Review of blueprint (Blue Print)

Blue Print

Author

Charlotte Kerner

Publisher

Dareun Uri | Published 2002-12-30

Category

Novel

Synopsis

How should an animal keeper handle the animals in their care...

Writer's rating

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'Blueprint' calls to mind a positive vision of the future. The fact that she names herself a 'blueprint' instead of using the somewhat 'stiff' term clone seems to be for the sake of a positive self-image. As I read the book, however, the content was sadly not as welcome as the word blueprint would suggest. On top of that, the 'narrative method' the author adopts in this novel follows the flow of individual emotions so heavily that at certain points it became hard to keep one's distance, and I felt it grew ambiguous to empathize with either of the two. If anything, the reading process would have been more comfortable had it been done by fully empathizing with one protagonist and observing the other, but that was not the case. In any case, the keyword through which one can view this work is the most central one: 'cloning.' Since trying to tell the story through 'cloning' alone is too large, it seems wiser to split the discussion into Iris's (the mother's) perspective and Siri's (the daughter's) perspective. And I will wrap things up by talking about the aspect of narrative structure and the character of the 'coming-of-age novel.'

Let me first say a word about the title. The blueprint, that is, the vision, holds a different image for each person. For Iris, Siri practicing the piano diligently (carrying on her own life) may have been the blueprint, while for Siri, building 'a life of her own' seems to have been the blueprint. But the fact that no other 'blueprint' seemed to exist for Dr. Fisher's son shows that the kind of upbringing environment provided also matters greatly, and because people revealed very complex emotions toward the mother-and-daughter pair Iris and Siri, one could see that to ordinary people, a 'baby' that is a clone of oneself was not a blueprint.

1. Iris and Siri

Just in case, I searched a bit for whether there was a reason behind using the name 'Iris,' but there doesn't seem to be one. Iris is one of the names of the gods in Greek mythology; she is married to Zephyrus, god of the west wind, and carrying the caduceus (also called the kerykeion, the staff Hermes carries), she serves a 'messenger' role similar to Hermes. She is an 'attendant'-like figure with the ability to move freely from the underworld to the realm of the gods. But the goddess 'Iris' and the pianist 'Iris' have no relation whatsoever. Nothing connects this Iris to Iris as a 'goddess.'

Iris is a pianist. Until she suffered from a condition called multiple sclerosis, she had never thought about a cloned baby. After Iris experienced multiple sclerosis-the disease itself is not fatal, but its key feature is that the complications become so severe that they make it impossible to do other things-this thinking changed, and she was seized by the desire not to lose herself. Iris seeks the 'life extension' chance that most people experience by giving birth to her own clone baby. Because she cannot be cured, she creates one more of herself. But in this respect Iris went against the principle of nature. I am not someone who holds the principle of nature as supreme, but when it comes to extending generations this way, I think 'uncertainty' is better than 'limited certainty.' That is, once cloned humans start being made, people with identical DNA will quickly spring up like mushrooms, and this amounts to expanding a mechanism extremely vulnerable to epidemics. I have come to understand (through books like The Red Queen) that natural fertilization is the surest alternative for overcoming this vulnerability. But this kind of somatic-cell cloning creates new life without any point of DNA variation. Even if this method were improved (by combining DNA capable of overcoming disease), viruses that use humans as hosts have countered us through evolution even greater than humanity's own. A prime example is the influenza virus: some bacteria respond to antibiotics and disappear, but because bacteria that overcome these keep continuously arising, influenza never stops. And when you think that people with identical DNA will keep being created this way, Dr. Fisher's experiment, which is also Iris's desire, is producing irreversible consequences. I held quite a negative position on this part, and I could hardly accept the actions of Iris and Fisher. That is because, even if cloning were technically possible, they gave no thought at all to the child's health.

