitutes, or locking out his former co-workers when he is inside an air-proof dome and they are outside in a world full of riots and dying people. His one redeeming quality would be his love for the lovely Oryx, but he sleeps with her behind his best friend's back and pays more attention to the version of her in his head - the one on a pedestal - than who she really is. All the other characters are minor ones, and most are either scorned or worshipped by Jimmy too the point that the reader doesn't know much about them but his opinion.
I apologize if I wrecked the plot for anyone who was going to read this book, but honestly, you would probably not have enjoyed it much anyway. And if you are a midly paranoid individual who hates drug companies and distrusts the scientific community, I'm guessing you'll enjoy it despite spoilers I may have included.
So if you, like me, have a "hero's journey" project, or any other project, for English class or any other class, I strongly recomend you do NOT choose Oryx and Crake.
Happy Reading!
well hello claire!
ReplyDeletethe thing that made me smile most about this was the bit about the books that teachers like to assign. as if they didn't want to change the books they themselves were assigned in place of something else they think 'the kids' might enjoy more. it was ever thus!
as for margaret atwood. i haven't read this nor can i honestly say i'm going to. i've had the blind assassin on my bookshelf for a couple of years and even tho i'm assured it's a classic and well worth it i just can't get into it. that said when it comes to her poetry i'm a vigorous proponent and she's easily in my top ten.
1984 was a book i did when i was at school. i remeber not being that into it. too depressing. parallels with communism tho? that seems a bit simplistic. i've been reading lots of orwell again recently and 1984 in particular. how is it i could have missed so much. how is it that so much in our so called free market economy (i'm saying that but obviously in certain segments of your media i exist in an evil socialist hinterland!) he imagined is actually worse. yes there's loads about totalitarianism in it but so much more!
Haha i'm glad you like that first part of my review! i didn't kno margaret atwood was a poet - i'll check out some of her work as soon as i have a chance!
ReplyDeleteyou're right about 1984 being a lot more than a comparison to communism/totalitarianism. there were some other parallels between the books, actually, that i should have mentioned.
for example, they both featured protagonists who are in the minority of semi-insiders, who are working for the goverment but not running it. meanwhile, the Pleeblanders, as Atwood calls them (aka the masses) live a life that is generally uninformed and unregulated. in both cases, the government workers fear and pity the masses, while the reader realizes that the common people actually have far more freedom. the Pleeblanders can have things like secrets and opinions in Oryx and Crake, and in 1984 the masses are allowed things like sex and privacy (as far as i can remember - i read 1984 about a year ago). i hadn't realized how significant this similarity was in the two novels until now, actually.
to be honest, i liked 1984 better. i feel like it made me search a little deeper to find certain metaphors and analogies to real life and real politics. i think i may have missed a lot of the meaning because i was so depressed by the plot, tho, just like you were. i might have felt similarly about oryx and crake, but i didn't like any of the characters enough to really worry about them the way i worried about the safety and sanity of orwell's characters!
i came across one of the guys at work reading 1984 for the first time the other day. he totally doesn't know the story and gave it lalalalala when it seemed as if i might give the plot away. later i met him pushing his baby about in the town. wow i thought, what must it be like to be reading 1984 with a tiny wee baby?
ReplyDeleteand i kind of think this is 1984's strength. sure it's a dystopian vision from a time very different from ours but when i read it now it seems almost quaint, that the reality of the society that grew from orwell's own was worse than he could've imagined, that many of the things he imagined imposed on 'the people' would in fact become things they would demand.
atwood's poetry. i very much like her collected poems 'eating fire'. maybe you will, maybe you won't!
we've had some interesting discussion about book recommendations on some of the blogs i interact with. given your point about books teachers like is it possible to recommend books to someone younger, esp in the hierarchical world of school. i'm ambiguous on the issue to the point that i don't teach english! lol
which is only a very small part of the story but i look at my younger self, what he read, and the books i say are unputdownable now. i could never have read the likes of george eliot then any more than i'd force myself to read tolkien now. i did make some good decisions - i knew i couldn't read dickens so 'saved' him until my thirties and got to study him properly along the way. i also got really with my english teacher who, whether he knew it or not, listened to what i had to say about what i was reading but encouraged me into reading some recommendations along the way.
I definitely agree with your idea of different books for different ages, but at the same time I think that teachers and other adults can like the same books as people my age. For example, the librarian at my school just recomended The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, which she liked and I loved. And at the beginning of the year, my English teacher recommended this book about the Black Death that I also loved. I think that the key is that teachers recommend books which they think the student will enjoy, not what they think students should read. We can learn a surprising amount from books that are considered young adult fiction, and from those that aren't considered "sophisticated literature".
ReplyDeleteI understand, of course, that teachers want students to "stretch their minds" and "push themselves," but we already do that by reading Shakespeare, Steinbeck, etc, as a basic part of English class. If a student wants a recomendation on a difficult book, they'll ask for it or look for the Classic section at the library; if teachers could refrain from imposing their ideas on students whenever possible, that would probably be best. That's a common teacher mistake: we are young, not stupid. If we can't relate to a book, it's difficult to be mentally stimulated or influenced. I didn't like Oryx and Crake, so I didn't apply the author's ideas to my life in any way. When I can relate to a book, however, it makes me reexamine my life, my world, and the people around me. I'm guessing this applies to most people, and most students. I'm going to go look up that poem by Margaret Atwood now!