Perhaps not as outrageous as all that? What would you have made of 1984 if you had read it when it was first published in 1949? 'Oink' is much more mannered and self-conscious, of course.
'Oink Oink Oink' written by local writer Eric Yoshiaki Dando is a gem. It is up there with the work of another local contemporary writer Wayne McCauley. It deals with the big issues - Coke or Pepsi? And ponders what doesn't have a trade mark or isn't owned by Michael Jackson? In a cultural landscape shaped by American fast food and television it imagines the age old question of identity and how it could be impacted by genetic modification and plastic surgery. And just as in the Margaret Atwood trilogy from the same era the technology runs riot. There are surreal outcomes here but the novel has a moral compass and the bad guy (a pig) gets her comeuppance and our hero (part pig) gets the girl (who doesn't realise he is the real thing and not his clone). And did I mention the Japanese connection? For fans of Murakami Ryu and his superb novel 'Coin Locker Babies' you're going to love this local side dish.