The Year of the Flood

by Margaret Atwood, McLelland and Stewart, 434 pages

The most interesting thing about The Year of the Flood is - sadly - not the book itself but rather the story behind it. The second book in what is presumably a sci-fi trilogy (?) by a Canadian icon known more for highbrow literary fiction, The Year of the Flood is a nice example of an author challenging herself and her readers by offering material that is not easily classified. This has no doubt provided consternation for the people who work at bookstore chains: do you shelf Year of the Flood in "literary fiction"? Or do you put it in science fiction? Who do you market this book to - the highbrow literary folk or readers who like nothing more than to curl up with Issac Asimov? All interesting questions that would make for a much more intriguing  book club discussion then any you might have about Year of the Flood, which is an admirable but utlimately messy book that (dare I say it) drowns in the waters of its own ambition.



Year of the Flood is both a prequel and companion piece to Oryx and Crake - the events take place more or less simultaneously with the events of Oryx and its narrative completes Oryx's cliffhanger ending (and adds one of its own). Like much of Ms. Atwood's work, the novel also has an ambitious structure: not only does it employ three narrative voices, but it also leaps back and forth between the days before the apocalypse (called the Waterless Flood) and those after it.  This allows Ms. Atwood to give the reader several viewpoints on both the narrative and the characters - Brenda (Ren) speaks in first person, but when she appears in another narrative strand, we are in third person and now view her from afar. This allows us to gather different perspectives on both the characters and the events and calls into the question the reliability of the narrator.

But for all the literary ambitions of the book, Year of the Flood is a book saddled with a convoluted, undramatic plot. Ms. Atwood has provided her dystopian future, but it's all things we've seen before. The world is run by an evil corporation (HelthWyzer) which has exchanged morals for profit, leading to a fascist dystopia which has fractured society. A cult known as the Gardeners has broken away and are trying to live an ecological, vegetarian life, but even they fall victim to the inevitible manmade plague which floods the world. But although Ms. Atwood has built her world, she has failed to provide a engaging narrative to carry us through it. There is no central relationship and her heroines lack a clear dramatic focus: their purpose, it seems, is to simply be windows that allow the reader to see the world of the future.

The writing itself is equally bland and although the story can be dark and thoughtful, the comedic moments are surprisingly weak. Ms. Atwood is usually a sharp comedienne, but here the best she can do is provide lame lame satirical names for her corporations and companies ("AnooYoo Spa", "Happicuppa Coffee", a fast food joint called "SecretBurgers"). There's some be great commentary on the perils of genetic engineering, cult mentality and the breakdown of social ethics and Ms. Atwood's vision of the future is both bleak and conceivable. But ultimately the novel becomes a confused mess of events which lack dramatic weight and have none of the intriguing drama of Oryx and Crake.

This is really for Atwood devotees, although I'll admit a brief troll through the Net has revealed that there's also been some appeal in sci-fi circles. There's some consolation in this - the sci-fi shelves have always been lacking in female voices and it's good to know that Ms. Atwood has been allowed to enter the fray.