Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Oryx & Crake

I caught up on some reading while suffering from food poisoning.  Why let those tainted mussels win, right?  (They kind of won a little bit).  There is nothing like a dystopian novel to make you feel better.  Hey, you may feel terrible but at least you don't have a virulent bacterial infection that will kill you, you just suspect you might. 

Oryx and Crake was the first in a trilogy by Margaret Atwood, who is awesome at all of her various genres. It's not fun-times for our narrator, although he is a kind of dipstick. Of course it is well written an interesting as you would expect nothing less from her. The trilogy is finished and this first book was written ten years ago so it is not fair to make fun of people in the future watching CD-ROMS. It does seem so stupid now. Maybe they make a comeback like vinyl records.

I know that dystopian novels are supposed to be depressing and a kind of wake up call to mend our wicked ways but why can't they have a bright side?  Why can't we solve global warming by having cute bikes or riding tricked out cable cars, have condos on the moon, nanobots that kill cancer and eat carbs without consequences.  I want to live in that future.  I think authors just do not want to envision a future that is better than the one we live in now.  They think, how dare my grandchildren live better than me--SCREW THE GRANDCHILDREN--you will be eating your own poop someday! 

Our dipstick narrator likes beer--real beer-- and who doesn't?  I truly think we are living in the golden age of craft beer so go out there and find some awesome ones.  Locally I have been enjoying Rhinegeist's Zen which is an American Pale Ale (less alcohol than an IPA), but there are some fun stuff coming out of Salt Lake City--I know! (apparently it has more heathens than you think) from Uinta Brewing Co. These lighter pale ales go with food--not tainted food--not your own poop--just decent normal food.   

No comments:

Post a Comment