Reading The Year of the Flood

The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood - 2009 Dec

Reading:
I finished this book in days. Maybe the cold weather contributed (fireplace + white tea + blanket = book!), but I just flew through this one. The story is a post-apocalyptic (or maybe just apocalyptic, depending on your outlook) setting years in the future, when "the social compact is wearing as thin as environmental stability". Atwood tells the story of two women who have a past connection to a very active and rigid green organization and their struggle with coming to the fact that the rest of the human population just might be extinct. So we bounce between past and present and between our two women (Ren and Toby). Decidedly unlike The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson, these women have a solid overlap to justify writing them into the same book...not just that they happened to be in the same city during a fair (see previous post regarding that). We also get a bonus...a third perspective from a spiritual environmentalist who has turned eco-friendliness into a religion. The Tolkein-like "poems" I noted upon finding this book are actually songs, and I hear that there is actually a recording. I love the interactivity that idea presents. I hope they're huge "O Fortuna"-style choral arrangements. But I doubt it. I definitely intend to find the CD at some point.

This book is probably not something I would pick up off of the shelves based on the jacket summary, but the cover art is a bit more intriguing, I suppose. Anyway, I really found myself focusing in on Ren. The jacket summary describes her as a "young dancer locked inside the high-end sex club Scales and Tails", so obviously that's why I connected with her (kidding). I think it may have been that we are just closer in age. I'm curious to see which woman each book club member latched onto. I didn't look up one word during this novel. I found its syntax and vocabulary to be very tangible and accessible despite the otherworldly setting. But the author did create words. Toby, for example, is trapped in a spa called AnooYoo. There are gene-splices proliferating in this world, such as a liobam (lion+lamb, to force the scriptural prophecy) and the rakunk (racoon+skunk, I think?). This deliberately-dumbed wordplay is sprinkled through the novel and after awhile I took pride in the fact that they did not trip me up and I was able to immediately discern new combinations. So that made up for the fact that my dictionary didn't have to be close at hand (something I usually despise in any lit).

I am undecided about how the environmental aspect affected me. I try to be "green", but not when it affects my budget. Organic foods with completely recycled/recyclable packaging might be okay with your wallet, but mine would throw a fit. There are obviously lessons to be learned in this book, which is why I'm excited for our group meeting to flesh that particular opinion out. These types of books with overt discussions are great for our group. We'll likely be saving the big spiritual/religious/sexuality/apocalyptic/the point to life/etc. topics for further down the road haha

Despite the gloomy outlook, the novel's end is decidedly positive. That caught me by surprise. The female characters were really colorful and dimensional, but I lacked that clarity and exploration in any male counterpart. I guess the mystery of those gentlemen is intriguing, but I definitely avoided investing in them after it became apparent that I would never know an answer (it's probably a tough balance to achieve, and one that translates into acting, I imagine).

I got on Amazon to read the summary, and in reviews I saw words like "masterpiece" thrown around in relation to Atwood's other works, so I wonder if that's true. I'm definitely going to get into her other titles and make up my own mind about that lofty claim. I would bet, though, that masterpiece might be just the word to describe this book.