Review of and Again Jessica Chiarella
Imagine if a medical procedure could transfer your consciousness into a perfected version of your body. Imagine if cancer, AIDS and all sorts of illnesses tin be cured, and those afflicted could wake upwardly one morning in a perfect copy of their torso, minus whatever genetic or cellular matter led to the disease in the starting time place. It sounds like the set-up for aGattaca-type thriller, and I was pleasantly surprised that Jessica Chiarella'sAnd Again did not feel like a sci fi novel at all.
Rather than focus on the miraculous nature of the procedure, or on the corporate and political bodies attempting to benefit from its beingness, Chiarella focuses on the patients who underwent the procedure. While at least two of the patients are fairly high profile (David is a conservative Congressman and Connie is a soap opera star), and while at to the lowest degree part of the plot does mention the political mechanism behind the procedure, the bulk of the story focuses intimately on the private lives that benefited from it. The question Chiarella poses is not so much what good or evil this process can bring humanity, just rather: how would you feel living life as a perfected copy of yourself?
It'due south a haunting question, and particularly poignant in the instance of one of the patients, Linda, who was in a motorcar blow 8 years prior and had been completely paralyzed ever since. How would information technology feel to be able to walk and talk again, and how could she cope with a family whose lives have moved on without her? I especially love how she comes home and finds solace in watching the lather opera she'd watched every day in her infirmary bed, a rather sad reminder of what has become her normal.
Also compelling is the story of Connie, an actress whose career had ended when she was diagnosed with AIDS. The procedure gives her a new chance in her career, only what I really institute touching was the friendship she'd formed with her elderly neighbor after her diagnosis. She returns domicile later the procedure, thinking it was mostly her looks that have inverse, and her neighbour, who is blind, thinks she's a stranger because her voice and her scent have also changed. It raises the question of how much would actually remain of you lot, if your body changes.
This question is most urgent for another patient, Hannah, who though the novel is told in the alternating voices of all four patients, all the same feels similar the chief character. Hannah is an creative person, yet subsequently the procedure, she realizes that she seems to have lost her talent. A comparison of her self-portraits from before and later the procedure reveals that while the subject field had become younger and more attractive, the post-procedure work lacked that special something that had once made her work great.
Chiarella raises some interesting questions well-nigh personal identity, though I also wonder if focusing on a unmarried character would have allowed her to delve into these questions a flake more securely.Does artistic talent such as Hannah's reside in the genes and memory, or is there some muscle memory formed as well over time, which would be lost in a new body? How desperate must a conservative political leader like David be to get confronting his own behavior and agree to beingness cloned, or are all his "beliefs" just presented for votes? Connie's resurgence of dazzler is briefly touched upon when she encounters her former agent in her new body, but the responses to it remain fairly shallow — this may be the indicate, just I wonder how much of the depth of emotion she brings to her roles may have been sacrificed in this new body? And Linda'due south story simply had a few random twists that I felt detracted from what I had plant and so compelling virtually her in the first place.
The book is well-written and the stories beautifully told. Though I admit I thought Hannah and Connie's stories felt a flake more complete, whereas Linda and David's stories felt somewhat abruptly cut off, Chiarella manages to juggle all four characters well enough. At the very least, this book raises some interesting questions for the reader, and inspires yous to imagine: what if y'all are given a 2nd risk, with a genetically perfect version of your body? What would you practise with it?
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Cheers to Simon and Schuster Canada for an advanced reading copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Source: https://literarytreats.com/2016/01/11/review-and-again-jessica-chiarella/
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