September 06, 2007

chaos smells bad

"'The chaos smells very bad,'... p.352
Watch out for art, Crake used to say. As soon as they start doing art we're in trouble. Symbolic thinking in any kind would signal downfall, in Crake's view. Next they'd be inventing idols, and funerals, and graven goods, and the afterlife, and sin, ...and kings, and then slavery and war. "p.361

Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake (New York: Doubleday, 2003) , p. 352, p. 361.

Sending an unknown dark seed spirally down the drain, an oppressive sense of doom descends--a vision that heaves outward, "I can see the end and its about thirty miles from here..."