'25 January - theme: Finish an abandoned book
MaddAdam by Margaret Atwood
Margaret Atwood is easily one of my top 5 authors, probably even holder of the Number one spot on my list. So it might seem surprising to find her in the abandoned book category. This book is the third in the MaddAdam trilogy, preceded by Oryx & Crake and The Year of the Flood. I read the first two when they came out and quickly started on this, the third book. Soon after starting I emigrated to the USA and decided that a hardback book would be heavy to carry in my hand luggage - I elected to post it in a box of stuff that was too much to fit into my suitcase. That parcel was lost. And so MaddAdam became abandoned for 5 and a half long years.
MaddAdam is not a stand-alone. To understand it you must have read the first two books in the trilogy. This final installment brings together both storylines and casts of characters from the first two books. Snowman-the-Jimmy is back but badly injured so actually doesn't get to do much except be purred on by the Crakers. We finally get the backstory of Zeb, which Atwood masterfully tells as a series of bedtime stories from Zeb to Tory and from Tory to the Crakers and finally utilizing Blackbeard as the storyteller. I loved that he ate the fish (even though it disgusted him) and put on the hat and wore the watch. Priceless.
As usual Atwood manages to integrate humor into her dystopia. I will continue to think of her any time I summon the great "Oh Fuck" and next time I'm in Wilby I will visit the "Pig-Ones" in her honor.
At about 30 pages to the end I really couldn't see how Atwood was going to wrap up the whole trilogy in so short a time and immediately after reading it I was unsure if I liked the ending of the book. However, the more I sat with it, the more I agreed that it was appropriate. The final battle didn't need to be grand or long, in fact it was far more in keeping with the very human characters that it was short and a little inconclusive. Atwood sets up a magnificent alternate dystopian America just to remind you that the players are and always will be flawed human beings.