Talk:Oryx and Crake

Oryx?

i only finished a first reading, but isn't the question of whether oryx is the same girl jimmy and crake had previously seen over the internet left ambiguous? oryx seems to evade jimmy's questions regarding the matter. Streamless 13:47, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

I agree: I think that Oryx is not necessarily physically identical with the girl in the pornography the two boys watch. Rather, it seems to me, the fact that she could be the same or not emphasizes the perverse fact that the story of her life is both extreme and commonplace. In fact, it does not matter whether she actually is that girl: she could be that girl. And thousands of other women could as well. --Jottce 16:39, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

As I recall, it is ambiguous, and it's not settled conclusively. Afalbrig (talk) 10:23, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Uh, Oryx probably can't remember every detail of every photography session. Besides, Jimmy's misplaced compulsion for chivalry is probably reeeally annoying to her. --Phlip

even if what you say is true, the fact remains that the article asserts that the girl seen by jimmy and crake is oryx, and she may not be. i think other people interested in this page should weigh in with reasoned arguments. 207.29.128.130 13:49, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm well Jimmy is the narrator if I remember correctly. If the story is told from his point of view doesnt that make his version reality the most important version of reality? And I think Oryx may have admitted at one point sort of offhandedly that she was that girl or very likely could have been. And I'm pretty sure that Crake is depicted as believing Oryx to be the same girl. Eno-Etile 08:35, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

I haven't finished the book yet, but I like Jottce's point. A slightly more subtle point to be made, is that for Crake, it doesn't matter if its the same girl. But he notices that the image of the girl in the porn movie (originally its not a photo), tugs at Jimmy's conscience. Sort of arbitrarily, seemingly randomly, the expression gets to Jimmy-- and that's why Crake uses her picture to trigger the secret communication with Maddaddam from the Extinctathon web game. He is trying to lead Jimmy into using his conscience and not just be morally numbed into accepting the injustices of their world. Jimmy feels sympathetic pain; first for the girl that may, or may not be, Oryx, and then for the actual woman Oryx. In a sense, it is misplaced chivalry, but it also signals hope and possible redemption for Jimmy, who has, after all, been raised to to not feel this kind of pain. In fact there is irony in that Jimmy seems to be more traumatized by neglect in his childhood, in contrast to Oryx, who seems to have overcome her childhood mistreatment. Cuvtixo (talk) 03:11, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

This perceived ambiguity concerning Oryx was not apparent to me when I read this novel. Doesn't Oryx go in to extreme detail about her childhood in the child porn industry? Doesn't she repeatedly admit that she is the girl from the garage in San Francisco? Jimmy recognized Oryx from the photographs of the San Francisco incident- and at that point in the novel she is not much older than the girl they capture on the child porn website. Moreover, eye structure does not change as you age- this is the basis for facial recognition technology. I think the fact that Atwood repeatedly discusses Oryx's unique gaze confirms the identity of this character. As an aside- I think this article is terrible and should be deleted from wikipedia... Jonsthesquire (talk) 00:06, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Dystopian fiction?

A work of Dystopian fiction? Crake might well argue it is, rather, Utopian. ;-)

Atlant 22:41, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

One of the book's schticks is it takes everything that many "intellectuals" say about society - that humans are predestined by the Just So Stories of evolutionary psychology - and pushes them to their illogical conclusion. To whatever extent a reader finds themself identifying with Crake, or agreeing with the problems he perceives, Atwood has done her job. --Phlip

