Margaret Atwood’s latest preternatural SF creation is the palindromic
Maddaddam. It presents a near-future bizarre post-apocalyptic scenario. A
morbid and harsh narrative, it depicts canine consumption, coprophagia, cannibalism
(echoes of Voltaire’s Candide – gluteal gluttony), and other heteroclitic
concepts. There are frakensteinian genetically-engineered priapic humans, as
goofy and mystical as the Silfen populating Peter F. Hamilton’s Commonwealth
Trilogy. Incidentally, Maddaddam is the third in the series, spatially parallel and not a sequel; hope there are more to come.
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However, what makes this dystopic novel, amidst the
degradation of mankind, a rollicking read, is the sustained and subtle humour.
Names of some individuals would appear familiar in Asterix’s Gaulish milieu.
A nice desi
touch is the beatification of the environmental activist Vandana Shiva and
tiger conservationist Fateh Singh Rathore.
Read it.
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