I know the storing a human mind trope is very common in scifi but I’m just a sucker for it. I really enjoyed this one, and I think it had one of the most developed/engaging leads. To start with, the idea of a mind-upload as a cemetery substitute is fascinating. I liked the contrast of Jimin learning more about her mother through an entity that both is and isn’t her mother. I also think this story continues discussions on grief and depression that have been discussed earlier in the story right before, The Materiality of Emotions. In that one we were exploring why people tend to hold on to their pain and why they feel a need to have tangible proof of their emotions. In this story, the posthumous mind-uploadings serve in some ways, as that very proof, especially when a majority of people treat the Minds as real people. I enjoyed the discussion on whether the archived mind is the actual person or if it simply is a simulation.

I’m also fascinated by the idea that these places where people can visit Minds are called libraries, and that they have replaced libraries as we know them today. I definitely think that says something about the society in which this story is set in, but also contemporary society, a commentary on how digital technology has replaced records and physical books. It actually reminds me of the recent news on how AI companies are digitizing and destroying rare physical books. There’s also this idea we are playing with here of digital permanence; this guarantee of the things we’ve saved still being there because it’s uploaded on this server only to find it missing. What happens when we start forgetting memories or people we once knew? I need to reflect on this a bit more.

The heart of this story is Jimin’s complicated relationship to motherhood, both her own impeding motherhood but also her rocky relationship with her own mother. I thought this was so well done. This technology allows her to have some type of connection to Eunha that she never had growing up. In a way, it’s really like what that discussion program mentioned, that “the archived Mind helps us understand the people who have gone before us.” She has the same fears her mother had, of disconnect and losing herself. Jimin fears she’ll turn out like her mother, neglectful and resentful towards her own child. Eunha’s missing records in the index represent how she was lost in the world. She’s adrift just like her own data, which is ironic because the whole point of this endeavor is to anchor the mind of the person. She lost her own identity and sense of self when she became a mother, and coupled with postpartum depression and lack of support, couldn’t be there for herself or children. I think she felt no one ever understood her and she struggled deeply with that her entire life and unfortunately took it out on Jimin. But actually now that I think about it, it's interesting that it’s the physical books and belongings of her mother, and not this simulation, that led Jimin to understand Eunha and her past. If she hadn’t found the physical books she wouldn’t have even been able to locate her mother’s data. So maybe also it’s a message that technology really gets in the way of human connection. What happens when one’s existence is reduced to recorded data points?

There are so many points to analyze in this chapter that beg for detailed discussion but I’m going to focus on this one line (again this is a long one you have been warned): What happened to the women in the Bible who looked forward, though?

I am fascinated by the reappearance of this line, but at a completely different stage in Natalie’s life. To analyze it though, we must go back and dissect when it first appeared in Chapter 2, as she was in the airport heading out to college. She thinks: “As I inched along, I felt an urge to turn around and wave to my family one more time. But then I thought of Gomorrah, of what happens to women who look over their shoulders at the world they leave behind…Don’t look back, don’t look back. What happened to the women in the Bible who looked forward, though? What about them? I couldn’t remember, but there was something about the notion that felt instinctively wrong to me. It sniffed of greed and felt worryingly close to witchcraft.”

