First published in 1981 this near future dystopia imagines a range of technology that are now common place – Kindle-style e-readers, self-service check-out, 3D printing, self-driving cars, data / records that accessible across a dispersed network, video calls from mobile devices – I found it interesting how these are mostly mentioned as asides yet seem to have matched the progress in the last 40 years so well, and this added to vivid narrative.
As automation has eliminated a wide range of jobs society has been sharply divided, along the lines of the 11+, between “people of status” and “nons”. The life of the people of status continues largely untouched but eased by the advances in technology while the quality of life of the “nons” has regressed. This divide is policed, with central records of peoples life determining which side of the line they will live – with peoples capabilities, and therefore worth, been viewed as essentially hereditary.
Into this world Gor, the “product of a gorilla ovum and human sperm”, is born. The disregard of Forrester for the primates that he experiments is closely linked to a societal disregard for the “nons” as sub-human. The treatment of Gor, wrenched repeatedly from care-givers, is harrowing. That his capabilities and worth transcend his origin points to the larger error is these divisions in society.
Although the story
told is obviously writ-large there are some points of the touch very
close to contemporary home – the division between the “people of
status” and the “nons” might be extreme compared with the
inequalities within England today (albeit these are very real) they
are probably akin to the relative experiences of the western consumer
and the sweatshop worker in Bangladesh, and a lot of the narratives
around immigration play of the status and entitlement of British
citizens and the lack it on the part of those seeking to move here.
This is a book that doesn’t deserve to be out of print...
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