Animal Instinct

As you may recall, a few weeks ago I read Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin. Then a few weeks later I went back to the library and as I was browsing the shelves, I came upon Oryx and Crake, another novel by her. This is the kind of book I wouldn't read if it weren't for such a coincidence as it's having been written by the very same person whose novel I really enjoyed. Of course it being one of her few works that we have in Ervin Szabó Municipal Library is also a matter of chance.
The reason why I wouldn't read it, actually wouldn't look for it at all, is that it's a hard core sci-fi, which is not my kind of genre. The story is set some time in the future, though I don't think too far, maybe around 2050. The story portrays a weird and terrifying anti-utopy, which is however likely to come true, even if not so drastically as in the book.
Jimmy, the protagonist grows up in a dysfunctioning family. Father is a scientist working on animal transformation, e.g. there are the so-called pigoons, pigs kept to grow organs for transplantation, they have 5 or 6 kidneys, livers, etc. Mom also used to be a scientist, but becomes maniac depressed, sitting in bath robe all day, smoking and staring. A few years later she runs away and becomes a kind of anti-globalization activist; though we don't know for sure, but the CorpSeCorps men (some kind of Gestapo) are harrassing Jimmy for years afterwards to acquire some information about his mother.
The family lives on a science compound, meaning that scientists have their own protected bubble, away from the pleebland. Due to father's frequently changing jobs the family has to move often, and Jimmy doesn't really have friends.
One day a new boy comes to the school, later known as Crake (we don't know his given name). Crake is a kind of weirdo, never talking about himself. Later we find out that his father discovered some kind of conspiracy and that's why he was done away with.
The two guys grow up smoking weed, watching all kinds of Internet junk, e.g. executions broadcasted live from Eastern countries, child porn, etc. The things they watch don't seem to have any emotional effect on them, until one day they spot a girl of 6-8 on a porn site, who turns towards the camera and seems like actually watching them, with an I-know-you-are-there look. They freeze the scene and print it as a poster, and this image keeps hunting Jimmy all his life.
Crake grows up to be a genius and starts working as a top scientist, working on animal splicing, e.g. crossing dogs with wolfs (wolvogs) or snakes with rats (snats), all kinds of shocking things. Jimmy, who is rather a word person, spends his life writing slogans for beautifying treatments. One day Crake comes to Jim and offers a job as slogan writer for what appears to be the greatest discovery of mankind, a pill that kills all forms of sexual diseases, enhances the libido extremely, and promises youth as well.
As you might guess the book raises a lot of moral issues, e.g. man's right to intervene in creation, the dangers of the beauty industry, the future of scientific development, the exhaustion of the resources of the planet, etc. Jimmy is haunted by if only, or individual versus collective responsibility, active decision-making versus fate. Another briliant element of the book is the constant overlapping between imagination and reality. For example the girl we see on the porn site, later known as Oryx, comes back in two other forms in the book, and Jimmy believes her to be the same person, although sometimes he questions it.
According to the cover Atwood outperforms Orwell and Huxley with this novel, which might be true, so I think it is worth reading, although it won't be a bed of roses. You get so carried away with the story that you cannot put it down, yet at the same time it's really distressing. One thing I know for sure, I don't want to be around when this happens.

P.S. Those of you at ELTE SEAS might be able to help me out here. I think there used to be (or perhaps still is) a poster of contemporary Canadian writers in one of the smaller classrooms, and one of the pictures might have been of Atwood. Anybody knows anything about it?