My Sister’s Keeper – Jodi Picoult

I have just finished the book that I have spent my time with for the last two days. If I'm not totally mistaken, it's the first English novel I have read after my school days in Singapore - Actually surprising. At first it was a bit strange to read a novel in English since that language became somewhat a synonym for business terms 'cos that's where I mainly use it nowadays.

It all started a few days ago at a private party where we started talking and philosophising about books that we read. One suggestion was 'My sister's Keeper'. When I first heard about the content of the book, I thought along the lines of systemic family therapy because I remembered sessions with similar topics in a seminar that I took during my university years in England. So my interest was somewhat of a more academic flavour - but that changed pretty quickly.

Anna is 13 and just hired a lawyer to file a petition for medical emancipation against her parents. Her sister Kate suffers from a severe form of leukaemia and in fact, Anna seems to have been conceived as a donor for bone marrow to allow Kate to survive. The older Anna gets, the more invasive the invasions become and at this point in time she seems to rebel against the wish of her parents, taking her fate into her own hands. Or is it the lack of attention she receives from her parents? Or is it something completely different that she is up to?

The further one progresses in the novel, the more one realises that this novel is not about the moral of genetic engineering or the ethical impact of organ transplants. These would be topics addressing the whole society on an abstract level. This novel is in my view on a pure empathic and personal level. It is about finding out who we are, about finding ourselves and discovering our abysmal as well as our beautiful sides and thus many passages addressed my very own feelings and also sparked a number of tears. In this aspect there are quite some parallels to the previous books in this blog.

Typically I also cite paragraphs or passages from the books that I read in order to fill the silhouettes I paint with the colours of the book. However, in this case I would like to cite a completely different book that I have read a few years ago. But in my view this directly addresses the heart of 'My Sister's Keeper'. It's a passage from "Der Prophet" by Khalil Gibran (and I'm sorry for the language, but I only have this book in German):

[...]
Eure Kinder sind nicht eure Kinder.

Sie sind die Söhne und die Töchter der Sehnsucht des Lebens nach sich selbst.
Sie kommen durch euch, doch nicht aus euch,
Und sind sie auch bei euch, gehören sie euch doch nicht.

Ihr dürft ihnen eure Liebe geben, doch nicht eure Gedanken,
Denn sie haben ihre eigenen Gedanken.
Ihren Körpern dürft ihr eine Wohnstatt bereiten, doch nicht ihren Seelen,
Denn ihre Seelen wohnen im Haus der Zukunft, und das bleibt euch verschlossen, selbst euren Träumen.
Ihr dürft danach streben, ihnen ähnlich zu werden, doch versucht nicht, sie euch ähnlich zu machen.
Denn das Leben schreitet nicht zurück, noch verweilt es beim Gestern.
[...]