Ghosts

"The light was frozen, dead, a ghost." - p. 3

I understand that frozen and dead could call to mind ghostliness, and I suppose I understand that light could be ghostly, but it still seems like a weird metaphor to me.

A lot about this book is weird to me so far. For instance, the sentence "Rams wrapped in theremogene beget no lambs" makes little sense to me, but maybe I should actually research this "theremogene" stuff if I am actually that curious. I just hate that moment when I realize I'm researching something that doesn't actually exist; it could very well be fictional, for all I know.

Also, this business of the "whole world problem" being solved by this crazy bokanovskification thing makes no sense to me. The goal seems to be population stability, but that's definitely going to get out of control either because of simple exponents (oxymoron?) or because, if it's a case of only a few randomly selected individuals being given the job of reproducing, like in The Giver (I think?), people will just get mad, eventually. That is all conjecture, of course.

I'm also perplexed by the point of view. The narrator seems to be a big fan of this utopian society, which is not usually the case. Typically, the narrator is the one that's not content with the way things are going -- Winston in 1984, for instance.

And I have no idea what a "freemartin" is; it sounds like some sort of androgynous creation. The whole business of creating people to be happy with their predestined roles in society is questionable. It's like house elves being happiest as slaves. I dunno how they came to be like that, and it doesn't seem quite right, but it's better they be happy as slaves than unhappy and free . . . right? I don't know. That sounds really messed up.

Also, there's a random mention of "three ghosts" and of weirdly colored people like Lenina, and somebody shouts "Ass!" and I have no idea what that's all about, and why was making "them taste the rich blood-surrogate" ever considered a good idea? And the Gammas, Deltas and Epsilons--are those their names? Is everybody just given a Greek letter for a name, or is that the way their role is determined . . . ?

And what does A.F. mean? Anno Flamingo? Sorry. That was flippant.

I think that concludes my halfway comprehensible ramblings.