Rebooting Orwell

'The Ministry of Truth: A Biography of George Orwell's 1984' by Dorian Lynskey (Picador, 2019)

You know a book's big when it has its own biography.  I recently re-read 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' in preparation for 'The Ministry of Truth', Dorian Lynskey's story of the origins and afterlife of George Orwell's most famous novel.

Ctrl Alt Delete: Back to Nineteen Eighty-Four

'Nineteen Eighty-Four' by George Orwell (Penguin Modern Classic edition, 2000)

One of the few fun features of lockdown has been getting a look inside people's homes during video calls.  After a short while, it became obvious that people were curating the rooms they broadcast from.  "I'm a family man!" cried the wall of kids photos and crayon drawings.  "I've got incredible taste!" boasted a minimalist display of just one, large, abstract artwork.  "I'm an intellectual!" crowed bookcases of leather-bound classics.  The only problem is that bookshelves cannot be trusted.  As many well publicised surveys have proven over the past decade, not only are shelves littered with unread volumes, but people happily lie about reading some of the world's most prestigious works.  George Orwell's infamous novel 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' is often listed among them - ironic for a book themed around truth.

Gilead Revisited

'The Handmaid's Tale' by Margaret Atwood

With the release of companion piece 'The Testaments' just ten days away, I've done something I don't normally do - I've re-read a book!  So, unsure of whether it was as good as I remembered and with some trepidation, I returned to Gilead and 'The Handmaid's Tale' by Margaret Atwood.

Following a carefully planned coup that wipes out Congress and strips civil liberties, the United States of America has been taken over by a fundamentalist Christian group and renamed 'Gilead'.  Those not purged find themselves boxed into new, sanctioned roles that mean work and above all relationships are state controlled.  With birth rates low and people needed to fight ongoing wars, the rulers of Gilead assign senior personnel 'Handmaids', fertile women to be ritually raped in the hope that they will provide the Commanders and their Wives with children.  'Offred' is one of the first wave of Handmaids, haunted by memories of the life she had before, fearful for the future of her lost daughter, and stunned into compliance by the isolating existence she now endures as an object of desire and moral revulsion.  As the shock begins to fade, however, she starts to see that things are not quite as godly as the regime would like believed, and even those at the highest levels are showing signs of very human weakness...

The Most Natural Thing in the World

'Sealed' by Naomi Booth (Dead Ink, 2017)

I love it when publishers put a shout out for book bloggers on Twitter.  This has led me to some absolutely incredible books, books that I would never have known about otherwise, let alone read.  'Sealed' by Naomi Booth is just one example.

'Sealed'
by Naomi Booth
(Dead Ink, 2017)

When the heavily-pregnant Alice and her laid-back partner, Pete, move out of the city to a remote house in the mountains, they believe it's a fresh start.  Away from urban pollution and the deadly skin-sealing disease it may be causing, they hope that they can put tragedy and worry behind them and prepare a safe home for the new arrival.  But the grass isn't always greener, and not only does their new location provide new dangers, old ones prove hard to escape too...

The Ballad of Zeb and Toby

I've just finished the recently published 'MaddAddam' by Margaret Atwood, the last in the superlative 'Oryx and Crake' trilogy. Must've been good for me to finish it in just a week!

'MaddAddam' by Margaret
Atwood  (Bloomsbury, 2013)

'MaddAddam' begins as 'The Year of the Flood' ends. The human race has been largely wiped out by a mysterious virus, but a handful of outsiders have survived. Many are former God's Gardeners, a Christian Environmental sect that values nature and cultivates self-reliance, or members of MaddAddam, a terrorist group that dispensed with the Gardener's pacifism and used genetic know-how to cause disruption to the ruling corporations.  But they are not the only people left alive. Two psychotic competitors from the Painball games have escaped the plague and want nothing more than to torture, rape and kill.  Having saved Amanda from them once, with the help of Ren and the unexpected arrival of Snowman-the-Jimmy, Toby lets down her guard and the Painballers escape.  Will Toby and the other survivors find them before it's too late? How can they protect the innocent Children of Crake? And what of the mysterious Zeb?

