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  • A Living Soul by P. C. Jersild book cover
  • A Living Soul by P. C. Jersild book cover
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A Living Soul

by P. C. Jersild

A mind seeking freedom

$20.18 USD
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AlbakiReads Editorial

A mind seeking freedom

Ypsilon’s radically reduced physical existence makes questions of agency immediate: his consciousness remains active even as his body depends entirely on others. The aquarium setting frames a broader conflict between personal autonomy and scientific control, while the description places the story in a society only slightly more technologically advanced than our own. Its speculative premise brings together bodily dependence, the limits of freedom, and resistance to forces that seek to control thought and action.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Readers interested in speculative fiction about science and human autonomy.
  • Readers drawn to stories centered on consciousness, dependence, and resistance.
  • Readers exploring Scandinavian literary fiction with themes of technological control.

Themes

Human consciousnessFreedom and dependenceScientific experimentationTechnological controlResistance

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

Ypsilon is a human being reduced to the most basic essentials, a naked one-eyed brain floating in an aquarium of nutritious liquid. Through his consciousness we observe his obstinate struggles to maintain his freedom of action in this utterly dependent situation - to assert the right to express his anger, to fall in love, to run away - whilst it slowly dawns on him that he is a part of a wide-ranging scientific experiment. In this fantasy about a society which is scientifically only slightly more advanced than our own, the Swedish novelist P C Jersild explores the resilience of the human spirit set against the threatening Big Brother of technological progress. Like most of his other novels, it paints no rosy picture of the future of mankind, yet it celebrates the defiance which cannot be eradicated as long as the mind itself remains intact.

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