Kay Dick (1915–2001)

Think Fahrenheit 451 crossed with, say, The Wicker Man or The Midwich Cuckoos, add a splash of Orwell and a touch of McGooghan's The Prisoner, and that might get you close to They.

The overt brutality used by Them is relatively rare, but extreme when used. The menacing feeling of presence, surveillance and consequences results in a society which brutalises itself, through suspicion of difference and non-conformity. The random violence and sadism perpetrated by children is a chilling show more indication of the moral perversion caused by intolerance and authoritarianism. Artists are most despised for their personal vision, and are increasingly persecuted and 'disappeared'.

The novella takes the form of discrete chapters, a series of vignettes centred on unnamed narrators (who, given certain events, must be more than one person) linked by the slowly developing socio-political setting. Little is explained, but it all feels sadly too comprehensible. The contrast between the idyllic rural settings (cities are mentioned but not entered) and the brooding atmosphere of oppression is marvellously handled.

As Machado states in her introduction, there is no political bias in Dick's story, the oppressive force could be of any persuasion, with one hint that, perhaps, there is a religious element to it. Machado cautions that if you see in Them your political or social opposite, you would be wise to turn that critical gaze also upon yourself. show less

A brilliant dystopia, in gorgeous surroundings. The writing is profound, poetic, subtle, and sinister.

Art for art’s sake?

“Can we go on creating for ourselves? Without any contact with the outside world?”
For years, I posted photos on social media: mostly scenery, architecture, and nature. I enjoyed the interaction, and my photography improved. I still take photos, but now, almost no one sees them. The purpose is diluted. I’d probably feel the same if I wrote reviews but never shared show more them. But it’s my choice, and I don’t claim to be an artist.

What if a shadowy authoritarian group banned art? All of it. Gradually and arbitrarily, because uncertainty increases people’s fear and the authority’s power. You come home, and just one book has gone from your shelves. Until the next one.
“It was no good listening for footsteps; they wore no shoes.”
If you’ve ever been burgled, you know something of the feeling.

Image: A Banksy of a man using a pressure-washer to remove prehistoric art from a wall (Source)
Just three days after posting this review. I started a new job, and a copy of this is on the wall of my office.

A sequence of unease

The subtitle and nine section titles summarise the ebb and flow of mood, perfectly:
Some danger ahead. The visitants. Pocket of quietude. Pebble of unease. The fine valley. A light-hearted day. The Fairing. The garden. Hallo love.

Most sections start by describing the beauty of nature, before slipping into doubt, dark, and paranoia. Sea, sky, flowers, and trees: art that They cannot control.
“The garden is beauty, is sensuality, is mystery, is imagination. They sense a trap.”
Always the contrasts. It’s insidious and increasingly unsettling.

Image: Seeing art in nature: a leaf, held up in a field of sunflowers, painted by Katie Books to match the backdrop. (Source)

They versus we, I, her

I’m happy using singular “they”, even for known individuals, but this book presents a challenge. The narrator(s) is/are unnamed and ungendered, but I don’t want to use a neutral pronoun because the “They” of the title refers to sinister forces. For clarity, I’ve used an initial capital for Them and refer to the narrator as she/her because her interactions suggest she is female, and I assume she narrates all sections because she seems to live in the same place.

Manifesting one’s artistic vision is inherently solitary. Displaying or publishing it does not change the genesis.
“Non-conformity is an illness. We’re possible sources of contagion.”
Anything individualistic is suspect:
“They fear solitary living, therefore envy it.”
Perhaps, most chillingly, communication of any kind is discouraged, and most people don’t mind - or even notice.

Image: “Fears” by Mariusz Lewandowsk: a staircase seems to have figures watching from the shadows in the walls (Source)

Outline

The nameless narrator is a writer who lives with a nameless dog in a cottage by the sea. She visits small groups of creative friends: some determined to continue regardless, some cautiously, and a few are permanently damaged by brutal punishment already meted out. The relationships, even parents and children, are as vague as everything else, but there’s usually a man who knows about Them and advises his fellow artists how to be ever alert to being watched.

Mostly, They are unseen, or in small groups, but huge numbers are seen on manoeuvres in the countryside, moving as if they are one entity:
“Their precision was monstrously accurate.”

As art disappears, TVs are given to every household, always on, dulling minds. Gardens are maintained by machines, for uniformity. Children are mindlessly cruel to animals, encouraged by adults.

Cure?

