New memories in new bodies. New lives. That's the ideal, though we are still far from it. The body may creak and wobble; memory develop a crack or hole. In the leaked memory syndrome, or Nostalgia, thoughts burrow from a previous life into the conscious mind, threatening to pull the sufferer into an internal abyss.Nostalgia isn't a book that improves on reconsideration: when I finished it yesterday, I thought it had been pretty good – a nice and insightful bit of futurism that might serve as a warning about the direction we seem to be heading in – but the longer I've thought about it, the less impressive or original it feels. It was just all right. (And note: I'm quoting from an ARC here; passages might not be in their final form.)
In this imagined future, human bodies can be regenerated with new parts; essentially making people immortal. What can't be regenerated, however, are human brains, and as a result, memory remains finite and not large enough to store the events of several lifetimes. The fix is simple: whenever a person chooses to regenerate the body, the brain is wiped and only the childhood/adolescent memories remain; as a further upgrade, experts ensure these are happy and fulfilling memories; what difference does it make if they're probably nothing like the truth? Sometimes, however, a person will suffer from LMS (Leaked Memory Syndrome, known colloquially as Nostalgia) and the true memories that burble to the surface in drips can turn to a flood that leads to madness and death. Enter our protagonist, Dr. Frank Sina, an expert in plugging leaks. When a new patient seeks Sina's help – and he both takes root in the doctor's mind and attracts the attention of the supposedly benevolent Department – a mild mystery/thriller plot begins.
Onto this plot are grafted various scenes in which people discuss the advantages, but mostly the problems, of this society – there is an ever-growing class divide as only the rich can afford to regenerate, evangelicals become “pro-death” as they urge people to stop avoiding natural death and Judgment Day, how much power are we willing to give to a government that is in control of implanting memory – but the biggest divide is between those who have regenerated many times (known as GNs, for new-generation, like Dr Sina) and those who are on their first lives (known as G0s or BabyGens): if the older generation refuses to die and transfer their wealth and jobs, how are those on their first lives meant to survive?
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 reaching thirty percent! I don't mind telling you that I cannot find a job – and the woman I love – a young woman, not a reconstituted senior citizen – lives with an elderly man – sells her services just to be able to survive! What gives people like you the right to more life than others? Why can't you just say, I've had enough! Let others live!In another wrinkle (that takes way too long to finally reveal the details of what is going on behind the “Long Border” and why), the meltdown of four CANDU reactors some four decades in the past has made much of eastern Africa a radiation zone, incapable of growing food or providing fresh water for its people. While the rest of the world has begrudgingly airdropped supplies for all these years, they have also built and enforced a mostly impenetrable border across the north of Africa; allowing people from the north to visit the affected areas – gawking at the starving, mutated people as though they were animals in a zoo – while only allowing a small percentage of the Africans to escape to the north (and generously wiping their brains when they arrive in the free lands).
It is the source of our raw materials, you mean; and even though we can replicate climatic conditions at will almost, we still feel the need to visit there for the real experience, though at considerable risk. And we let a few of the Barbarians leak in through the Border every year, because we have to replenish our populations and gene balances and immune systems. And we need their organs.It is a matter of disbelief and distress to Sina and his friends that those on the other side of the Long Border might form militias and plot terrorist attacks against the same generous folks who airdrop the food and water (that is mostly stolen by warlords). It is also unbelievable to the GNs that the G0s sympathise with the “Barbarians” and think it's time to remove the border and let everyone live anywhere they like; why don't the Babies understand that we need to protect what we have from those who have no right to it?
Other than the details of the plot, that's pretty much the book. And in hindsight, it doesn't have that much to say. And note: I am someone who does wonder and worry about what the world might look like if we develop the technology to keep our bodies alive indefinitely. I don't want that, but will I think differently when I'm old and facing natural death? (Probably.) There are a ton of philosophical and moral dilemmas surrounding this idea, and unfortunately, I think that M. G. Vassanji only scratched the surface here. Not a terrible read, but not my favourite either.
