Novels Now

You are browsing the archives of Year of the Flood (The).

This was not an ordinary pandemic: it wouldn’t be contained after a few hundred thousand deaths, then obliterated with biotools and bleach. This was the Waterless Flood the Gardeners so often had warned about. It had all the signs: it traveled through the air as if on wings, it burned through cities like fire, spreading germ-ridden mobs of terror and butchery. The lights were going out everywhere, and now the news was fading away; systems were failing as their keepers died. It spelled total breakdown which was why she’d needed the rifle. Rifles had been illegal for years, but laws were no longer a factor. – from The Year of the Flood, page 18 of the ARC -

The year is far in the future, a time when animals are becoming extinct at a rate faster than people can document, and the level of pollution requires individuals to don nose cones in order to go outside. The government is horribly corrupt – creating weird animals like liobams (part lamb, part lion) and embedding diseases into vitamin supplements. Criminals are either executed or sent to serve months “playing” Painball, a deadly form of today’s paintball.

Welcome to Margaret Atwood’s latest dystopian novel which serves as a prequel to her previous work Oryx and Crake. The Year of the Flood takes place roughly during the same time period as Oryx and Crake, but jumps back and forth from the post-pandemic months and the years leading up to the disaster. Jimmy (Snowman) makes a reappearance in The Year of the Flood, but the main characters are two women – Toby and Ren. The novel is narrated first in Toby’s voice then in Ren’s, alternating chapters to provide significant background on not only the state of the world, but each woman’s personal story as well.

The heroes of the novel are members of a (mostly) pacifist, eco-friendly group called the Gardeners. Headed up by a Christ-like man called Adam One, the Gardeners rescue people off the streets (and from morally reprehensible lives), prohibit meat eating of any kind, document the animals being lost to extinction, and work underground to gain information about the various corrupt practices of the government. Both Toby and Ren become members of the Gardeners – Toby as a healer and eventually one of the Eves (female members who take on a leadership role in the group), and Ren who joins the group as a child.

Nobody does dystopian literature better than Atwood – and in The Year of the Flood she provides complex female characters who are faced with futuristic horrors which involve women as sexual tools for men, plenty of violence, and lots of cynicism. There is also Atwood’s signature sense of humor embedded in the story which is often graphic while exploring serious subjects such as pandemics, government corruption, and loss of our natural resources.

I love Margaret Atwood’s writing. I am always astonished by the brilliance of her prose and her ability to tell an engrossing story. But The Year of the Flood is not without its faults. I could have lived without the insertion of Adam One’s sermons and song lyrics from the Gardener’s “hymn” book. I also felt the ending was rather abrupt and left the reader wondering what the future held for the characters (in this way, it was a lot like Oryx and Crake).In some ways, I felt Atwood wrote the ending to connect the novel to Oryx and Crake – it felt a bit contrived.

Despite its faults, The Year of the Flood will appeal to readers who enjoy an engaging dystopian tale and who have read and liked Atwood’s previous work. I would be interested to see if Atwood is planning a third book in the series…and if so, where she might take her characters next.

The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood
(a parallel novel to Oryx and Crake)

Pages: 431
First Published: Sept. 22, 2009
Genre: post-apocalyptic, science fiction (no matter how much the author denies it)
Rating: 3/5

First sentence:

In the early morning Toby climbs up to the rooftop to watch the sunrise.

Reason for Reading: Atwood’s new book.  Borrowed from my library.

Summary: A plague has wiped out the majority of the world and the God’s Gardeners cult had been preparing for the end-times (the Waterless Flood) all along. Two women, who were members of God’s Gardeners have survived the plague. One, Ren, because she was in an isolation unit (almost like an apartment) where she was recuperating after being abused by one of the patrons in the sex club where she worked and possibly contaminated. The other, Toby, had locked herself in the beauty spa (heavily secured corporation run) she was the manager of the night the plague hit full force. The story is told from three points of views. Ren’s and Toby’s with both of them telling their present situation and remembering their past life with the God’s Gardener’s. The third point of view comes from the past and follows the God’s Gardeners year by year through sermons given by Adam One which end with a hymn.

Comments: I really enjoyed Oryx and Crake and dived into this book as soon as it came into the library for me. The book was a quick read. I always find Atwood’s writing to flow so naturally her books are often hard to put down, and this was no exception. Ren and Toby are full, realistic characters, quite opposite in nature from each other but both emotionally draw the reader into their lives and thus the book. Atwood’s feminist side shows through here as we see a comparison between the two women. Ren has been treated kindly then thrown aside and later used and abused by men because of her good looks while Toby has been used and abused and later ignored by men because of her plain looks.

The God’s Gardeners cult was pretty creepy in my opinion. Atwood has created a religion which is Old Testament based, yet Pagan in nature and is full of Saint Days. While the group believes in an Old Testament God, they are eco friendly by worshipping animals and nature and are strictly vegan. Near the beginning she has a St. Mowat of the Wolves day and I said to myself, “Oh, Lord please do not let her have a St. David Suzuki day in here or I’m going to through this book across the room”. He did appear, but fortunately it was near the end of the book and I held back my urge.

I would suggest reading Oryx and Crake first. The books are not dependant on each other but this one does reference many things from the first book and you are going to wandering around in the dark as either no explanations, or only brief ones are given. A very quick explanation of the events of the first book are summed up for you at the crucial point in Year of the Flood but a reader will be missing out on a whole book’s worth of insider information if they journey into this without having read Oryx and Crake first.

Ultimately though, I was disappointed with book. It was a good enough book. Fans of Oryx and Crake will have to read it to find out the rest of the story. But I just didn’t get into the story that much. It wasn’t a page turner, even though it read quick enough. The plot kept moving forward but there never was any real suspense, reveals, moments of great emotion or climax even to satisfy. Well, there is a climax and an ending but they are small and weak and I ended the book with a “hmmph”.