Atwood has pulled off a fantastic hat trick with these three books and 'MaddAddam' is the captivating conclusion to a thrilling trilogy. While books one and two told the stories of Glenn, Jimmy, Ren and Toby, here we find out about the enigmatic Zeb and spend more time with the Children of Crake, the genetically modified replacement for human beings.  Once again, Atwood juggles the varied voices involved fantastically and it's easy to forget that they all come from the mind of one author.

'MaddAddam' is probably the most surreal and fanciful of the three books, but it is set after the apocalypse and feels right for the world that Atwood has created.  Or should I say predicted?

The ending did leave me feeling bereft, but, as any reader will tell you, that's not unusual when you've enjoyed a book and grown attached to the characters involved.

Overall, I would really recommend the Oryx and Crake trilogy to anyone who enjoys thought provoking books which challenge the way we see the world. This is Speculative, rather than Science, Fiction at its best.

Now, back to Bernard Cornwell's Saxons vs Danes Round Five: Pride Comes Before a Fall. I'm only on page 48 and I think I can see where this is going! Really don't mind though. Honest.

Apocalypse Wow

Technically, I've lived through several expected apocalypses.  I survived both the fever caused by the Millennium Bug in 1999/2000 and the end of the Mayan calendar in December 2012. Oh, and that time that asteroid skimmed past the Earth a couple of years ago. I'm sure there have been many more 'false alarms', but I somehow find our obsession with the end of the world intriguing, particularly as in all likelihood we either won't see it coming or will ignore it's coming because we don't want to change our destructive ways.

Anyway, I've just finished reading 'The Year of the Flood' by Margaret Atwood, the second book in the 'Oryx and Crake' trilogy.  'Oryx and Crake' has the rare distinction of being one of only a handful of books which I've read within two days.  Aren't train journeys great?

'The Year of the Flood'
by Margaret Atwood
(2010, Virago)

'The Year of the Flood' runs parallel to 'Oryx and Crake'.  Both books cover the lead up to and immediate aftermath of a terrible pandemic that wipes out the majority of mankind, but told from two very different perspectives.  While 'Oryx and Crake' witnesses the end of days from the upper class, high security compounds of society's elite, 'The Year of the Flood' explores the poorer and criminal strata of the population in the hard and vicious pleeblands.  The pleebs are home to Toby and Ren, two women who have survived the plague and now tell their own, intertwined versions of events.  Toby is living alone on the roof of the AnooYoo spa, nurturing her rooftop garden and nervously watching the horizon for disease carrying humans, predatory wolvogs and inquisitive pigoons. Meanwhile, Ren is trapped in quarantine in Scales and Tails, a high class strip club, wondering just how long her food will last and if anyone will find her before it's too late.  Are they the last human beings alive? Will they find each other?

As you might've guessed from my recent tweets (@Girl_LovesBooks), I thoroughly enjoyed this book (if that's the right word for it!  The story is incredibly dark and violent in places. But the end of the world was never going to be cheerful.).  I loved 'Oryx and Crake' and Atwood's other famous apocalyptic novel, 'The Handmaid's Tale'.  Atwood is an absolute master when it comes to looking at modern trends and extrapolating plausible futures from them, making her stories different and captivating yet familiar and real.  On top of this, 'The Year of the Flood' is pacy and Ren and Toby flawed, fragile and human characters that you root for.  It's an irresistible combination that makes 'The Year of the Flood' a real page turner, even when you know what's coming.

I also absolutely love the way Atwood plays with language. As well as the AnooYoo spa, there are the genetically engineered animals including rakunks and Mo'Hairs, new technology like the Sea/H/Ear Candy ear phones and foodstuffs including Zizzy Fruits, ChickieNobs and Happicuppa.  This adds a playfulness to the story which makes it easier to handle its darker elements.

Overall, I enjoyed this book so much that I've moved straight onto the third in the trilogy, the recently published 'MaddAddam'.  It'll be an interesting test, especially after the bad experience I had recently trying to read the whole Cousins' War series by Philippa Gregory in a row. So we'll have to see.

The world has ended. So what now?