I know stories or myths about the desire or search for immortality. One of them is about the “fountain of youth”. Another one is about the “tree of life” and the other is about Homo Deus. They are all great stories that let us know about the imagination of living forever and the possible remedies to extend one's lifespan. However, I prefer reading Death Do Us Part by Robert Silverberg. In his science fiction story, he makes me think about the imaginary future developments in science and technology as well as their effects on people. Moreover, he presents issues on relationships, marriages, family structure and career that might rise through the viewpoints of the two protagonists: Marillisa and her centenarian husband Leo. For these reasons, you should read it too.
While I was reading the story, I used to ask myself whether it is too much of a good thing that would happen in one's life when they could live forever. Would they feel happier if they knew that they could rely on a pill that would allow them to stay young and live twice as long? In the story, being immortal is a typical thing for the people as they have the ‘Process’ to help extend their lifespan and look as young as they wish. For example, since he started his ‘Process’ 363 years ago, Leo is living in good health and never appears to be any older than 35 years. Although the writer of the story does not tell readers what the ‘Process’ is about, he mentions that no one has died in the 400 years since the ‘Process’ was invented. As I am obsessed with the story, I was trying to relate the ‘Process’ with the scientific advancements in real life. Since I started working at a hospital, I have learned lots about preventive medicine, which prefers preventing people from getting sick rather than curing illness, and there is a projection that the average lifespan will reach 125 by 2050 and 150 by 2087. Perhaps scientific advancements might turn out to be ‘the Process’, allowing people to live forever.
Even though I am a Buddhist and have learned that death is a normal thing for everyone, after reading the story and relating it to my own experience, I think that people would escape mortality in future and they would not feel miserable because people whom they love never die. However, the story of Marillisa and Leo makes me rethink how issues related to other aspects in life would occur and affect the relationships, marriages, family structure and career of people who live for hundreds of years. First, based on their immortal lives, the relationship and family structure are complicated because they live with 10 to 20 generations of the family at the same time. I cannot imagine what would happen to my own family if we would live in such numerous generations of a family structure. In fact, in real life, three generations of a family living at the same time is common and now there are only two generations in my family structure, which are the generation of my parents and my own generation.
Moreover, what would happen in marriage if people could live forever? In the story, it is usual that marriage is not a lifelong commitment, because the people may have many marriages to a wide variety of people who will enhance their lives. For example, Marrillisa has decided that she is going to be in marriage with Leo for 10 to 50 years and after she enters into the ‘Process’, which allows her to stay young and alive, she will marry another man, as she thinks that marriage does not last long. I used to think about getting married too, but her view on marriage is different from mine and our society as well. I think most of us expect that marriage is seen as a lifelong commitment, even though in some societies divorce is common. For me, if I get married to someone, I want to be in that marriage until I die.
Finally, let’s think about careers. If you could live forever, would you have the same career in your never-ending life? I had not thought of this before I read the story. I used to think that immortality is about love, health and religion. However, the story opened up my view on how it would affect how people make a living. In the story, careers are seen to be things that the people seek for new challenges throughout their never-ending lives. They do not care about being poor and having no money, as their lives depend on the ‘compounding interest of investments’ invested over hundreds years ago. This sounds awesome, doesn’t it? I wish I could live forever to gain the returns from my investments.
In conclusion, I recommend Death Do Us Part by Robert Silverberg to everyone, because it is one of the fantastic science fiction stories which triggers your imaginations on the future when people could live forever. It also expands your perspectives by allowing you to relate your life’s aspects to the issues that happen in the story. If you are wondering about what immoral life would be, you should read it.
In her introduction, Emma mentions a more recent book that I enjoyed, historian Yuval Noah Harari's Homo Deus, in which he speculates on what is coming based on the previous history of our species in Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, easily one of the best books so far this century. Emma's actual topic is a bit older, and like Good's essay on Dale Carnegie's classic how-to book, reading about Robert Silverberg's science fiction story also took me back to my early high school days, when he was, along with Isaac Asimov and others, a favourite author. I still enjoy science fiction, although don't read it as much as did when I was much, much younger. I like how Emma relates the issues that the best science fiction writers explore to issues about ourselves and our society, giving us new perspectives from which to view and review them, something Emma does very well with regard to various relationships through the lens of imagined immortality.
ReplyDeleteAs I read, the vampire stories by Anne Rice came to mind. They are not science fiction, but like Silverberg, Rice is a competent writer whose cast of very human immortals, who regularly die either at the hands of their fellow immortals or of themselves, provide a fresh way to look at the same problems that interest Emma: how relationships work, and what makes for a meaningful life.
The final thing I thought of was the film In Time (currently on NetFlix), where humans undergo a process at age 25 that effectively makes everyone immortal, but in fact becomes a weapon for social control. The film ends before we get to happily ever after for the tough boy from the street and the rich, beautiful, upper class girl from the palace who fall in love and set out to smash the system.
I'm not sure that I want to live forever like the vampire Lestat, but a couple of hundred years sounds like a good thing. With the world now changing so rapidly, and faster every year, I'd like to be around to see how things develop for a bit longer.