Quotes
Strange to think of the endless labour, the digging, the hammering, the carving, the lifting, the drilling, day by day, year by year, century by century; and now the endless crumbling that must be going on everywhere. Sandcastles in the wind.
This excerpt, from Chapter 3 of the novel, captures Jimmy’s reflection on the fragility of seemingly sturdy construction as he surveys the remnants of his once-flourishing society. After the storm, he goes to a broken bridge. There he notices a sign that reads “Men at Work,” prompting contemplation on the immense human effort invested in the design and erection of such a formidable engineering marvel. Despite the considerable work expended and the facade of solidity it exudes, the concrete bridge had crumbled easily.
For Jimmy, the bridge is a poignant symbol of civilization itself—a vast and intricately woven human creation painstakingly erected over centuries yet vulnerable to rapid decay within a single generation. While he laments the end of civilization, his observation echoes a spiritual undertone. By likening the construction process to an “endless” endeavor, Jimmy suggests a cyclical nature where creation and destruction perpetually intertwine. The repetition of “endless” conveys a sense of eternal recurrence, reflecting the cosmic rhythm of life and death inherent in the human experience and commenting on broader existential themes.
When did the body first set out on its own adventures? Snowman thinks; after having ditched its old travelling companions, the mind and the soul, for whom it had once been considered a mere corrupt vessel or else a puppet acting out their dramas for them, or else bad company, leading the other two astray.
In Chapter 4, Jimmy reflects on his past experiences with Crake, particularly their shared fascination with explicit online content depicting violence and sexuality. Amidst these recollections, Jimmy becomes contemplative, wondering about the nature of desire in a philosophical manner. He poses a rhetorical question to himself, wondering how people relinquish their intellectual and moral inhibitions—referred to metaphorically as “the mind and the soul”—to follow the calls of physical desires.
Jimmy muses on the conventional notion of the body as a subordinate entity, obediently following the dictates of a higher authority. However, he challenges this perspective, as he thinks something else was happening when he used to watch graphic media with Crake. Instead of adhering to the directives of the mind and soul, Jimmy asserts that his body forged its own path and followed independent pursuits. All these thoughts suggest that Jimmy feels ashamed about their past indulgences in violent and pornographic content. Consequently, he seeks to rationalize and justify his past actions to himself.
He knew he was faltering, trying to keep his footing. Everything in his life was temporary, ungrounded. Language itself had lost its solidity; it had become thin, contingent, slippery, a viscid film on which he was sliding around like an eyeball on a plate.
This excerpt from Chapter 10 appears after Jimmy learns about his mother’s execution. Plunged into despair, Jimmy withdraws further from his already limited social interactions, seeking solace in solitary drinking to numb his pain. His sense of purpose disappears, and he finds himself increasingly disconnected from reality. The pervasive feeling of impermanence enveloping Jimmy’s life resonates with a similar sentiment expressed by Jimmy in Chapter 3, reflecting on the fleeting nature of civilization.
However, what is notable is Jimmy’s perception that language itself has become unstable. As someone who identifies strongly as a “words guy” and has invested considerable time studying rhetoric, Jimmy previously found solace and grounding in language’s ability to imbue the world with meaning. Its capacity to bestow significance on an otherwise chaotic existence provided him with a sense of stability. Without this linguistic anchor, Jimmy confronts a bewildering void where coherence and order disintegrate into chaos.
Although Jimmy’s depression temporarily abates when Crake extends a job offer at RejoovenEsense, the underlying sense of disorientation and existential meaninglessness depicted in this passage foreshadows the turmoil that will hit Jimmy in the aftermath of the apocalypse.
“Immortality,” said Crake, “is a concept. If you take ‘mortality’ as being, not death, but the foreknowledge of it and the fear of it, then ‘immortality’ is the absence of such fear. Babies are immortal. Edit out the fear and you’ll be ...”
This conversation between Jimmy and Crake in Chapter 12 reveals Crake’s experiments concerning the human genome. Crake states his ambition for his newly engineered human species, which will lack the concept of mortality, thus freeing them from the fear of death. In this manner, they could possess a sense of immortality while actually not living forever. When Jimmy interrupts Crake, likening Crake’s explanation to elementary applied rhetoric concepts, Crake fails to grasp the reference and dismisses his remark as “Martha Graham stuff,” indicating it pertains to humanities-based thinking rather than scientific discourse. Although Jimmy does not pursue this further, his intervention underscores a significant irony in Crake’s perspective and scientific ideology at large. Despite Crake’s emphasis on logical reasoning, he often overlooks Jimmy’s philosophical viewpoints. However, beneath Crake’s staunch commitment to rationality lies a subtle underpinning of philosophy that subtly influences his scientific inquiries. Jimmy highlights this underlying philosophical aspect when he suggests that Crake’s ideas of immortality—driving his experiments—are inherently philosophical in nature.
What next? Advance with a strip of bedsheet tied to a stick, waving a white flag? I come in peace. But doesn’t have his bedsheet with him.
At the end of the novel, Jimmy encounters a group of humans. Unlike the Crakers, these people are wearing shoes and are roasting meat. While this discovery sparks a glimmer of hope in Jimmy, it is overshadowed by a palpable sense of fear. His prolonged isolation from human contact has made him wary about their presence. Faced with this encounter, Jimmy’s apprehension manifests through compulsive glances at his watch, which once again displays “Zero Hour,” suggesting the urgency of action. The novel concludes ambiguously, leaving readers uncertain whether Jimmy retreats from the group or finally approaches them.
