I witness an Atwoodian post-apocalypse

Maddaddam****

by Margaret Atwood

The final installment of Atwood's trilogy that began with "Oryx and Crake," and "The Year of the Flood" comes to an end. To catch you up, humanity has been all but wiped out by a virus, leaving only the genetically engineered humanoid Crakers and roughly a dozen "real" people left alive. "Maddaddam" is long and satisfying ... but doesn't have quite the creative force of "Flood," an absolute tour de force, and, at times, Atwood, like her heroine Toby, seems a little tired of it all. 

Still, Atwood gamely imagines what new rules might emerge in a post-apocalyptic landscape, playing another Margaret--Margaret Mead--in her own imaginary world. In a world in which humanity is going to change in deep and profound ways, what, for instance, happens to justice? To feminism? To human curiosity? To religion? Not to mention music, art, and literature. 

In some ways, Atwood's novel is what happens to literature. Human narratives have become cynical, and one can't help feeling a little glad they're going to give way to those of the Crakers, who see life and its events with newer eyes, with more reverence and innocence. What will be gone, sadly, is human wit and humor, which have been bred out of the Crakers and with which Atwood endows Toby and her sidekick Ren in spades, though not as much as in "Year of the Flood."

What's most jarring, even irritating, in "Maddaddam" is Toby's incessant fussing over her partner Zeb, whether he's boinking the younger women, whether her yearnings in middle age make her ridiculous. (For chrissakes, everybody has been reduced to wearing bed sheets wrapped toga style, so how un-ridiculous could ANYbody look?) Certainly Atwood has always explored female angst in her novels, but it seems a strange thing for Toby, who has bravery and guts, to be worrying about after the apocalypse.

Another slight flaw is that the novel contains hundreds of pages of backstory presented--all interesting, don't get me wrong--but almost always as pillow talk between Zeb and Toby. That device wears thin. 

However, Atwood isn't the first writer to lose a bit of steam while writing a series, and as fantasy/post-apocalyptic series go, this one has "Hunger Games" and "Game of Thrones" all beat to hell. There are also some very moving and human moments, which I can't tell you about because they'd be spoilers. But I haven't snuffled over a book in quite some time, and the fate of some of the characters made me realize just how much I'd come to care about them.

UPDATE: Also read Atwood's "The Penelopiad," the story of Ulysses from the point of view of Penelope. Very sharp and nicely done!