MaddAddam (MaddAddam #3)
By Margaret Atwood; Read by Bernadette Dunne, Bob Walter and Robbie Daymond
Publisher: Random House Audio
Publication Date: 3 September 2013
ISBN: 978-0-7393-8399-5
[UNABRIDGED] – 13 hours, 23 minutes
Listen to an excerpt: | MP3 |
Themes: / post-apocalypse / survival / religion / genetic engineering / megalomania / mythology /
Publisher summary:
Months after the Waterless Flood pandemic has wiped out most of humanity, Toby and Ren have rescued their friend Amanda from the vicious Painballers. They return to the MaddAddamite cob house, newly fortified against man and giant pigoon alike. Accompanying them are the Crakers, the gentle, quasi-human species engineered by the brilliant but deceased Crake. Their reluctant prophet, Snowman-the-Jimmy, is recovering from a debilitating fever, so it’s left to Toby to preach the Craker theology, with Crake as Creator. She must also deal with cultural misunderstandings, terrible coffee, and her jealousy over her lover, Zeb.
Zeb has been searching for Adam One, founder of the God’s Gardeners, the pacifist green religion from which Zeb broke years ago to lead the MaddAddamites in active resistance against the destructive CorpSeCorps. But now, under threat of a Painballer attack, the MaddAddamites must fight back with the aid of their newfound allies, some of whom have four trotters. At the center of MaddAddam is the story of Zeb’s dark and twisted past, which contains a lost brother, a hidden murder, a bear, and a bizarre act of revenge.
“There’s the story, then there’s the real story, then there’s the story of how the story came to be told. Then there’s what you leave out of the story. Which is part of the story too.”
Preach, Mother Atwood. This past week has had me reimmersed into the MaddAddam trilogy, starting with a fifth re-read of Oryx and Crake since we discussed it for a readalong.
When you read all the books of a trilogy close together, and you already know the story having read each of them at least once before, it is a lot easier to fill in the gaps and see the intricate detail that Atwood has built into this world. It isn’t just the Waterless Flood causing the dilemmas the Crakers are born into, the world was going to hell for decades before that. This book tells more of that story. While Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood were parallel narratives, MaddAddam starts from where those books end, and then traces back around to tell the story of Zeb. His story is told largely by Toby, to the Crakers, in the form of myth-like bedtime stories. What is the power of myth? The minute someone tells it, it has a high likelihood to change, whether that is to protect the listeners or to make it easier on the storyteller. There is so much about story in this novel.
“People need such stories, Pilar said once, because however dark, a darkness with voices in it is better than a silent void.”
I scanned these books for questions I had from the first novel, and I won’t include my discoveries here, but there are definitely answers in this novel. And more questions.
The audiobook is a real treat – the three narrators do not share the job evenly, and by the time the third narrator comes along, there is a wonderful reason why he has waited so long. Highly recommended, but do start with Oryx and Crake!
Posted by Jenny Colvin