Review
Immortal
2003
translated by Marcel Barang
Asia Books
Review by Peter Young in The Thai Literary Supplement #6 (September 2016).
When I discovered this novel it felt like a small milestone had been achieved: I’d found an actual science fiction novel written in Thai, which also won a major award (the S.E.A. Write in 2000), and has been decently translated into English for a wider readership. Unfortunately, however, it’s still only available as a PDF, the English-language paperback edition still being put on hold.
Immortal is, perhaps predictably enough, about cloning and the pro/anti ethics arguments it engenders, although the matter in question here is that of the actual place occupied by the mind, as Buddhism perceives it, within the body. A rich and powerful protagonist, Phrommin, a not particularly likeable middle-aged Thai billionaire, is determined to use his illegally-created ‘spare-parts’ clone to extend his life. But into this straightforward exchange comes a second clone with a different proposition: “why not use my whole body in which to simply transplant your brain?”
This novel inevitably contains a few extended philosophical debates on Buddhism and the mind, which may be necessary to the story but are in fact its weakest points. I found myself comparing it with Kazuo Ishiguro’s admirable Never Let Me Go: the questionable morality of raising human clones is similarly explored, but given that the viewpoint of the novel is Buddhist, you can reasonably expect a different outcome. I found both the characterisation and the ease with which scientific challenges have been overcome to be too simplistic, but this was a decent read despite its rather too casual approach to the science.