Margaret Atwood’s Maddaddam Dystopian Trilogy Book #2 (2009): The Year of the Flood continues with the theme of man’s self-inflicted destruction of the world. The novel follows some of the lives of a group of Gardners in America before and after the waterless flood of mankind. When the author writes about the present, she describes the world as a much smaller place because of a global pandemic. When she switches to the past, she describes the world after a previous pandemic. Much America has divided itself into almost tribal-like groups that are determined by mindset, education, and misfortune.
The Gardner group is kind of like a cult. High-ranking members are numbered Adam #1, #2, #3, etc. and Eve #1, #2, #3, etc. The numbers do not correspond to how high they are on the totem pole, but rather what their specialties are. Some Eves are great bee-keepers, and some Adams are great at teaching the children about herbs and medicine, etc.. The Gardners are vegetarians who aspire to be experts in agriculture. They remind me of a Zen-Tree-Hugger-Doomsday Prepper.
Some of the
background of the book goes into the abuse of genetics like Oryx and Crake, Book
#1. There are many spliced, engineered
species that were created after the extinction. Engineered genes are used throughout the book
for many frivolous things, especially with altering human appearances. Food is
also genetically engineered (like super-GMOs), especially meat. Natural vegetation and bugs are the food of
choice for the Gardners.
All the
characters in the Gardner group have back-stories that date before the waterless flood/pandemic. This cult consists of former
strippers, students, rich housewives, burger flippers, military, and
high-techies. A Gardner could essentially
be anyone. They have hymns, sacred
holidays, and spiritual instructions from their leader, Adam 1. They also believe in God, or at least their
version of God which greatly correlates with God in the Bible as evidenced
by several Biblical verses and stories. Gardners do things for the good of the group, the good of the Earth, and the
good of mankind. They are the protagonists of the story.
Oryx, Crake,
and Jimmy the Snowman from Oryx and Crake-Book #1 are not really good-guys. They are part of the science/tech crowd who want to play God, especially Crake.
Some other
groups are the PainBallers (this dystopian world’s way of making someone a
prisoner in a warped legal system), pleebs (street people), Helthwizer (the tech company that also works
as a compound with all of the world’s elites), and other competing or allied
cults.
In this book
(Book #2), there isn’t a striking conflict (yet). The main problems that the Gardners face are
survival and autonomy. They do not have
any power in this dystopian world, but they are somewhat tolerated. They know their
days are numbered. When the waterless flood/pandemic
sweeps, the power structure between all of the groups is once again
levelled. The Gardners’ survivor skills some into play.
