Kallocain

I’m not a big fan of dystopian fiction, mostly because it all seems so obvious. Oh noes, things are bad, this is what they will look like if they carry on in the same vein… Which , of course, they rarely do. And there’s no real evidence dystopian fiction helps prevent what it describes - if anything, it’s the reverse, as pointed out by the oft-repeated meme about a Torment Nexus…

Of course, dystopia is in the eye of the beholder - or rather, the politics of one era define that era’s dystopia but may not hold true a decade or a generation later. (On a side-note, I find dystopias where the citizens have been programmed - chemically, technologically, or neuro-surgically - to be happy with their lot fascinating; Alastair Reynolds show more describes one such in one of his Glitter Band novels, John Varley has written something similar.)

Boye, a Swede who lived in Nazi Germany, wrote Kallocain in 1940, and it was very much a response to her experiences living there. In the world of Kallocain, there is a World State. But it has enemies. And a border. Which means it’s not a world state. But that’s just a name. Leo Kall is a chemist in a Chemistry City (which sounds very Soviet). He discovers a new truth serum, which he names after himself and for which the book is named. It allows the authorities to interrogate people while they are only thinking about crimes - pre-crime, as Philip Dick has it.

Kall uses his discovery to better his situation, and to destroy his superior, who he believes (wrongly) is having an affair with his wife. What follows is pretty much inevitable. There are hints the leaders live lives of luxury and freedom, which reads as a direct dig at the Nazi leadership. The general air of paranoia and deprivation echo both the USSR and the final years of the Nazi regime.

If you’ve read Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-four or Zamyatin’s We, there’s little here that’s different, although Kallocain is less brutal than the former and less science-fictional than the latter. It should by rights be held in as high regard as those two novels, but it wasn’t translated into English until 1966 and, of course, its author is female. A good historical dystopian novel that stands alongside better-known examples. show less

Political dystopias found their form in the first half of the 20th century, with books like Zamyatin's We, Huxley's Brave New World and Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four as the big three. Karin Boye's Kallocain (1940) deserves to be mentioned in the same context. It's certainly at least as good, and its central message - that fear, hatred and paranoia demands a conscious effort, which cannot be sustained forever - certainly more hopeful, as bleak as the novel and its author's untimely end is.

The setting will be familiar to anyone who's read either of the others; a totalitarian state (officially named The World State, even though there are hints that there are other states and occasional wars), "sometime in the 21st century", where the show more government controls everything. Children are raised by the state and separated from their parents for good when they hit puberty, every aspect of life is rationalised, standardised and specialised with no free will at all, everyone is taught that they exist solely to serve the state, and it goes without saying that the police have spy cameras and microphones everywhere.

Except in people's minds, obviously.

That is, until the chemist Leo Kall stumbles across a new chemical compound, which he names after himself and which proves to be a perfect truth serum. Kallocain works a little like alcohol, he speculates (alcohol, of course, was banned several generations ago); rather than force people to tell the truth, it simply makes them want to stop lying. Shoot them up and they relax, smile and tell you everything that they've been trying to keep hidden. Perfect for convicting criminals, he thinks - except pretty soon it becomes obvious that it can do so much more. Suddenly the state can prosecute people for their thoughts, and Kall is expected to help - but what if it turns out that the worst threat to a totalitarian government isn't a few isolated pockets of convinced political dissidents, but simply people being people, telling stories and listening to music you can't even march to? And what does it mean for his own marriage to a wife he can't help but suspect of being disloyal to him (in itself of course a crime, since they're both supposed to be loyal only to the state)? What is this word "soul" he keeps hearing the suspects mention, which doesn't seem to serve any purpose at all...?

Kallocain clearly owes a lot to Huxley (it predates Orwell's book by several years), but in a way, it's a very different animal. Boye was first and foremost a poet and that sensibility shows in her SF writing even though the narrator Kall is a pretty cold fish at first. She largely stays away from the big political questions; they're there, definitely, and we find out enough about the world Kall lives in to understand it, but the focus is still on personal politics; about what living under constant pressure to be quiet, lie and serve others does to people. It's tempting, of course, to read it not only in a 1940s context - trapped in a world of totalitarian thinking that created both Stalin and Hitler and the people fighting them, and the big war just starting to gather steam - but also in relation to Boye's personal life; as a lesbian, she faced a very real risk of getting thrown in jail simply for existing, and it's quite likely that that pressure led to her suicide a year after Kallocain came out. But even so, 70 years later, there's something in Kallocain that manages to make it positively uplifting. Because what the smiles on the faces of the victims say as they incriminate themselves is "this is not us. We are human beings, we are fucked up and not always good, but as long as it takes a conscious effort to suppress ourselves, we can never be automatons in the long run."