I see more of inspiration from H.G.Wells' The Time Machine and the "digital divide", than the illogical conclusions of "intellectuals" or evolutionary psychology. Remember also that the story is narrated by Snowman/Jimmy who doesn't agree with Crake's vision, but he admired Crake and knows that Crake chose him alone among humans to survive and take care of the crakes. The reader isn't exactly identifying with Crake, but with the Crake of Jimmy's memory. And certainly the problems Crake perceives in his society seem real enough and I see no reason to think they are not actually issues in society that Atwood herself is concerned about. Cuvtixo (talk) 15:55, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Also note that the Crakers have been assigned historically significant names, very similar to what Aldous Huxley did in Brave New World. This suggests that Crake not only created a (the ultimate!) dystopia but also, by completing the analogy, is an author of it, rather than a dictator or tyrant. At any rate, the connection with Brave New World should be noted on the main page, yes? --24.199.91.123 (talk) 00:43, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Clearly the old society is deeply dysfunctional, suffering from a rigid class system, borderline despotism, environmental devastation, and degeneracy. As for the Crakers, they're designed to be peaceful and live in harmony with nature, but they're so docile and childlike that their civilization might not go anywhere. Afalbrig (talk) 10:23, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Publication date?

Jottce wrote me to report that the American pub date was May 2003, some monmths before what I initially reported as the date of the first Canadian edition. would anyone actually know the Canadian pub date. Can't imagine it wasn't first (or at the very least I imagine it was released simultaneously).--Victoriagirl 21:39, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Pigoon Picture

I don't quite get the pig picture with a caption about pigoons. The pigoons in the book were pretty clearly not pigs. —Rhododendrites (talk) 20:57, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

The pigoons were pigs with immune systems compatible with humans so that their organs could be used for transplantation. (I've read that research is actually being done in this area. The scary part about the book is that we're not really that far away from many of the things it describes.) And the story doesn't actually come out and say it, but the pigs seem to be unusually intelligent, perhaps from human genes; they use tactics and know what guns are. But otherwise, they look pretty much like pigs. Afalbrig (talk) 10:23, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

I think Atwood was deliberately vague about what many of the hybrid animals, including pigoons, looked like. By the way, in "real life," pigs are often used in heart research because their hearts are fairly close in size to adult human hearts. Real pigs are also naturally intelligent animals. Atwood may be trying to challenge us to think about certain issues like: are the pigoons more sympathetic or more evil because they seem to be very intelligent? More unnatural, and less deserving of survival? How does our attribution of intelligence change the morality of the situation? Atwood is being provocative Cuvtixo (talk) 03:12, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Pigoons

Having just re read the book can anyone tell me where it mentions that pigoons are a hybrid of pig and baboon? From memory that only applies to the Crakers mating ritual and not to the pigoons. I know it definately mentions lobsters mind you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.150.88.189 (talk) 07:14, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

They aren't. It doesn't say so anywhere in the book. Either this is something Atwood mentioned in an interview or a total fabrication. For a fabrication it at least fits the established naming convention of other hybrid animals in the book... If it is a fabrication it is one which is repeated on a lot of (admittedly uncredible) websites.

I believe the entry on pigoons should be changed to read that they are a hybrid pig/human, as it is human organs that are transplanted, not baboon organs. Also, in The Year of the Flood it states they are named pigoons, "like pig balloon, because they were so big."(page 221, paragraph 2.

Critical Analysis

The "Critical Analysis" section added last week appears to be an essay by Hunnibabe (talk · contribs) that consists entirely of unreferenced original work contrary to WP:OR. I'm deleting it. This is not a commentary on the essay's value; but Wikipedia is not the right place for it. TJRC (talk) 21:49, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Skunkweed

"skunkweed" is a fairly common slang term for some strains of marijuana that are especially strong and foul smelling. There isn't any reason to believe that Atwood meant this to be a similar, but not identical, substance as part of an alternate world. ;) Cuvtixo (talk) 03:29, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

I totally agree- I thought that comment was especially silly in the original article. I think Atwood would have sounded condescending if she had referred to "skunkweed" as marijuana. In some ways, the constant mentioning of "skunkweed" was a hook to connect the reader to this imagined universe. It's not uncommon for disillusioned people to smoke weed frequently- and I think at some level she wanted to tie this activity to Jimmy and Crake's other fun and games. Jonsthesquire (talk) 23:56, 1 May 2009 (UTC)