Motherless Girlhood & Mind-Fusions: The Immortal King Rao by Vauhini Vara —
- there are spoilers present in this little letter to all of you. you have been gently warned.
- this was originally a uni assignment! just posting it here for fun :)
Dear Reader,
The entanglement of technology and self under the autonomy of a teenage girl, navigating a dystopian world is just a glimpse into the brilliance of the novel, The Immortal King Rao. Modern themes that author Vauhini Vara explores are pertinent to our contemporary world, which allows for an exploration of the extremes in government, capitalism, and family. The importance of these complicated webs weaving throughout the story is the connection they make to a greater message about society. She examines both the collapse and rebuilding of these social structures through the distinctive lens of the Indian Immigrant named King and his surrogate daughter. King’s daughter Athena is injected with King’s consciousness in an attempt to immortalize himself. This pivotal event opens questions about autonomy and agency in a world of advanced technology through simple lines such as, “This is a gift” (103). This dialogue from King to Athena captures the unique commentary that is present in the novel. Overall, “The Immortal King Rao” accomplishes this profound look into a dystopian future through a past, present, and future sequence, all within the lens of an immigrant shaped by a traumatic upbringing, and his teenage daughter who experiences this “invasion of … selfhood” (103).
The proximity of the novel’s contents to our current society highlights the beneficial aspects of reading the prose.
In particular, The Immortal King Rao’s” position on the rapid development of advanced technology, creates a critical lens between the blending of both humanity and automatization.
To give proof, the narrator of the story Athena can access her father’s memories through the injection of his consciousness into her body. This is a distinct example of selfhood and technology blending in a complicated way. The implications of this event aren’t implicitly positive or negative for Athena, though the questions exploring the complicated relationships between autonomy and technology are expertly explored through her struggle of navigating both her own and her father’s consciousness/memories. Additionally, Athena’s unique ability, thanks to her father, is that she can connect to the internet in her mind through a system called the “Clarinet”. Unlike the struggle for acceptance that Athena goes through with an additional consciousness, the Clarient is something Athena explicitly does not enjoy. This internet ability, while allowing Athena unlimited access to information, proves to be overwhelming and virtually unimportant to her identity, again as opposed to the injection of King’s self. The depth to which technology and self are explored in this novel is virtually limitless. Thus, the effect permits a surreal image of a close reality as the advancements in our possibility to a likely blurring between humans and robots seems dauntingly imminent. The excellence of the prose and plot shines in the exploration of these themes and thus provides important remarks on the developing topic of our techno-human world.
Additionally, “The Immortal King Rao” examines the collapse and a “rebuilding” of government systems that neither fully criticize capitalism nor disregard anarchism as an alternative to these governmental systems.
For example, “The Board of Shareholders was simply the most powerful supranational governing organization in the world — -the first effective one, many people felt” (276).
In contrast to this quote, “It’s also true that only the wealthiest Shareholders ended up seeing real gains from bargain — driving up the avengers — while most everyone else could do little more than feed and shelter themselves” (277).
The flaws of the governmental system named “The Board of Shareholders” in “The Immortal King Rao” have negative implications for the dystopian society that is pictured. The narrator Athena simultaneously gives information about the improvements made by the privatization of government, and the harmful impact of the corporate government, overall. This compare and contrast to the Shareholder society and the Exes, named anarchists against the government, is a repetitive way to provide commentary on the flaws of both systems.
The entire philosophy of the anarchist group is noted in the novel, “ The name the Exes, it was never to connote exile; it was meant to be about excision from the lastest such system, but opting out from it entirely” (194).
However, the system itself is flawed in its organization as new members are told by a month to find jobs, by an authority of some sort. Thus, going against the ideas of anarchism which the Exes were trying to replicate in the first place. The ambiguity between the better of the two governmental systems creates a space by which both simultaneously fail and succeed to serve their people. There isn’t a definitive stance or conclusion on which system is better for society, but rather the novel has a take that focuses on the specific humane morality of it all. King Rao versus Elemen Ex, and their relatives, family, friends, and ultimately subjects to the systems they have perpetuated to their relative extremes in the setting of the novel, overall.
The familial themes are integral to the entire message of the novel. The complicated weaving of King Rao’s family tree and the role of the daughter and mother in contrast to the male positions of a father and a son are intrinsic to the core of the story. The organization of the novel itself is based on ancestral lines and the responsibility of being a family member. King Rao is very clearly shaped by his traumatizing experiences in his adolescent years. From the moment of his conception through rape, to his birth with his mother’s death. The unprocessed familial trauma forms his character in a subtle way. In the rare moments of reflection and despair, the significance of his emotions is heightened.
“What are you crying for? A voice inside of him chastised. She’s dead, he silently replied. Not just her. His mother, too, had died like this, bucking and moaning, bleeding to death…He wept for the cow, and for the mother he hadn’t known” (179).
This quote highlights the significance of the role King Rao has to assume in his family. King’s voice leans towards the suppression of the emotions felt, thus cementing the toxic masculine values he has learned through observing the men in his family. The insurmountable responsibilities placed upon King due to his standing in his family is his original motivation for escaping Indian society in order to “make a better life”.
This stubborn motivation to defy this familial order of things is reborn in Athena in this quote, “Oh, child-changed father of mine. How could you let me sit there in my furious mirth, your hand pressed to your chest? … This man created you in his image, and now he means to fill you up with himself until there’s no space left for you” (105).
This tone of challenge present in this sentence which is directed against her own father is the first instance of questioning which eventually leads to her ultimate defiance to leave her home on the isolated island. Their similarities are significant in father-daughter tendencies to have a self-defined rebellion against constricting family expectations, though they differ due to their roles as a son and a daughter. King was celebrated for his step out of Indian Society, therefore he was able to have a liberating experience in a world controlled by his wants, needs, and actions. Athena on the other hand, not only carries the burden of King’s consciousness but also her act of rebellion lies on the literal definition of escape from the sheltered life on an island curated for her.
On the whole, the “Immortal King Rao” carefully creates a complicated literary world with extreme depth and exploration of beautifully dark and relevant themes that affect our society today. The analysis of family, government, and technology interacts intentionally with Vara’s deeply immense and diverse cast of characters, who face painfully realistic consequences in their navigation through a doomed world.
Underneath it all is this idea of love, as Athena beautifully illustrates, “Yet the fact will remain that we were here once, beneath all that lace. The fact needs no proof. We were here. What great fortune” (370). Whether we exist within the spaces of love for life or our love for each other the book answers this question, “Remember this. We are nothing without one another” (84).
So not in the ignorance of the greater, yet sometimes cynical analysis of the themes in the story, but instead the book teaches about the resilience of this love and peace found within the dark underbellies of collapsed societies. Love is the answer, and it’s the most fundamental reason why I would recommend this book to you.
All my best,
nadia mysteria