The second problem is that they tried to raise the child under such an overly planned life. She did think that, because their DNA matched, her daughter would prefer what she herself preferred. But she can be said to have been far too naive about what concrete events this would set off. She should have realized far more keenly that if Iris felt drawn to Christian, Siri could feel the same, yet she was too indifferent. Fundamentally, because she did not think of or treat the child as an unpredictable 'child,' Siri believed she was under her control, and that nurtured a series of incidents (coming to like Christian, staying out late playing with Jane, and so on).

Personally, I do not wish for life extension (at least up to my current age). Once I pass about seventy, I want to live with the thought that I could die at any time. The reason is that I doubt whether I would have the mental energy to enjoy life at that point, and because, with so many people staying alive without dying as they age, far more social costs are spent, which I feel creates conflict with young people who still have a lot of life left. Society will surely roll out policies that increasingly accommodate the elderly, but I do not know whether I would be glad or sorry when I become the 'self' who benefits from them. I am not sure I could feel it natural just because I had grown old. But after looking around, this kind of thinking seems rather unusual. Most people, like Iris, want 'extension.' They do not want to die. But is extending life in this way really right? Even if I changed my mind and wanted to extend my lifespan, I would not want to create one more person identical to myself. Of course, if I were reborn carrying my past memories, it might be worth a try. That is because I would want to have one more chance at the things I previously went through and could absolutely not endure. But living in the same era as Iris and Siri did would give the adult the illusion of seeming to understand the child. Iris too seemed to understand Siri, but in Siri's heart an irreversible 'aversion' had already sprouted. The scenes-Siri pretending to be Iris and going to the hospital to visit her own grandmother, someone mistaking Siri for Iris (because they look identical) and asking for an autograph, Christian mistakenly kissing her, and so on-can be seen as showing how hard it is to understand and control a human being.

- The instability within Siri's childhood

I do not want to take Siri's side. Though she is called a victim, the many 'revenge'-style actions she carried out stoked the conflict. It does seem like too much is being demanded of such a young child, but 'revenge,' as Siri took, is not the only stance a person can take toward a problem. There is also the way of using that problem as a mirror and never doing such a thing again. Well, if Iris and Siri were both genetically inclined to rebel and oppose, then there's nothing to be done. Still, the reason I want to talk about Siri's instability is that she lived having been so thoroughly deprived of any 'right to choose.' So I wanted to think a little about Siri's life.

Contrasted with the childhood in which she found it hard to understand that her life was predestined, it seems right to see it, as the book says, as having begun with 'Iris's' death. Above all, the aspect of no longer playing the piano and instead painting is probably the biggest difference from 'Iris.' Certainly, until Iris died, it was very hard to call her life 'her own' complete life. From childhood, Iris's educational method (her attitude toward Siri; thinking of it more broadly, that is) caused continuous mental suffering. For example, the confusion of self-concept that arises while Iris is away sick (a situation where 'I am you, you are me' cannot apply), the longing for the 'mother' who is often absent as Siri watches Iris return from her own performances, and the anxiety about her surroundings-all of these mean Siri quite often felt very anxious. If, having grown up amid such anxiety, Siri's adult self had been drawn as having grown up normally, it would have been very awkward. It would have been an inconsistent development.

The second problem is the absence of a 'father.' Even recently, many researchers emphasize the role of the 'father.' Since I am not a researcher, I cannot pin down exactly why the father is important, but the father's presence seems to occupy a place for children as a space that provides a 'stability' different from the mother's. Sadly, in my own upbringing, there are few good images of my father, the 'sole masculine figure.' Even now I feel I am sorely lacking in understanding what aspect my masculinity is and how to express it, and I am trying to overcome this. Even people who have a father struggle and face problems in their own way, so how much more so for Siri, who had no father at all. When she looked at Dr. Fisher's hands and wished he were her father, I think it went beyond simply thinking his 'hands' looked suitable for a pianist; she was thinking of the 'love' one could receive from a father. Even at the very moment Siri wrote that there was no 'father' in the school box meant for a father, she felt emptiness. Also, because she was almost always 'alone,' she wanted to lean on someone, but had almost no chance to. That 'Jane' was by her side like an older brother and gave her a sense of stability was like rain on parched ground, but I think that alone was not enough. What Siri needed, I believe, was a more stable person. She needed someone different from Iris. Iris saw 'Siri' as her own 'purpose' and 'future,' but what Siri wanted was not that-it was the most basic attention and love.

