Antipodean Antiquities by Johnson Marguerite;

Author:Johnson, Marguerite; [Johnson, Marguerite]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781350021242
Publisher: Bloomsbury UK
Published: 2019-01-18T00:00:00+00:00

Lullaby

This novel is set in a world like our own, but more advanced in stem cell research. Stem cells can be used to re-grow any organs except the brain. A unique opportunity to experiment with the restoration of the brain offers itself to scientist Dr Huxley, when eighteen-year-old Theo has an accident in which his body remains intact, but his brain function is permanently obliterated. In an unprecedented, risky procedure, Dr Huxley tries to copy the information from the brain of Theo’s twin-brother Rene into Theo’s brain. To proceed, he needs Rene’s consent and an assessment of Rene’s mental state to determine whether he is fit to make such an ethically ambiguous and personally risky decision.

Rene is at hospital to see Theo and to be assessed by Maggie, a psychologist. He tells her his life story as an identical twin, focusing on the brothers swapping roles and pretending to be each other, and their growing apart over school success and girls. Theo is the dominant twin, but Rene stands up to him to fight for Emily, the girl they are both interested in. However, feeling guilty, Rene finally offers to swap roles with Theo, so he can spend a day with Emily. They go ahead with their plan, but on the day of the swap Theo is electrocuted. Realizing how much he needs his twin, Rene decides to undergo the procedure. Before it starts, Emily gives Rene a secret cut in his arm pit (2015: 193). Since both boys will wake up from the procedure, not just looking identical, but also with identical memories, this will be the only means of identification for them and Emily.

Rene has been told that after the brain-information transfer, he would return to his old life, while Theo would be sent away for a year, so that each can make new, different memories and regain distinct identities. The procedure is successful, but in diary entries (printed on opposing pages, one in bold print, the other in normal print) each boy describes what happens after he has woken from the anaesthesia. Their reports are almost identical, but then it is Rene (with the scar) who is taken away by the doctors, not Theo.

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