ETA 160625: Det finns en strålande anpassning för radioteater från 1966 på Sveriges Radios sida. Gunnar Björnstrand! Erland Josephson! show less

I wouldn't call it "hilarious",* for sure, but I definitely agree that Karin Boye has done us a great service in writing this book. Reminiscent of 1984 and also of Yvgeny Zamyatin's WE, KALLOCAIN is actually more frightening than either of those. The mind of the "collaborator," the willing citizen of a totalitarian state, is laid bare; his rationales and fears are thus universalized, and one sees the tyrant in all of us ...

* This review was responding in part to another review on Amazon.com, titled, "Hilarious futuristic vision."

Karin Boye’s dystopian novel from 1940 is a modern classic in Sweden, and considering my taste for the genre it’s really quite strange I haven’t read it before. Boye’s vision of a nightmarish police state, where regulations, paranoia and propaganda rule people’s life, is pretty reminiscent of Orwell’s 1984. In Boye’s version of totalitarianism, children are taken from their parents and put in training camps at the age of seven, whole cities are devoted to producing specific items (our hero Leo Kall lives in Chemistry City 4), and every word you speak, both in public and in private is being judged.

Leo Kall is a chemist and a loyal servant of the World State, and with his invention Kallocain – a dead-sure truth serum, show more leaving no permanent damage in the subject – he provides the government with a powerful instrument of control. For the first time it’s possible not only to focus on acts, but on intentions and innermost thoughts in the citizens. It’s possible to find out who is really loyal to the core. And who is a doubter, a dreamer, a poser, a traitor. Kallocain is a huge success, and a law that criminalizes thoughts is passed. But Leo is beginning to doubt, especially in the light of the confessions he hears from people under the influence of the drug. Is there such a thing as a mind pure enough to pass the test?

Some of the best parts of this book are the confessions made under the influence of Kallocain that Leo hears while administering the syringe. They feel personal and fresh and offer a clever way of telling more about this society from a human perspective. Like the woman who is married to a state traitor but in her confession is focusing on the amazing thing that he loved and trusted her enough to tell her. Or the members of a strange little cult who show just how small an act of rebellion can be and still bring hope.

Kallocain is clearly written as a warning against Stalinism, and comes across a little dated. But Boye’s dry, Kafkaesque style is still very readable. And a lot of the situations put forth in this slender book are fresh takes on the old “free thinker in an oppressive society” theme that at least I have never read before. I recommend it to any fan of dystopian literature. show less

Der Chemiker Leo Kall blickt zurück auf die Zeit vor seiner Verhaftung und will nun endlich nach unzähligen Jahren berichten, was damals geschah. In der Chemiestadt Nr. 4 arbeitete er in einem Labor und es gelang ihm ein sagenhaftes Medikament zu erfinden, das seinen Namen tragen sollte: Kallocain. Die Wahrheitsdroge führte dazu, dass die Versuchspersonen ihre Geheimnisse preisgaben und dem totalitären Staat ihre intimsten Gedanken verrieten. Schnell wird man auf ihn aufmerksam und lädt in gemeinsam mit seinem Vorgesetzten in die Hauptstadt ein, um der Staatsführung sein Experiment vorzuführen. Doch all der Erfolg kann Leo Kall nicht vor seinen Ängsten und Unsicherheiten schützen. Sein ganzes Leben lang wird er von Alpträumen show more geplagt und die für ihn nach all den Ehejahren immer noch offene Frage, ob ihn seine Frau Linda überhaupt jemals geliebt hat, lässt ihn eine Entscheidung mit schwerwiegenden Folgen treffen.

