The Year of the Flood discussion

I thought it was interesting that Ren's story is told in the first person while Toby's is told in the Third person. Do you think there is any story significance to this or any other reason Atwood chose to do it?

It has been a couple of years since I read Oryx & Crake, so I can't remember if there was a similar structure there. I think I remember it being all in the first person, but I could be mistaken.

It's been a few years for me too so I don't even remember this. I wish I did, I forget books too quickly. I am planning to buy

MaddAddam
tomorrow and read it, and I'm thinking maybe I will start the whole series from the beginning again when I'm done.

I think it was probably just done so as not to confuse the reader. First person is the better choice in order to really get inside the character, but if two characters in the book are written in first person, it's likely we'd get confused as to whose point of view we're in. Maybe? Now an interesting discussion would be why she chose to put Ren in First Person and not Toby. Why not the other way around? Maybe because the choices Ren made were not as easily understood as the ones Toby made, so it would have been beneficial for us to really see it from Ren's perspective?

I think putting Ren in first person may come out in MaddAddam, maybe? Going to the library tomorrow to get it, since I just finished The Year of the Flood. I'm almost sorry that it is the last of the books, because they are so good!

I think it's a pretty deliberate choice to use Ren as a first-person narrator and Toby as a third person. I don't think it was used to make it easier on the reader though cause I found it way more confusing than if it had all been third person (or vice versa).

I think the idea here is that Ren is younger, more self-involved, more focused on the present and what her needs are in the moment. Toby, on the other hand, is always thinking ahead, thinking about the group, thinking about how to best serve the whole (which I think actually plays pretty well into the themes of the book).