Genspejlet

by Svend Åge Madsen

Simone Maga Helled, datter af den berømte bevidsthedsbiolog Just Heled, skriver historien om sin far, hans forskning og hans store kærlighed, den nu afdøde Helena. Efter dødsfaldet er faderen ved at gå til i druk, men han fristes tilbage til forskningen af den dæmoniske kollega, Krystofiles. Til gengæld får han løfte om at gense den, han tror er Helena, men som viser sig at være én ud af fire kloner af den elskede hustru.

Genres: Fiction, Novels, Science Fiction, Danish

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Svend Åge Madsen is a Danish novelist. He studied mathematics before he began writing fiction. His novels are generally philosophical and humorous.
Madsen's writing style and philosophy have placed him amongst the most distinguished and widely-read authors in Denmark today. His novels reflect the grave problems faced by the modern civilisation, and the interplay between quasi-realism and complete fantasy in Svend Åge Madsen’s novels leads to contemplation of the indefinable nature of human existence.

Reviews

[Christina Stind · Rating 4 out of 5]

A deeply interesting, troubling and disturbing dystopic tale of a book.

The story is told by Simone, daughter of Just Helled, a famous biologist with consciousness as his specialty. After Just's wife, Helena, dies, Just gives up on everything and starts drinking. But his college persuades him to come back to work - after showing him four genetic copies of Just's late wife. The four clones are at different stages of their lives - but they are all easily recognizable as Helena - or at least how she could have been if she had made other choices or grown up in other families. It was Helena's father who created the clones and gave them up for adoption and after seeing them, Just comes back to work and starts a relationship with one of the clones.
One is not enough, however, and slowly, he builds a relationship with all four - and introduces them to each other. But Helena died of a genetic defect - and of course the clones carry this defect as well.

The book is both told from the daughter's point of view but also from the clones' points of views and also from Just's and Helena's. Just is willing to do everything in his power to get back the love he lost - and to try and save that love by saving the four clones, who are presented as four unique individuals, from suffering the same fate as Helena did.

The book is about what makes us human, what makes us individuals. It's about science without constraints, about genes - and about love and finding the right one. But it is also about consciousness - in the book, Just find the gene that makes us conscious and therefore gives us the ability to worry and the question is, should that gene be removed so people stop worrying and start living in a state of continous bliss - even though it also makes them stop longing, dreaming and striving?

As a philosophy student, the book is really interesting because of it's discussion of consciousness and it's claim that it can be traced to one small part of the brain, one small part of our DNA. But a couple of other things were interesting to me as well. One of the clones, Soffi, is interested in philosophy and she talks about how it is worse to read only one philosopher than to read none, because their thoughts are not to be understood in a vacuumm but in the dialogue with the philosophers who came before and after - even though the dialogue often is one-sided (Hume never got to hear Kant's solutions to their shared problems etc). Soffi also considers writing a paper about the way the philosophers presents their thoughts - the difference between the straight deductive thought and the more imaginative and the various variations and what they mean for the thoughts they express.

Another small point is Just's rebellion against being called an atheist - he doesn't want to be defined negatively based on a religion he doesn't believe in - why is that more important than to define him as a person not believing in witches, elves, angels, trolls etc? I kind of like this way of thought - that we shouldn't define people negatively and that it's kind of rude to define people in terms of a religion they don't beleive in.

All in all a very complex novel, filled with deep thoughts and at the same time a great and interesting story, and extremelywell-executed.

[Chik67 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Freddo il Nord, e spesso calda la sua letteratura.
Questo libro invece è gelido come uno spiffero invernale. Razionale e spietato, quasi patologicamente anorgasmico. Come stringersi ad una sogliola surgelata. Dubito che mi stupisca nelle ultime cento pagine, nei confronti delle quali prevarrà un eroico senso del dovere sul piacere della lettura...
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L'ho ripreso in mano e l'ho finito. Tutto sommato l'ho un po' rivalutato, ritrovando una meditazione filosofica per nulla banale, sotto le spoglie del romanzo fantascientifico, e una umanità sottile ma persistente. Resta la freddezza di un romanzo troppo intelligente per colpirti veramente al cuore. E considerato che ad essere centrale nel romanzo è una storia d'amore resta difficile cedere anima e corpo a questa narrazione.

[Francesco · Rating 2 out of 5]

Argh. Che faticata. Finire la lettura è stata un'impresa. Una buona idea di fondo con personaggi piuttosto ben tratteggiati, che si perde in una mescola di speculazioni filosofiche e psicologiche (più o meno esistenzialiste, tipicamente nordiche, e comunque molto poco condivisibili dal mio punto di vista) e in una ridda di fantaipotesi sulla genetica che ridurrebbero l'essere umano esclusivamente alla predeterminazione data dal DNA. Fra le tante cose descritte con freddezza glaciale, l'incrocio fra un essere umano e una scimmia, avvenuto per dispetto (!). Il protagonista della storia? Un malato (mio giudizio) che scopre i cloni della compagna defunta (4 donne in età diversa) e le ama tutte contemporaneamente, da loro ricambiato pur venendo ciascuna a conoscenza delle altre. Poteva essere una trovata divertente, ma il tono drammatico permanente dipinge tutto di nero, e ho fatto davvero fatica ad arrivare alla fine.
La volontà di raccontare un dramma si traduce così in un quadro senza colori, che soffoca qualunque speranza e impedisce una via d'uscita. Eccessivo.

[Karen Arge · Rating 4 out of 5]

En datter skriver en bog om sin fars arbejde: han prøver at klone sin hustru, og får hende i 4 forskellige versioner i 4 forskellige aldre i hendes liv, som han skal vælge imellem. Meget spændende og stiller mange spørgsmål til livet og kærlighed osv
-1 stjerne fordi den er lidt forvirrende/spacy og jeg skulle skrive srp om den👎🏻👎🏻