Artists who won’t stop are maimed or killed, but there are treatments, too, in windowless retreats and “grief towers”. In a few cases, it’s voluntary. Allegedly.
“Can’t have griefers around. Upsets the tone of the neighbourhood.”

Forced conformity and dulled emotions for (almost) everyone. No pain, but no joy or love either (antidepressants can have a similar effect), and without empathy, cruelty and hate remain. No identity, no ID, no id.

Image: “The Everlasting” by Aniela Sobieski: a woman’s face with a landscape painted on it (Source)

Quotes
Beauty then fear:

✅ “A thin mist, a sea fret, casting a web over the sun.”
❌ “There was nothing to say; one asked no questions.”
✅ “The sun was roughing the skyline over the sea with burnt siena.”
❌ “You are not welcome.”
✅ “The January day had the pellucidity of crystal… I looked at the cerulean blue of the sky framing curves and inclines.”
❌ “They instil fear… quick acclimatization to loss of identity guaranteed.”
✅ “Gusts of ground-mist spun rapidly towards and past me.”
❌ “They’ll be busy tonight - looking for folk outside their area.”
✅ “The colour range of the roses created a luscious sensual profligacy.”
❌ “I’m the miller… symbolically, of course. I harbour the life-force - the grain.”
✅ “I… watered my collection of beach pebbles set out on the window-sills, almost to fortune. Impregnated, they glistened in a galaxy of subdued colour.”

See also

This was published in 1977 and is apparently very different from her other writings. However, the final section was published as a standalone piece a couple of years earlier.

• Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, written a generation before this (1953). Books are burned, a few try to memorise them first, and most are zoned out from soporific soap operas. See my review HERE.

• Kafka’s The Hunger Artist: an artist without an audience. See my review HERE.

• Julio Cortázar's short story, House Taken Over, also has a sequence of unease arising from unnamed entities. See my review HERE.

• Orwell’s 1984 for obvious reasons. See my review HERE.

• Wyndham’s The Midwich Cuckoos: the growing menace of a cruel and destructive hive mind. See my review HERE.

• The 2015 film Equals, where the ability to feel is removed to stop hate and war, but a disease means some people develop feelings. See imdb. Formulaic and predictable, but nicely done.

• The 2002 film Equilibrium, where the ability to feel is removed to stop hate and war, so books are burned and there is no artistic expression. See imdb. Formulaic and predictable, but nicely done.

• The far better 2004 film, Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, where people voluntary undergo a procedure to forget. See imdb. show less

Wow, a perfect dystopian, post-apocalyptic novel.

What makes it so terrifying is that it is so vague. The threat is everywhere and in everything and yet it is uncertain what it is but no doubt at all about its malignancy.

Written in 1977 but it could be a near perfect description of facets of todays media both social and actual.

You could say it’s a book in which bad stuff happens again an again but you are never quite sure what. A world where the famous thin veneer has worn through and show more everyone is evil, either directly or by association.

Gripping and deserving a wider readership. show less

random that i read this right after a reread of fahrenheit 451 but very apropos. this is very similar in theme but much more subtle and vague about who is doing the controlling, and the erasing of the arts. carmen maria machado wrote an insightful introduction to this that really highlights this, how the reader can make assumptions about who "they" are, but that the author purposefully left this up in the air, asking the reader to really think about if their own political side could actually show more be "they," if maybe the ends might justify the means.

this book highlights both the erasure of anything intellectual and with a subjective viewpoint (books, painting, sculpture, poetry) but also the "danger" of living alone, of thinking by yourself. most singles are (sorry) singled out as dangerous, and it's said again and again that living with someone else is safer from the crackdowns of the authorities (whoever they are). the authorities operate in all kinds of ways, sometimes stealing art or ripping out the inscriptions in books that make it personal, sometimes erasing someone's memory or erasing the person themselves. i wasn't sure of the reasoning behind when violence was used and when it was withheld but i know from psychology that not being certain of a repercussion makes a person much more cautious and stressed about doing the right thing.

this will require a reread for me, for sure, because i know i missed quite a bit. like, is the unnamed narrator in each section the same person, or a different one, as everyone around them has changed? there are similarities and i had assumed it was the same person throughout, but i think maybe that with a more careful reading i would see that that doesn't make sense. the tension throughout really seemed to build and by the end it really had me in its grip. so i for sure missed some of the more subtle things that this book is clearly doing. i didn't, for example, see the queerness that machado talked about in the introduction, but next time i read this i'll go much slower, and maybe i'll understand more. show less