3.5 Stars
At the end
of my last book review (for Company Town
by Madeline Ashby), I mentioned that I do not read much speculative fiction.
But I was confronted with another book of that genre, a dystopian tale of human
engineering, when I picked up this other Canada Reads finalist for the book
Canadians need now.
Nostalgia is set in Toronto in the near future when
near-immortality is possible. People,
tired of one life, may get refurbished bodies, new faces, and new pasts
implanted in their brains.
Unfortunately, the process is not perfect so sometimes memories from a
past life intrude; those suffering from this nostalgia syndrome go to see a
doctor like the protagonist of the novel, Frank Sina, who repairs the leaks.
A patient,
Presley Smith, approaches Frank because of nostalgia symptoms, and he
immediately feels a bond with this man although he doesn’t understand why. Even when the Department of Internal Security
warns him that Presley is a national security risk, Frank persists in seeing
Presley.
Meanwhile,
a young reporter, Holly Chu, has been abducted in Maskinia, a lawless and
barbaric country south of the Long Border that separates it from countries like
Canada which are part of the North Atlantic Alliance. Frank follows the news of her fate very
closely.
The novel
examines a number of conflicts. There
is, for example, a young versus old conflict.
BabyGens who have real relatives and no past lives feel hostile towards
GN people who have been regenerated. One
BabyGen summarizes their case to Frank:
“You had it so good, you were pampered right into middle age like big
babies. Then, on top of all that
security, you built up your lives and fat worths. What chance do we stand in this world that you’ve made? What do we
inherit when our natural parents simply move on, taking their wealth with
them” (83)? He also says, “My point is
that while you, the elderly elite, find ways to prolong your existence with new
organs and new lives and monopolize the world’s resources, what about us young
people? When do we get a chance? Youth unemployment is approaching thirty
percent” (183)!
There is
also strife between rich and poor. Frank
is asked, “Since rejuvenation is available to the rich, what about the
poor? What is their place in this Brave
New World of yours? Is your science a
method to cull the poor from our midst” (179)?
Economic disparity is also obvious between the inhabitants north and
south of the Long Border. Those not part
of the North Atlantic Alliance suffer from poverty; they are dependent on food
donations from aid agencies: “Despite
its natural wealth, Maskinia by all measures of development remains one of the
poorest areas in the world, the majority of the population earning less than
five dollars a day and lacking basic amenities such as electricity, running
water, and sewage disposal” (172). Of course, the natural resources of Maskinia
are exploited, and wealthy tourists take tours through this third-world region
on the edge of collapse. In her tour of
Maskinia, Holly realizes, “A small percentage of the people on earth wallowed
in wealth while the rest suffered deprivation” (188).
Because of
the unequal distribution of wealth, there are anxieties about immigration as
people from south of the Long Border try to find better lives in the
north. The Long Border was constructed
“to stop the tides of desperate migrants sweeping upon European and American
shores” (172). The border has created
other problems, however: “Tighter
clampdown and casualties at the Long Border are a cause of bitter resentment,
used to advantage by the [ethnic and religious] militias to rally for
recruitment into their ranks” (173).
These militias carry out “abductions; attacks on development and aid
networks; attacks on industrial activities such as mining; smuggling people to
the north; and drug trafficking . . .
[and send] personnel through the Long Border to carry out acts of
terror” (173 – 174).
Of course,
life north of the Long Border is not perfect.
There are several Orwellian touches.
For example, the government watches Frank by installing a camera in his
office, hiding a device in his clothes, and having someone follow him. Computers have become like HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey; Frank’s computer
observes him and Frank admits, “He knew my innermost thoughts . . . perhaps
before I did” (34). Frank’s records are
accessed and he knows this is routine:
“Any privacy you possess is a privilege that can be casually and briskly
withdrawn” (108).
And, as one
can expect with technological and scientific advances, not all problems have
been solved. There are unanswered
questions: “Can the soul (or the heart)
be transmitted across generations? . . . [Can] personality traits or
sensibilities such as the artistic” (85)?
Even more significantly, “We who have violated personal history and
personal relationships in our bid to become immortal, can we now really know
for certain who we are” (126)? There is
a fear of loss of self: those implanted
with idyllic fictions can become fictions (206). The novel suggests that knowledge of one’s past
and roots and a sense of connection through family and community are necessary
for happiness.
There is
much in the novel that will remind the reader of the present. Certainly, the current global refugee crisis
came to mind with this description:
“some sixty refugees had attempted last week to swim under the
EuroBarrier section of the Long Border in the Mediterranean; some twenty-five
survived, the remaining were electrocuted or simply drowned” (16). The Long Border sounds like Trump’s wall with
Mexico, and the description of life in Maskinia could be a description of life
in any number of Third World countries.
Ethnic and religious wars, famine, economic subjugation, class divides,
science versus faith conflicts, immigration anxieties, and concerns about the
dehumanizing effects of technological and scientific advances are all found in
our world.
That is
perhaps the strongest element of this novel:
it is set in the future but a future that is not impossible. Perhaps it is indeed the book that Canadians
need now.
