SuitabookA Rag, a Bone and a Hank of Hair
Nicholas Fisk
- Reading
- Read alongside a pause for discussing the central ideas rather than expecting every speculative detail to be explained. After finishing, compare interpretations of the ending and Brin’s changing judgement.
- Themes
- Human identity and reality: The Reborns are created from people of the 1940s, while Brin encounters a world whose apparent reality is part of an experiment. The premise invites sustained questioning about identity and reality, without establishing one definitive answer.
- Control and human freedom: Brin’s future is orderly and monitored, while the Reborns are placed in a controlled setting and observed without fully understanding their circumstances. The treatment appears critical of adults who manipulate behaviour and use people as test subjects, though the full argument is not clear.
- Empathy and changed judgement: Brin begins by viewing the 1940s world and its people with contempt, then develops affection and becomes more concerned with others. The reported character arc presents openness to unfamiliar lives and concern for others as meaningful forms of growth.
- Worth knowing
- Consider whether the reader is comfortable with a persistent threat of death, nuclear-disaster background, wartime danger, human cloning and people being manipulated or treated as experimental subjects.