2. The structural aspect

- Siri's narration -

The fact that it is narrated from Siri's perspective set a limitation on the reading process. Though it is the author's intention, it was such a pity in that it made it hard to know 'Iris's' true inner self. From the very start, Siri spilled out far too many stories thinking she was a 'wrong birth,' so no matter how much I wanted to view the two fairly, I could not. The one-sided Siri narration, through which one can hear the author's voice crying 'Such cloning is wrong!', makes one adopt the view that Siri is Iris's 'victim.' Even if one wants to view the two fairly, it is impossible, and this perspective is very closely tied to the author's intent. So I think I struggled quite a lot over whether or not I should read while projecting my own thoughts. The problem is too complex to be reduced to simply saying Siri is pitiful. It seems hard to explain merely by the fact that a 'cloned human' was born under a plan. What is clear is that the cloned human, too, experiences multiple sclerosis, and that we must consider how the existence called 'human' should have been able to build a self through interaction with its surroundings, yet there were far too many aspects in which the mother, Iris, blocked this at its source. If Iris had purely meant to extend her own talent into another life and bring joy to people, it might well have been a 'decent' enough proposal to those who enjoy her music, but from Siri's perspective Iris's pure purpose was hard to see. Also, should I say that Iris's failure in family education was repeatedly exposed-there seemed to be far too many gaps. And Siri seemed to catch those gaps even better. Iris should have caught and dealt better with things like bringing Christian over far too often, or the child silently protesting through 'flashy clothes' just as in her own childhood.

- The coming-of-age-novel aspect

In any case, this story is written in the way of Siri unraveling the memories she held as she grew up. As the story progresses, the age gap between Siri's viewpoint and the present narrows, and I could feel it filling up with more realistic memories. If in the first half Siri showed narration centered on her own emotions and feelings, then toward the latter half, should I say, concrete memories formed the foundation-Siri growing up, showing only a rebellious side at first, then going back to find Iris again as Iris's life nears its end, agonizing over her own existence, and finally, with a requiem mourning Iris's death, quitting music and starting to paint-all of this amounts to having written the story of Siri growing up. So it came to me a little more deeply why it is called a coming-of-age novel.

3. In closing

Various thoughts crossed my mind. How should one make a value judgment when there is no clear purpose as in Iris's case, but the child one simply wants is a 'clone baby'? When parents on the verge of losing a child in a sudden traffic accident use the child's somatic cells to conceive the same child again, and so on-truly ambiguous, hard-to-articulate problems fell into this category of 'cloning.' Though I am a Catholic, I think it is rather hard to call a fertilized cell state a 'living being.' Of course, cloning somatic cells to raise an army-needless to say, I am against it. (I really wish things like war would disappear.) I came to clearly realize that all of these things ultimately stem from human desire and selfishness. After finishing the book, I was reminded of Courbet's painting 'The Origin of the World'-a painting depicting a reclining woman's genitals-and a parody of it, 'The Origin of War'-a painting depicting a reclining man's genitals. Today's society seems to be a situation where I can achieve almost anything I want. Except for the extremely immoral things, most things can be achieved. In this atmosphere, I suspect that the starting point of actions where value-ambiguous matters are carried out for 'economic interest' is precisely the part related to 'cloned humans.' Cloning and genetic manipulation of plants have been done for a long time, and while it is not yet active to the point of being applied to humans, I think something will blow up within a few years. The reason I deliberately use the expression 'blow up' is that, thinking about the countless ripple effects that will appear in society, no expression other than 'blow up' seemed fitting.

Because I have had no chance at all to experience a planned birth, I found it very hard to empathize with Siri, but I could at least empathize with the fact that she felt countless anxieties throughout her growth. I am glad it became a book that gave me food for thought in various respects.