The Year of the Flood: A Novel
by Margaret Atwood
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Book Summary Information
Author: Margaret AtwoodEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Format: Deckle Edge
Published: 2009-09-22
ISBN: 0385528779
Number of pages: 448
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Book Reviews of The Year of the Flood: A Novel
Book Review: A Brilliantly Imagined Message
Summary: 5 Stars
Again, Margaret Atwood makes us squirm at the very possible, very credible results of humankind's folly. Starting with a desecrated, yet recognizable, landscape, it covers 25 years through shortly after the mass death referenced in the prophetic title. Through the eyes of Toby, Ren and Amanda, women with connected histories, we view how we can arrive at the final destruction of society as we know it. When these narrators take us back to the years before the Flood, enough of the environs are familiar that we readily recognize the very bad things that are happening in the dystopia that Atwood erects. Leading up to - and enabling - the Flood is the perfect storm of mismanaged institutions and technology. Mega corporations have replaced representative governments and become so entwined in organized criminal enterprises that there is no distinction between them. Children are orphaned by the State or abandoned by their mothers (Lucerne is a real piece of work). Hubris and greed have led to the extinction of species and their replacement with new, man-manufactured genetic combinations. Flowers with faces. Pigs with human brains. Carnivorous lion-lamb combinations. Atwood's imagination has no limit; yet, because she takes today's scientific accomplishments a few steps further, the reader never has to suspend disbelief.
To make good fiction work, there has to be a good guy and the God's Gardeners are that "good guy." The best part of this great book is how Atwood allows faith and spiritual good to triumph through God's Gardeners. The Gardeners are a religious group that seems to embrace several theologies with an emphasis on Christian doctrine. When first introduced, the reader may think, here's another dictatorial, chauvinist cult that grabs up the desperate and forces immediate conversion. Not so. Neither are they namby-pamby, accept-everything-written and turn-the-other-cheek. They question the Word (from where did God get the animal skin to clothe Adam and Eve?), teach weapon-wielding, meat-chewing survival skills (that are much needed and used before and after the Flood), and bestow sainthood on a host of historical crusaders for social justice and earth-life protection. (Editing miss: While the Gardeners surely would have bestowed sainthood on both women, Harriet Tubman was the intended blessed Wayfarer, not "Saint" Sojourner Truth.)
Situations can shift quickly from the subtle to the graphic, even gory; yet, Atwood's delivery is never gratuitous. Taking in these scenes are like viewing the aftermath of a battle - or the plague: we don't want to repeat it, we want to turn back the clock to avoid its happening.
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