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Are you surprised by what Snowman finds when he takes his hike? Does his escape from the Pigoons strike you as viable?

It did. I thought this was one of the most exciting parts of the book!

Sigh. You may well be right!

In the earlier chapters Snowman and Crake played a game called 'Blood and Roses'.

"The Blood player usually won, but winning meant you inherited a waste land. This was the point of the game, said Crake, when Jimmy complained. Jimmy said that if that was the point, it was pretty pointless."

By this point in the novel it looks as if the Blood player has won; the world has been reduced to a wasteland. Is it possible that we should be reading this novel as a work of satire?

Satire almost always goes over my head, so I suppose maybe!

Well, I guess she may be using her novel to "attack human vice or folly through irony, derision, or wit." (Satire isn't one of my specialities either!)

But if she is using the device it may explain why the novel feels as if she's not 100% engaged with her characters and why Jimmy/Snowman is the only fully-developed character. Do you think he's supposed to stand in for a sort of Everyman (the good guy to whom we all relate?)

But he's not a good guy. He's shallow and in many ways impotent. He's sort of just milling about.

Though he is sympathetic.

I agree he's shallow and impotent. But we're a bit like the Crakers (as readers); he's all we've got. Maybe that's Atwood's point

I think Jimmy has always felt inadequate and less smart and never would have wanted to be responsible for being the caretaker of the next phase of humanity.

One of the issues I've always had with most dystopian novels is the convenient food stores that characters stumble across when they most need them. In The Road, they survive on canned food and it makes the story implausible to me. So I was a little annoyed at this point of the book, but at least through most of it he's practically starving and subsisting on one fish a week.

That's true!

But at least, because in this book the protagonist is existing in an invented world, it's not as important. But I do wonder how � if Snowman is seriously malnourished � he manages to make such a journey and to escape significant dangers. Surely, by this point in the story he wouldn't have the energy.

lot can be said about a society based o the games their children play. The things they do, the things they watch, there's never any indication that it's illegal or hard to find or requires any sort of hacking. They just get onto Future!Hulu and watch this stuff.

I realize our kids have games that simulate war, real wars, real battles, and so forth...but there's just something profoundly disturbing about the names of the games these two play.

Although extinctathon sounds kind of fun.

why does jimmy's mom say "remember killer" and "don't let me down" before she is executed? what is it she expects jimmy to do in the world?

Sophia wrote: "Sigh. You may well be right!
In the earlier chapters Snowman and Crake played a game called 'Blood and Roses'.
"The Blood player usually won, but winning meant you inherited a waste land....
By this point in the novel it looks as if the Blood player has won; the world has been reduced to a wasteland...

Who would be considered the Blood player at this point?

Heather wrote: "... but there's just something profoundly disturbing about the names of the games these two play."

And what names! Does the game playing add anything to our understanding of the characters?

Angelina wrote: "why does jimmy's mom say "remember killer" and "don't let me down" before she is executed? what is it she expects jimmy to do in the world?"

Considering that she let 'Killer' go free I wonder if it's just that she wants Jimmy to break out and liberate himself. What else could she have meant? As his mother she knew his limitations - only too well!

Has he let her down?

Angelina wrote: "Who would be considered the Blood player at this point? "

If Jimmy is considered the winner, isn't this by default?

Besides, can you be said to playing a game when you don't know you are participating?

Surely Crake set the game up and Jimmy was his pawn - Crake was merely playing a sophisticated form of solitaire.

Sophia wrote: "Heather wrote: "... but there's just something profoundly disturbing about the names of the games these two play."

And what names! Does the game playing add anything to our understanding of the c..."

I think it showed that "desensitized to violence" does not begin to cover this world.

So has anyone started feeling empathetic towards Crake?