Vestiges of the ordinary and everyday surrounded by weird science, thoroughly referenced by Atwood at the back of the book, add to this feeling of displacement.
You recognise the words, but nothing quite makes sense, nothing feels certain. Words and stories become his tools to survive the harsh reality he has found himself in and as the reader, you cling to the same constructs to make sense of the scene and events occurring. He has helped create this new world, shape its narrative and reimagine himself as a quasi-religious figure. Snowman's past life and his love of words punctuate the book as echoes of a lost time but also reveal an uneasy conscience. We learn of Snowman's or rather Jimmy's liberal arts education in a world that prizes the study of science and his later work as a copywriter helping to peddle the latest pharmaceutical innovations, most notably the BlyssPluss Pill that promises to reverse the ageing process.
What would we do as an individual or as a race when faced with a species-ending event? What different moral decisions could we take before or after? Atwood has a knack for creating a totally believable Everyman in Snowman – or Jimmy, as he was once known – lost in the wreckage. There's evidence of disasters, both natural, man-made and even man-managed. Set in the near future, the novel flicks between the story of Snowman's current plight, his mission to survive (for what?) and a sequence of flashbacks alluding to how he ended up as possibly the last human in the world. The opening scenes introducing the central character Snowman, a lonely figure isolated on the sandy and possibly toxic shores of human civilisation, gave a very different edge to the packed Barceloneta beach under my feet. As such I couldn't have asked for a more perfect companion on a recent trip to a welcoming, sunkissed Barcelona than Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake. I like a bit of dystopian fiction with my sunshine and sangria.
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