Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

The South Down Bookworms' Christmas meeting this year takes place in Billingshurst on December 16th 2011. It also coincides with the fifth anniversary of our first meeting! Please find discussion questions below:

1.Science-fiction, or ‘speculative-fiction’ as Atwood terms her own work, often works best when it is a plausible fictional world that has been created. How plausible is the world of Oryx and Crake?

2.How effective and/or reliable a narrator is the Snowman? Is the nickname he gives himself justified? And how successful is the narrative structure of the novel?

3.One aspect of the novel's society is the virtual elimination of the middle class. How is this situation created? Where would we find ourselves in the world of Oryx and Crake?

4.Discuss the importance of Jimmy’s mother within the context of the novel as a whole.

5.Snowman soon discovers that despite himself he's invented a new creation myth, simply by trying to think up comforting answers to the "why" questions of the Children of Crake. In Part Seven-the chapter entitled "Purring"-Crake claims that "God is a cluster of neurons," though he's had trouble eradicating religious experiences without producing zombies. Do you agree with Crake? How do Snowman's origin stories reflect on spirituality and the way it evolves among various cultures?

6.Do you always believe what Oryx says?

7.Why does Snowman feel compelled to protect the benign Crakers, who can't understand him and can never be his close friends? Do you believe that the Crakers would be capable of survival in our own society?

8.In the world of Oryx and Crake, almost everything is for sale, and a great deal of power is now in the hands of large corporations and their private security forces. There are already more private police in North America than there are public ones. What are the advantages of such a system? What are the dangers?

9.The pre-contagion society in Oryx and Crake is fixated on physical perfection and longevity, much as our own society is. Will these quests lead to the inevitable downfall of our own society? Does the novel provide any answers or alternatives?

10.Is there a feminist slant to this novel?

11.In what ways does the dystopia of Oryx and Crake compare to those depicted in novels such as Brave New World, and 1984, and in Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale?

12.The book has two epigraphs, one from Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels and one from Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse. Why do you think these were chosen?

13.What did you think of the ending? What interpretations might it offer?