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The Testament of Jessie Lamb by Jane Rogers

Jun24

The Testament of Jessie Lamb is a book about teen rebellion and the end of the world, and it was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize in 2011. The London Daily Mail called it “a wonderful evocation of teenage confusion, passion, and idealism.” I was not impressed.

Ms. Rogers says in a note in the back of the book that her influences were American Pastoral, a novel by Philip Roth, Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, The Chrysalids, a science fiction classic by John Wyndham, and The Diary of Anne Frank. Because of the basic premise, a world that is dying because humans have for some reason lost the ability to reproduce, the novel most reminded me of Children of Men by P.D. James. But Children of Men was a much better book, IMHO.

The Testament of Jessie Lamb really is a depiction of teen confusion and hubris, and I can see the Anne Frank influence. However, maybe because I’m firmly entrenched in the “older generation”, I found it difficult to sympathize with the narrator, sixteen year old Jessie, and her know-it-all teen egotism. Without giving away the plot of the story, I’ll say that Jessie is out to save the world by sacrificing herself, and her parents think she’s making a huge mistake. Her parents are right. Jessie’s a fool, and the book never makes it clear that she is not a heroine, but rather a mixed-up kid who’s living in a very mixed-up world.

I’m just not a fan of teen rebellion, even though I sometimes live with it in my own house. (Oh, yes. It’s here, too.) And even though the adults in The Testament of Jessie Lamb are not much more mature or wise than Jessie is, I’m still on the side of the grown-ups. Poor Jessie could have used a few fully grown authority figures, or maybe a word from God, in her life to help her make decisions based on something besides misguided feelings and delusions of grandeur.

Ms. Rogers also says that Jessie is a sort of mirror image of the character from Greek mythology, Iphigenia, interesting because the name Iphigenia means “she who causes the birth of strong offspring,” and Iphigenia, of course, sacrifices her life for the good of her people. Wikipedia opines,

There are several possible reasons for Iphigenia’s decision. The first is that Iphigenia wants to please her father and protect the family name. Not only does Iphigenia want to please her father, but she also forgives him for making the decision to sacrifice her. The second reason is that Iphigenia sees this as a patriotic cause. Iphigenia realizes that if she dies, then the men can sail to Troy and win and protect their own women. If the men did not get to Troy to defeat the Trojans then all the Greek women would be raped and possibly killed. Thus, Iphigenia sees her death as saving hundreds of women. A third reason for Iphigenia’s choice could be a more selfish reason. Iphigenia wants to be remembered with honor through her self-sacrifice, unlike how Helen of Troy is viewed. While the concept of glory is mostly seen in the men who fight, here it is seen in Iphigenia. A final possible reason is that Iphigenia sees bad in her father and now has nothing to live for.

Almost all of Iphigenia’s possible motivations are brought up as motives for Jessie’s sacrifice, but none of them are really convincing. I came to the conclusion that Jessie was acting out of pure stubbornness, and that motivation didn’t endear her to me either.

So, my final analysis of this award-winning novel is that it’s thought-provoking but somehow lacking in warmth and appeal, with the kind of characters that made me wonder and want to be drawn in, but never really got me to snap at the bait.

The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer

May4

Dystopian fiction. Matt Alacron was not born; he was harvested. He’s a clone with DNA from El Patron, druglord of a country between Mexico and the U.S. called Opium, where other clones called “eejits” work the poppy fields in mindless obedience and slavery. But Matt is different; El Patron wanted Matt to retain his intelligence and his ability to choose, for some reason.

The House of the Scorpion won the National Book for Young People’s Literature in 2002 and was a Newbery Honor Book in 2003. I was fascinated by Matt’s fight for survival and by his oddly familiar world in which drug lords rule and people are enslaved by power-hungry dictators who long for riches and immortality. Would that all of those people who gain a little power would, rather than seeking after more and more, pray the prayer of Solomon:

God: “Ask! What shall I give you?”
Solomon: “Therefore give to Your servant an understanding heart to judge Your people, that I may discern between good and evil. For who is able to judge this great people of Yours?”
God: “See, I have given you a wise and understanding heart, so that there has not been anyone like you before you, nor shall any like you arise after you. I have also given you what you have not asked: both riches and honor, so that there shall not be anyone like you among the kings all your days.”
I Kings 3

There is a God, and I am not He. To fear Him is the beginning of wisdom, and the characters in The House of the Scorpion needed desperately to hear and understand that lesson.

Other novels about human clones and cloning:
The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary Pearson.
Double Identity by Margaret Peterson Haddix.
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro.
The Boys from Brazil by Ira Levin.
Anna to the Infinite Power by Mildred Ames.

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow

May21

Good story. Annoying political agenda.

The story is about seventeen year old San Francisco high school student Marcus Yallow, who in the wake of a terrorist attack is arrested, held and tortured by the Department of Homeland Security. Marcus is a techno-geek and a smart-aleck, but he’s no terrorist. Well, at least he’s not a terrorist until he comes close to crossing the line when he makes it his goal to thwart the increasingly repressive and totalitarian methods of the DHS in their abortive and draconian attempts to find and arrest the real terrorists.

If you’re a techno-geek, interested in web security, surveillance systems, privacy issues, etc., you’ll enjoy this book. Doctorow explains some of this stuff, but manages to keep the pace of the story moving for the most part. (There were a few pages about something called “keysigning” where my eyes glazed over, and I never did get it.) I was intrigued by the thriller aspect of the story, and I read the book in one sitting to find out what would happen to poor, mistreated, genius Marcus and his war on the DHS.

However, if you’re easily annoyed by an attempt to propagandize for liberal politics, don’t start it. You won’t be able to put it down, but you’ll find the exaggeration and mischaracterization and lack of nuance and balance irritating. Yes, this book is set in a fictional dystopian future, but it’s quite heavy-handed in its blatant attempt to make sure we get the message: “Be careful! This kind of repression could happen here! Especially if those right wing repressive Republican types are in charge!”

I don’t doubt that tyranny and the abrogation of our civil rights could take place in the United States of America, but I don’t see the moves in that direction coming mostly from the right. It’s the leftists who want to define certain words and ideas as “hate speech” and control what we can say and when we can say it. And it’s the Democrats who keep manufacturing and using crises to further their own agenda and take away our freedoms.

The Global Warming Crisis is being used to restrict our freedom of movement and our freedom to live our lives as we see fit, buying and using the energy resources that we want and need to make our lives easier and more enjoyable.
The Health Care Crisis is being manipulated to take away our commercial freedoms to see whatever doctors we choose and pay for whatever health care we can afford.
The Economic Crisis has become an excuse to take away the fruits of our labor in taxes and to mortgage the labor of our children and grandchildren in order to pay off massive debts to China and other lender countries and banks, debts that I did not want to incur and that my representatives in Congress did not vote to authorize. And my children and grandchildren certainly were not consulted about having to work for their entire lives to pay back money that they didn’t ask to borrow.
The So-Called Population Explosion has been for the last forty some odd years one justification for denying the basic right to life (without which there can be no liberty or pursuit of happiness) to millions of unborn babies.

And Doctorow is worried about The Patriot Act, which is, I agree, flawed, but quite under-utilized and largely ineffective?

OK I didn’t mean to get so politically strident in a book review, but well, my excuse is: Mr. Doctorow did it first!

George Orwell (whose novel 1984 is the obvious inspiration for at least the title of Mr. Doctorow’s book): “In our age there is no such thing as ‘keeping out of politics.’ All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.”

“Liberal: a power worshipper without power.”

“So much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don’t even know that fire is hot.”