The Year of the Flood

Hello, it’s Heather here. Lydia lent me this novel earlier, and after finishing it I just had to write about it! I had no idea that this was the second of the trilogy until after reading it, though from the comments I’ve read online this seems to be linked, but not necessarily attached, to its predecessor. There are sexual and violent themes in this book so it’s probably best for under-eighteens not to read it.

Information

Author: Margaret Atwood

Published: September 2009

Publisher: Bloomsbury (UK), McClelland & Stewart (Canada)

Length: 448 pages

Genre: Speculative/Dystopian/Feminist Fiction

Brief description (from Goodreads)

"The Year of the Flood" is a dystopic masterpiece and a testament to Margaret Atwood's visionary power.

The times and species have been changing at a rapid rate, and the social compact is wearing as thin as environmental stability. Adam One, the kindly leader of the God's Gardeners--a religion devoted to the melding of science and religion, as well as the preservation of all plant and animal life--has long predicted a natural disaster that will alter Earth as we know it. Now it has occurred, obliterating most human life. Two women have survived: Ren, a young trapeze dancer locked inside the high-end sex club Scales and Tails, and Toby, a God's Gardener barricaded inside a luxurious spa where many of the treatments are edible.

Have others survived? Ren's bioartist friend Amanda? Zeb, her eco-fighter stepfather? Her onetime lover, Jimmy? Or the murderous Painballers, survivors of the mutual-elimination Painball prison? Not to mention the shadowy, corrupt policing force of the ruling powers . . .

Meanwhile, gene-spliced life forms are proliferating: the lion/lamb blends, the Mo'hair sheep with human hair, the pigs with human brain tissue. As Adam One and his intrepid hemp-clad band make their way through this strange new world, Ren and Toby will have to decide on their next move. They can't stay locked away . . .

By turns dark, tender, violent, thoughtful, and uneasily hilarious, "The Year of the Flood" is Atwood at her most brilliant and inventive

(https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6080337-the-year-of-the-flood)

Review

Boldly inventive as always, Atwood definitely succeeded in crafting an eerie story following two women that join a religious group called the Gardeners and following their lives before and after, and how they manage to survive the man-made, water-less 'flood'.

The narrative is a little messy at times, sometimes I had to flick back to check what time the chapter was set in and whether it was Ren or Toby. I think it might have worked better starting from the beginning, instead of year twenty-five. Every now and then, there’s a speech given by Adam One on a special event or day. At the start of the book, these really confused me, I had no idea what they meant in the context of the book, nor did I know who most of the referenced characters were. Had I read this novel for analytical or educational purpose, as oppose to leisure, I would probably have actually read these bits, but instead I found myself skipping past it to get to the narrative. These were bits were followed by hymns – which would have been a lovely touch – but again, I wanted to stay attached to the story, and it’s much better to hear or sing a hymn than to read it, so they were normally skipped too! In true Atwood style, when it ends you expect there to be another page or chapter; maybe the last novel in the series covers all the unanswered questions.

Like in The Handmaid’s Tale, Atwood includes charming little touches to her writing, for instance Toby contemplating the word daybreak and whether the sun or the night are splitting. Her writing remains as bold as ever, venturing into some dark and sensitive themes and using a lot of symbolism. I’d rather not get too bogged down on the whole meat debate as it’s pretty controversial for everyone, but I did find it interesting to look at, despite Ren and Toby’s view being overly one-sided in terms of religion (consider that Jesus frequently ate meat). I was reading up on Atwood earlier and it’s mentioned that she links meat-eating to sexual oppression sometimes, so perhaps this was done on purpose to show how, as women, they were oppressed. Utilising this idea, it’s no wonder that the SecretBurgers (a blend of whatever meat, and sometimes fingernails, could be found) made several appearances; maybe a symbol for the disturbing presentation of sex.

The world itself felt tiny, main characters running into one another so frequently that I wondered if Atwood was doing this to infer fate or just a lot of coincidences in a small place. As characters go, I’ll admit that sometimes Nuala and Pilar somehow got muddled up in my head, the Gardeners being similar in dialogue, but this kind of made me think that the bee hive was a symbol for them – moving as one with the same flow of thoughts. Little Ren was very sweet and easily influenced by Amanda; I really liked how Atwood wrote Ren’s guilt and sense of betrayal as she grew up, sometimes finding their lifestyle difficult and yearning to dress like the other children did. Zeb was a powerful character, filling a role as a fatherly figure to Ren, which the novel was otherwise pretty absent from, aside from perhaps Toby being maternal towards her. I liked how the novel portrayed friendship as more powerful than romantic love.

This brings me onto the next subject: sexual and romantic love. Throughout the novel, Toby is described by Ren as the dry witch, completely un-sexual and hardcore. I really think this demonstrated the way that Blanco’s abuse of her destroyed her sense of sexuality, contaminating the very idea of romance. Ren herself has some bad experiences with love as well, and it’s written wonderfully, really illustrating the many ways love can hurt you. All in all, romantic love is presented as painful and damaging.

Perhaps this is what makes the narrators both feel so isolated. Ren is quiet, but in her head, it’s obvious that she’s having to deal with a lot of issues alone and unsupported in a truly selfless manner. Toby also comes across as isolated, feeling abandoned regularly by those she loved and having to hide her own doubts to fit in. It was fascinating to see how Toby settles into the Gardeners, particularly as she frequently expresses a difficulty to believe like they do, and yet she finds herself at home there. The theme of disguise and concealment was another element that Atwood presents as important. Toby is constantly trying to blend into the background, be it by joining the Gardeners to escape from Blanco, and by physically changing her appearance. This idea almost makes unique identity and individuality appear negative, making even the self lonely.

Personally, I found the novel difficult to initially get into and the structure a little awkward, but it’s definitely worth persisting with. The storyline itself develops nicely, making it enticing and scary to read.