Morrow, James: The Philosopher's Apprentice
The Philospher's Apprentice (2008)
Written by: James Morrow
Genre: Science Fiction
Pages: 411 (Trade Paperback)
The day I've been waiting for has finally arrived: I am now a player in Book Uno! When Erika from Jawas Read, Too! contacted me with the invitation and my challenge, I admit, I kind of panicked. My challenge? Clones. Sadly, when I think of clones, I think of my least favorite title in the Star Wars saga ever, which is, of course, Attack of the Clones (and it's because the title makes me think of Attack of the Clowns. George Lucas, come on!). But Star Wars aside, the idea was to pick a book from my existing TBR pile, and frankly, I couldn't think of a single thing I had that would fit the theme. But I started hunting, using LibraryThing's search engine (which used to utilize photos of the book covers) to find books with the "clone" label on them and see if I didn't happen to have anything that matched up. To my surprise, I had a few, but in making my Book Uno selection, I wanted to be subtle. Some of my readers have accused me of selecting obscure titles for my book club selections, and I thought this obscure selection would certainly take the cake. :) I should note, though, that I'm not ALWAYS so obscure. But this time I couldn't resist. :)
The premise: ganked from BN.com: A brilliant philosopher with a talent for self-destruction, Mason Ambrose has torpedoed a promising academic career and now faces a dead-end future. Before joining the ranks of the unemployed, however, he's approached by a representative of billionaire geneticist Dr. Edwina Sabacthani, who makes him an offer no starving ethicist could refuse. Born and bred on Isla de Sangre, a private island off the Florida coast, Edwina's beautiful and intelligent adolescent daughter, Londa, has recently survived a freak accident that destroyed both her memory and her sense of right and wrong. Londa's soul, in short, is an empty vessel-and it will be Mason's job to fill it.
Exploring his new surroundings, our hero encounters a lush Eden abounding in bizarre animals and strange vegetation engineered by Edwina and her misanthropic collaborator, Dr. Vincent Charnock. And Londa, though totally lacking a conscience, proves a vivacious young woman who quickly captivates her new teacher as he attempts to recalibrate her moral compass with the help of Western civilization's greatest ethical thinkers, living and dead.
But there's trouble in this tropical paradise. Mason soon learns that he isn't the only private tutor on Isla de Sangre, nor is Londa the only child in residence whose conscience is a blank slate. How many daughters does Edwina Sabacthani really have, and how did she bring them into being?
Undaunted by these mysteries, Mason continues to instruct Londa, hoping that she can lead a normal life when she eventually ventures forth into human society. His apprentice, however, has a different agenda. Her head crammed with lofty ideals, her heart brimming with fearsome benevolence, and her bank account filled to bursting, Londa undertakes to remake our fallen world in her own image by any and all means necessary.
Review style: After discussing my history with James Morrow's fiction, I want to talk about the obvious inspirations fueling this book: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, and George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion. I also want to discuss how this isn't your conventional science fiction novel, let alone a conventional story about clones, but rather the exploration of morality and how--believe it or not--the book isn't preachy. No spoilers, as that would be rude since this is primarily a guest review.
The original review is at Jawas Read, Too! but if you simply can't make yourself leave LJ, the rest of the review is posted below.
My introduction to James Morrow happened in fall of 2003, when I audited an English course called "Modern Science Fiction and Fantasy." Great course--I have to say, especially since it turned me on to Ursula K. Le Guin and C.S. Lewis's non-Narnia fiction--and our final reading selection was James Morrow's Towing Jehevoah.
It. Blew. My. Mind.
Granted, at the time I was new to most everything science fiction and fantasy had to offer, but this book? A story that takes Nietzsche's famous phrase "God is dead" and turned it into a literal story, in which its characters had to figure out what to do with the corpse of God?
It remains one of my favorite books to this day, and for anyone even remotely interested in satire, you should check this out.
Since then, there's been more than a few instances where I've almost gone to Amazon and purchased every single book James Morrow had to offer. I even got to meet the author during my first week at the Odyssey Writer's Workshop, but short of a question/answer period, I didn't get to spend all that much time with him, nor did he critique my work. That’s okay, though, because he was a very cool guy (who, incidentally, kind of looks like God).
Since then, I've read only one other book by Morrow, and that was the follow up to Towing Jehovah, Blameless in Abaddon. I've got the final installment of the Godhead trilogy on my shelf, and I've got a few other unrelated titles besides, which is why The Philosopher's Apprentice caught my eye when I learned it had clones in it.
Because let's face it: the book doesn't look anything remotely like science fiction, does it? And since everything I'd read of him to date was more a modern, satiric fantasy, I wasn't sure I believed the claims that it was science fiction, even as I chose it as my Book Uno selection.
So let's talk about it:
Take the roots of Frankenstein, mix equally with Pygmalion, and then add a dash of Lolita, and you'll find yourself with a pretty decent idea of what makes The Philosopher's Apprentice tick.
The Frankenstein influence is easy: Edwina Sabacthani, a brilliant scientist on death's doorstep, wants to experience the fullness of motherhood before she kicks the bucket. She therefore creates three clones of herself, all girls at differing ages, so that she can experience the different stages of motherhood all at once. The girls, of course, are kept secret from each other, each believing she is her mother's one and only pride and joy, but the problem is that despite the technology that programs them with all the information they'd need to know for their respective ages, they are, morally, a blank slate, in need of guidance and tutelage so that when it's time to go into the real world, they'll be functioning human beings, not narcissistic psychopaths.
