Another post-apocalyptic exploration of people

“What am I living for and what am I dying for are the same question.”

The novel begins in Year 25, the year of the flood. The story of what made year zero the starting point is left to the imagination of the reader, as are the details of “the waterless flood”. However, since the story explores the same time period as the events of Oryx and Crake it is quickly presumed that it is the pandemic murder that took place there. The events are mainly situated around God’s Gardeners (briefly mentioned in Oryx and Crake) a cult-religion that worships God through nature; they are vegetarians/vegans and they believe in respecting all things in the “great dance of proteins”.

The novel is oddly paced. The narrative shifts back and forth between Toby and Ren. Toby is hard, tough woman, an Eve in God’s Gardeners, constantly looking over her back in her flight from the past. Ren is a wishy washy girl, being shifted by people – first her mother dragged her into God’s Garderners, then back out. Finally she ends up as an exotic dancer/prostitute at Scails and Tales.

The story is less than Oryx and Crake. It feels less interesting and less real, but I suppose the beauty of it is the way it interweaves and tells the same story in a different way. I found my self often waiting for, hoping that finally Snowman would find all these other survivors, and how he would feel about not actually being the last man alive.

However the novel continually revolves around the cult of God’s Gardeners which never became interesting to me. There were too many clumsy sermons from Adam One that somewhat illustrated the glossy retorics that religous cults may spew forth, but it was not nearly funny enough to be featured so often. The same may especially be said for the “religios hymns”, that supposedly were inspired by Blake, but read more like a third grader mercilessly hammering syllables into quaint poems with no absolute meaning what so ever. Perhaps this too was meant to be satire of religious music, but it fell absolutely flat as much religious lyricism can be quite moving – and this was not.

There was just too little plot for the book to become interesting. Ren was horribly weak and boring; she is litereally only important to tell the story of others. Toby is a bit more kickass, but her emotional life is completely hidden, the other characters view her as sex-less, despite her desires being hinted at they are never honored enough to explore and so she in a sense becomes hollow and sexless to the readers as well.

I’ll probably still read the 3rd book. Let us sing:

“All Creatures know that some must die
That all the rest may take and eat;
Sooner or later, all transform
Their blood to wine, their flesh to meat.

But Man alone seeks Vengefulness,
And writes his abstract Laws on stone;
For this false Justice he has made,
He tortures limb and crushes bone.

Is this the image of a god?
My tooth for yours, your eye for mine?
Oh, if Revenge did move the stars
Instead of Love, they would not shine.”