This month the Guardian book club will be discussing Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake. This post-apocalyptic dystopia, first published in 2003, marks Atwoood's first return to the future since The Handmaid's Tale (1985), splicing the story of Snowman's struggle to survive in a devastated landscape with his recollections of the biological catastrophe that has destroyed civilsation.
John Mullan begins this month's series of columns about the book with a look at the tactics Atwood has chosen to disorientate the reader. He traces two separate lineages for the two strands of the book, finding echoes of Mary Shelley and William Golding in Snowman's present struggles and George Orwell and William Golding in his former life.
Margaret Atwood will be discussing these forebears and more with John Mullan at the Guardian on Wednesday April 18 (tickets are £8, and have long since sold out, but for a slender chance of getting a return, call 020 7886 9281 or email book.club@theguardian.com). Meanwhile, this is the place to discuss it online. What did you think of the book?
