GRAY MATTERS by William Hjortsberg

Finished Mo 12/5/22

This is one of my ancient paperbacks that I bought at The Book House on Sa 3/24/01 and I finished it on Mo 3/26/01.

A note on the flyleaf says that the author of this novel also wrote the film 'ANGEL HEART' with Micky Rourke and Robert DeNiro. I wonder how I found this out since I don't even know if I had my first computer in 2001.

The novel takes place a few hundred years in the future and it had been decided that humans must pay more attention to their spiritual advancement and human bodies had become superfluous. Brains are kept alive without bodies. The 'brain/minds' were kept active with dreams and fantasy.

3 BODY TYPES:

1) Tropiques- People from the tropics? Black, Brown

2) Nords- Aryan people. Blue eyes, blonde hair

3) Amphibios- Humans evolved from dolphins

There is a rebellion in the brain storage units. The 'brains' against the robots that provide maintenance for the facility. 

3 CHARACTERS:

1) Skeets- he was only a 12 year old boy, but he is the oldest 'brain'.

2) Vera- An Hungarian film star

3) Obu Itubi- He's the rebel that broke free of the robots  

From the book's page at GoodReads:

WWIII has devastated most of the world, but life is still good for the lucky & rich few hundred who had their brains preserved in an automated conservatory. Altho they have no bodies to move around with, they're free to mentally visit any of the other residents, & engage in all the emotional, intellectual & pseudo-sexual congress that they desire.

This is the story of a projection of life in the 25th century. People have been reduced to Cerebromorphs--disembodied brains stored in tanks in huge Depositories & wired up to computers, memory files & mammoth study programmes. In the tanks they're supposed to pass thru various levels of understanding before they are liberated, implanted in hatchery-nurtured perfect bodies & sent back into a pastoral paradise flourishing outside. The novel follows a small group of these brains: that of a 12-year-old boy killed in an air crash; an ex-movie queen, fastidious, rich & lethal; a former Nigerian sculptor & the last of the great humanists."