In chapter 2, this line evokes feelings of anxiety and fear embroiled in internalized religious rhetoric. Natalie’s leaving home for the first time. This is such a big change. She’ll be exposed to different ways of living and thinking and will grow and change. It’s a new chapter of her life, and it’s only natural to feel a bit worried leaving everything you know. She wants to look back and wave to her family, a very common departing gesture, seeking reassurance and comfort. However, she immediately thinks of the story in the Bible of Lot’s wife, who looked back and was turned into salt. She associates this mundane, harmless gesture of looking back with a story on punishment and divided loyalties. She sees looking back and seeking reassurance as a sin, a failure, and a sign of disobedience. She’s internalized religious obedience to the point where she is policing her daily actions. To Natalie, this farewell is now religiously dangerous. Don’t look back becomes an urging to not give into temptation. Then comes the line: What happened to the women in the Bible who looked forward, though? What about them? It’s such an immediate contrast as she’s obeying religious teachings but questioning something she finds at odds. It’s one of the first instances we see of a young Natalie expressing skepticism in her beliefs. What about stories of confident women who move forward and grow? Why doesn’t she hear about them? Are there no stories where ambitious women are rewarded and are agents of their own fate? Why hasn’t she heard of any of them? But the questioning hardly lasts longer than a second. She immediately reprimands herself and compares it to witchcraft, showing just how internalized her performance of being a good Christian girl is. She’s so scared of even thinking about something contrary to her beliefs, of craving independence and autonomy. She immediately feels guilty and likens her thoughts to sin. She can’t even engage with her emotions due to fear and guilt. This new experience is already corrupting her and she hasn’t even boarded the plane yet. Looking forward is almost like heresy. To look forward is to want to be something other than a wife and mother and wanting something else is being assertive and usurping God’s will. That’s why she doesn’t ”take the risk” and proceeds to stare “pointedly at the carpet, determined not to look forward or backward.”

At the end of Chapter 56, this line reemerges, but “don’t look back” means something different here. She’s changed and not the young, scared girl she once was. What’s interesting is Caleb’s rant before Natalie muses on women looking forward. The language he uses is entrenched in control and patriarchy. He calls her a “woman who needs to be disciplined” and “reined” in. It’s not just that she’s put their family’s reputation on the line, it’s that she failed at being the good, submissive wife. It’s funny that he thinks he could have controlled her, when really she was the one controlling his behavior and identity this entire time. As she ponders how to fix the situation, Natalie reflects on not knowing what’s about to happen to her. She tells herself not to look back as she walks down the hallway, but it’s not just literal. It’s a reminder to not give into fear or a man’s control. She’s made it this far without “looking back” and for what? What is there to look back at? As she mentioned in the very beginning of this chapter, she tried so hard to be her “mother’s type of Christian woman” but was ”fucked” in return. I think she’s finally realizing this whole endeavor was pointless. This realization is a form of liberation, but the question is where do we go from here?

What fascinates me is how she brings back the story of Lot’s wife. In Chapter 2, it was her that could have been turned into salt for looking back, but now she reimagines “Caleb and [her] children turning to salt.” She’s finally interrogating everything that’s bothered her, and is reinterpreting her role in this religious patriarchal system she’s embodied. I think it’s far too late though. In Chapter 2, she identified as Lot’s wife. Looking back was a symptom of weakness, of emotional connection. She is conditioned to be obedient and quiet. If she questioned anything, she was sinning and would be punished. As a result, she is scared of turning into salt. Now in this chapter, it’s Caleb and her children who are turned into salt, “the ranch set on fire. My whole world burning, the sky filled with ash.” Now she isn’t the one being punished or destroyed. It’s the farm, everyone around her. She realizes she isn’t the problem, but the whole system is. Is she realizing this whole system is morally corrupt? I think she’s finally coming to understand that her whole life has been driven by control and fear, underwritten in religious rhetoric. She’s clearly reframing the “punishment” and who receives it.

Now she asks that question again: “But what about the women in the Bible who look forward? What happens to them?” Except this time, the question is “easier for [her] to answer “at thirty-three than it had been for me at seventeen.” So what does she think happens to women who look forward? Well, she’s lived it. Women who look forward, who are ambitious, who are “out of control” and do not fall in line, end up being punished. They are considered unpredictable and a threat, and end up having to be “dealt” with, just like how Doug wants to murder her. She even remarks “He doesn’t want me dead. He just wants me fixed.” Doug needs to “fix” her, correct her wrong behavior until she is subservient (again) and shackled to the ranch or whatever the men in her life deem appropriate. Her ambitions with the farm, influencing career, and controlling every aspect of her and Caleb’s life in service of patriarchal performance resulted in becoming uncontrolled and unreliable, “ruining” Doug’s election chances and reputation (never mind that he had actually tried using her influence to help with those things). To Doug, she’s now past her purpose and usefulness. She messed up when her facade crumbled and people realized she wasn’t the quiet, submissive wife who just sat down with the kids and let her husband handle all the rest. She was actually handling everything except for the kids. Again, gendered expectations here are at play, it is Doug who is coming up with a solution to silence her and Caleb who should have controlled her. Her identity, autonomy, intellect need to be stifled and controlled until they no longer pose a threat.

She’s no longer afraid of being punished. Looking forward means rejecting these roles, but doing this makes you a target. If she looks back, she turns into a pillar of salt, but if she looks forward, she risks losing everything. It seems she has come to terms with this as she states: “It wasn’t clear to me if I was marching toward my own salvation or toward my own imminent death.” She’s taking things into her own hands and once again searching for a solution herself. But I find it interesting that she’s the one trying to fix things because this is what a “good Christian girl” does: smooth things over and shoulder the blame and responsibility. She’s the one facing “the men” aka Doug and her husband, and negotiating a solution. It really shows just how much she has internalized all these patriarchal expectations. Her reaction in the end makes me think she has finally understood that the sole purpose of these expectations is to stifle her autonomy, but it really depends on how the last few chapters play out from here to see if she’ll finally do something about her cognitive dissonance. Would love to hear everyone else’s thoughts.

Two points in this chapter that stand out:

"He had plans to meet Aaron for a movie, some French horror thing about a student with a taste for human flesh."

1. I have been loving all the foreshadowing sprinkled in the book. This is just one instance. Usually I get annoyed if it feels too heavy-handed, but because the pacing of the first half is slow I think it works in the novel's favor. We know what's coming but we're not quite there yet, so these act like little teasers for what’s about to go down. Same thing with the mentions of the Savage Hunger exhibition at the Museum of Us and the coyotes throughout the book.

2. I think the heart of this chapter though was Emmett’s complicated and messy relationship with his mom. The argument with her really highlights how his relationship with his loved ones had evolved as he takes Obexity. His mom isn’t perfect, but she loves him and cares for him in the best way she knows how. He clearly feels his mother ruined him and set him up to fail, particularly with his relationship with food. His relationship with eating is informed by her indulgent, “food is love” parenting style. Food is what she has always used to express her care, her love, her attention. Anytime there is something good happening, she celebrates with food. If it’s something bad, she uses food as comfort. When he was young she was always indulging him and feeding him snacks, and this is contrasted with Hank’s approach of starving him. He clearly feels she didn’t protect him from all the trauma he faced, particularly with Hank. It’s fascinating to see all that play out: how his mother’s decisions and own issues shaped him, but his mother tried to do the best she could with what she had. Couple this then with their socioeconomic status and how our world is set up in such a way that makes it so hard to live a health lifestyle. How much is his mom at fault for how he turned out and the decisions he’s made? She’s clearly an influence, but concurrently, as his mom points out, he is an adult. He’s almost 30 and still blaming his parents for how his life turned out without reflecting or acknowledging the inner work he should be putting in to better himself. It’s so messy and real. Yes his mom played a role but she has never shamed him or made him feel less than. His mom points out that he’s so angry at the world and himself and he wants an easy scapegoat so he just targets her. Their argument also heads so lovingly and suddenly, with both deciding to just move on. It's so normal and relatable.

I just love this discussion on parenting. His mom was raised a certain way, in a certain time period with specific beauty standards and ideals. She did the best she could, but these social norms and societal pressures were all she knew and how she was raised. It’s always fascinating to understand how parents parent, how beliefs and understandings they hold inadvertently pass down to their children and shape their behavior and their sense of self.

The ending lines of the chapter are so striking: “The world had put this Hunger in him. Maybe it was time they faced the consequences.”

He’s still playing the blame game, but he has a point and you really feel for him. We really see his anger and despair for a world that emphasizes unrealistic beauty standards and shames and blames anyone who doesn’t conform to them. The systems and policies set in place uphold all this. And when people try to conform, they still get ridiculed and picked on, because the only thing these corporations and systems really care about at the end of the day is their bottom line. He's always had to curb his desires and he's done doing that-even if the desire is human flesh.