Karin Boyes Roman aus dem Jahre 1940 gilt als eines der wichtigsten schwedischen Romane des 20. Jahrhunderts. Ihr letztes Werk, bevor sie sich das Leben nahm, blickt in eine düstere Zukunft und ist stark beeinflusst von den Zeichen der Zeit. Die deutschen Vorfahren der Autorin haben sie immer wieder gen Süden blicken und beobachten lassen, was sich dort in den 1930er Jahren abspielte und wohin sich die Welt bewegte.

Leo Kall lebt im sogenannten Weltstaat, der mit seiner Überwachung und starren Struktur sowohl an die Ideen Hitlers anknüpfte wie auch an die stalinistische Sowjetunion erinnert. Ersteres kommt vor allem auch in der nur am Rande angerissenen Rassentheorie zum Ausdruck, der zufolge die Menschen im Weltstaat sich genetisch stark von jenen im verfeindeten Universaalstaat unterscheiden. Das Leben wird von Geburt an vom Staat bestimmt und gelenkt und spielt sich weitgehen unter der Erde ab, es bedarf einer Sondergenehmigung, um an die Oberfläche zu kommen. Die Gesellschaft ist stark kommunistisch ohne große Hierarchien geprägt, gleichzeitig durchdringt sie aber auch eine militärische Struktur, die sich beispielsweise in der Anrede als „Mitsoldat“ niederschlägt.

Interessant ist einerseits natürlich Kalls Erfindung namens „Kallocain“, die Wahrheitsdroge, die staatsfeindliche Gedanken aufdeckt und somit eine schnelle Reaktion auf konterrevolutionäre Strömungen erlaubt. Viel spannender fand ich jedoch den Charakter Kalls selbst, der fortwährend von Unsicherheit und Zweifel geplagt wird, der gefallen will und doch beinahe durchgängig starken Ängsten ausgeliefert ist. Letztlich ist das Gefängnis für ihn ein Ort der Befreiung, denn er ist die ihn beängstigende Freiheit im Staat losgeworden und die engen Mauern bieten ihm den Schutz vor sich selbst und seinen Gedanken, den er zuvor schmerzlich vermisst hat.

Boyes Roman steht in einer Reihe mit Dystopien wie „Schöne neue Welt“ oder „1984“, die in dieselbe Entstehungszeit fallen. Gerade weil Roman und Autorin einen starken Bezug zu Deutschland haben, ist mir unverständlich, weshalb er nicht weitaus bekannter bei uns ist. Vielleicht mag die Neuübersetzung daran etwas zu ändern, in der aktuellen Zeit kann es gar nicht genug erfolgreiche Literatur, die die Folgen extremer politischer Entwicklungen aufzeigt, geben. show less

So this is a philosophical dystopia kinda half-way between [b:We|76171|We|Yevgeny Zamyatin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1421883730i/76171._SY75_.jpg|2144026] and 1984. Maybe a little of the dryness of [b:Meccania, the Super-State|7894479|Meccania, the Super-State|Owen Gregory|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1347444556i/7894479._SY75_.jpg|11130675].

Its main character is a strange sort of combination of the protagonists of We and 1984, in that like the guy from We he's quite happy as part of a dystopia but also like Winston Smith he's terrified of everything. This cognitive dissonance is just one of the confused or complex elements of the story.
Its quite a show more complicated tale and maybe a little is being lost in translation at times as some elements can be hard to follow. The ending made little sense to me given the character development but perhaps there was a point in that.

Lot of things to think about, lot of angles. Certainly worth a look for We/1984 fans.

One of the ideas that struck deepest for me is how increased state security doesn't make people feel safer or bring them together but rather increases their fear and separates them by making them fear each other. show less

A dystopian novel in the tradition of 1984, but much more grim, I think because the protagonist is not struggling against the state, but seems to have wholeheartedly accepted it. He invents a drug that causes people to tell the truth, and in testing it is exposed tothe thoughts of people who struggle against it, although in a very vague way. It's a short book, and there isn't much left of it by the time the protagonist is changed--strangely enough by using the drug on his wife to expose what he thinks will be her infidelity. He finds something completely unexpected and his entire outlook changes. The book ends very abruptly with a twist that has little to do with the rest of the narrative. I found it to be very absorbing and show more interesting, well worth reading. show less