THE YEAR OF THE FLOOD by Margaret Atwood (McClelland & Stewart), 334 pages, $32.99 cloth. Rating: NNNN
Fifty pages into The Year of the Flood, I remember saying out loud to no one in particular, “I guess Margaret Atwood is simply a genius.” Her account of a natural disaster that transforms an already dying planet is brilliantly conceived, and undergirded by an absolutely coherent vision.
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Spinning off Atwood’s 2003 hit, Oryx & Crake, it’s told in flashbacks from the perspective of its two central female characters, Ren, a former pole dancer, and Toby, a woman in charge of herbs and healing in the society of Gardeners, where both of them live. The Gardeners are a radical sect committed to honouring the earth and remembering history.
The rest of planet has gone straight to hell. Private security firm CorpSeCorps Elected has replaced elected governments, and consumerism is the new religion despite shortages of just about everything. Meat is so rare that the popular SecretBurgers chain churns out patties made of human flesh.
The book begins as the waterless flood has passed, but quickly flashes back to episodes that make it seem as if it’s going to be a harrowing horror story. Toby is working at SecretBurgers, whose sick and sadistic manager is raping and starving her.
But when the Gardeners, led by Adam One, rescue her and lead her to their green rooftop, The Year Of The Flood turns into a more cerebral satire. Savvy Atwood makes it hard to tell whether the doctrinaire Gardeners are laughable or lovable.
A bit of me wishes that Atwood had sustained the terror in the opening chapters. An undeniably glittering intellect is at work here, but the book as a whole is strangely cold.
Just try, though, to stop turning those pages.
Atwood gives a dramatic reading tonight (Thursday, September 24) at St. James Cathedral and is at The Word On The Street on Sunday (September 27). See Readings.
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