Thérèse Neelands

The Year of the Flood, by Margaret Atwood

I’m not a book reviewer, so I won’t attempt to write one. But I wish Steph would finally get down to reading this and write about it. When people ask which is a favourite of her novels, it’s impossible for me to answer definitively. I love them all.

But The Year of The Flood seems to me like it was pretty special to Margaret. I think that mostly she stands aside from her novels, not taking any sides but just presenting things as they are. Her main objective is always truth. But this one may even sound a little preachy. And she holds nothing back – it’s pretty crude. I feel like she’s saying, enough is enough. It’s actually the crudest she’s ever written in my opinion, and sometimes it’s weird to think that this stuff is coming from a woman of her age. But I think it’s totally necessary and appropriate for the book.

I love this book because it is so relevant. Sometimes this is funny and sometimes it’s disturbing. She brings to light things we take for granted in such a way that makes you take a look at those things as if you’ve never seen them before – which is often startling.

I finished Year of The Flood yesterday – a hottest day in Toronto like I’ve never experienced here before. There are cooling centres open and people giving out water bottles on the street and in parks. Smog warnings yesterday were at its highest, not just in Toronto but pretty much all over Southern Ontario. Which totally made the book more real than ever for me. In fact, it was a little creepy.

But the beauty in Year of The Flood is also there. I think more than in any other of her books that I can think of. Again, I feel like this one was very close to her heart. Some of the things that Adam One says – and the poetry, which is modeled after William Blake’s (of course! Hello!) is truly beautiful.

Can this post get any longer?

I love the connection to Oryx and Crake, which you don’t get until you’re well into the book and I can’t wait for the coming third in the trilogy. I’m not sure when it’s coming out.

Lastly, on Sunday morning (two days before I finished the book), David Suzuki was talking with Margaret on his show The Bottom Line on CBC Radio. Please please please listen to it.  It’s about Life, Death and The Breath. It’s about air, our atmosphere and climate change.

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