Each daughter has her own tutors, and The Philosopher's Apprentice focuses on Mason Ambrose and his tutorial of Londa Sabacthani, the oldest of the three. Here's were the dash of Lolita comes in: older man who's entranced to his younger charge, though in Mason's case, he doesn't fall in love with Londa, not right away. He's fascinated by the challenge and by the acuity that Londa seems to tackle her education. In short, he falls in love with her mind, which makes him panic when it becomes apparent that Londa has kind of fallen in love with him too, and these scenes are rather hilarious (and one features a talking, feathered iguana). This teacher/student relationship transforms and evolves over the course of the novel, and no, there is none of the erotic prose here in Morrow's book that people often say of Nabakov's, but the feeling, the sense of kinship, is definitely there. Which, for the record, is not a knock on Morrow’s prose, just so we’re clear. :)
You can also see how Londa's blank ethical slate lends itself to the Pygmalion myth. While I'm regrettably unfamiliar with Shaw's play, I know the basic outline of the myth, that of a sculptor who falls in love with the statue of his creation, and his tears (and the blessing of a goddess) bring that statue to life. The myth is realized on the cover of the book, actually, and it's one of the reasons I love this cover so.
But yes, even though Mason doesn't really realize it, he falls in love with Londa, the blank slate he helped create. The woman to whom he gave a soul. But like Victor Frankenstein, he "breaks faith with his creation" (Morrow, page 14, an interview at the back of the book).
Of course, there's two other daughters, both of whom who play a semi-major to minor role in the book in regards to Londa's overarching tale and tragedy.
The book is about morality, and what it means to be faced with impossible choices. Morrow asks the questions I think every single person asks every day when confronted with the news or their very own lives: how is it that some people can be good, moral human beings in some circumstances and behave horribly in others? Is any immoral act worth committing if it's for the greater good? Mason is faced with these choices again and again, especially at the end of the book.
The Philosopher's Apprentice isn't without its flaws or controversy. Flaw-wise, sometimes our narrator is a little too self-absorbed in his own philosophical meanderings that it makes it hard to relate to him, but for the most part, I was happy to ride along with him as a guide (another Lolita reference: both narrators are telling their tales to men and women of some kind of jury).
Another flaw, though this may be more of a "me-thing," is that between part one and part two, after Londa left the island and established herself in the world, I wasn't entirely sure what she'd done to create SO MUCH controversy and why it was so detrimental that Mason not have any contact with her. I think Mason realized, subconsciously, how in love he was with her and needed to stay away for his own sanity, but I'm not entirely sure. I got the impression that, by time part two started, some were already viewing Londa as some kind of monster, and it wasn't because of her engineered roots.
In terms of controversy, oh there's some juicy stuff. Some of it involves Londa's actions in Themisopolis and the Titanic Redux, but one of the more interesting points of controversy involves abortion and how a certain human interest group takes a radical step in its pro-life movement. Talk about haunting and frightening, scenes that will make you think and wonder. In the interview at the back of the book, the author talks about how some readers wondered if he was perhaps revealing his own pro-life stance in this book, which the author denies. I don't want to get into spoilers, so if you want his exact response, you'll have to go to back 13 in the back of the book, but to paraphrase: he's using satire to make a point. And that makes me happy.
Some favorite quotes:
A skeptical grunt escaped Jordan's lips. "In my opinion, women don't need to be mothers any more than they need to be trapeze artists." (which is not only funny, but reminds me of the famous feminist slogan, "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle," coined by Irina Dunn.)
What would modernity bring next? Might a day arrive when I would go to bed as Mason Ambrose and, courtesy of some brave new technology, wake up as someone else? (author's intention or not, this totally makes me think of Fight Club)
My Rating
Must Have: James Morrow is simply one of those authors I genuinely want to read everything of. He's the kind of author that not only writes interesting and entertaining stories, but he makes me feel smart for reading them, even if I'm not an expert on genetics or philosophy or religion or whatever the focus of the book may be. The Philosopher's Apprentice is an incredibly engaging read, a must for readers who are fans of the "literary SF" movement (you like Margaret Atwood? Mary Doria Russell? Ursula K. Le Guin? Octavia E. Butler? Jeanette Winterson? You should read this!) as well as those readers who feel a little intimidated by science fiction and aren’t sure where to dip their toes in. That said, it’s not an easy read in terms of transparency, this book is rife with philosophy, but don’t let that be a hurdle. Morrow doesn’t make his reader feel like an idiot. There's so much to absorb, to enjoy, to appreciate, to ponder over. This isn't a book simply about clones, it's a book about what it means to be human and what wrongs we'll commit in order to make the world right. It's a great read, and one I'd highly recommend.
Cover Commentary: I love, love, LOVE this cover. At first, I didn't pay much attention short of liking the overall design. But then I looked carefully at the image, which is the Pygmalion myth come to life, and I fell in love with the thing, because the image is absolutely a perfect fit for the content of this book in so many ways. So kudos to the cover artists/designers--you did a great job!
Next up: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin