The Bottom Line: ‘Zero K’ By Don DeLillo

A new Don DeLillo novel is an event. Whether his acrobatic semiotics lessons help you see the world with new lightness, or strike you as cold and conceptual, it’s hard to look away when the veteran imaginary publishes a new book. Before his latest effort -- Zero K, a futuristic look at technological advancements, extended life and the ethics that accompany it -- was even released, FX snagged the rights to adapt it for television. Which makes sense, given the story’s sexy-sounding plot: Jeffery Lockhart learns that his distant, billionaire father, Ross, plans to preserve his younger wife’s body until medical advancements catch up, curing her of multiple sclerosis. The premise isn’t so different from the goings-on of Silicon Valley, where Google-funded Calico was founded to focus on anti-aging research. The similarly motivated Methuselah Foundation aims to cure the toll aging takes on our bodies; The Glenn Foundation for Medical Research has been awarding scientists working in the field for decades. So, even if extended or eternal life is elusive, the resources actively devoted to the cause are real. Skating along this rainbow’s edge of elusive and real, DeLillo takes us to the physical place where Ross’s wife, Artis, is preparing to die, entrusting her organs to science, taking an optimistic bet on future advancements. Called the Convergence, it’s a labyrinthine facility located in an isolated corner of Kyrgyzstan where the hopefu...
Source: Science - The Huffington Post - Category: Science Source Type: news