∎ Download Gratis Kallocain Karin Boye Gustaf Lannestock Richard B Vowles 9780299038946 Books

Kallocain Karin Boye Gustaf Lannestock Richard B Vowles 9780299038946 Books

Download As PDF : Kallocain Karin Boye Gustaf Lannestock Richard B Vowles 9780299038946 Books

Kallocain Karin Boye Gustaf Lannestock Richard B Vowles 9780299038946 Books

Could this novel really be mentioned in the same sentence with 1984? I was especially skeptical after reading WE -- another precursor and influence, but strangely whimsical and largely impenetrable to this American reader. However, Kallocain deserves consideration alongside 1984, ad indeed they are a duo. On the one hand, much of their inspiration came from Nazi Germany and Stalin and they both portray life in a futuristic, nightmarish, totalitarian state.

But there are major differences as well, such that 1984 and Kallocain are both fresh, unique approaches to a shared interest.

If Orwell tended toward the political and cultural diagnosis of the totalitarian state, Boye focuses on its implications for the human heart, without being sentimental. Orwell's Winston Smith does fall in love, but it is a love affair written up by an Englishman. There is sex and coffee and jam, and that very British mix of deep feeling and tenuous expression. Orwell is strongest elsewhere, in the realm of political theory and the subservience of culture to power. Boye, in contrast, brings her poetic sensibilities to bear on the interior lives of people living in the World State to great effect. Orwell's many contraptions -- Newspeak, the many offices, etc.--are not sources of fascination in Kallocain. This is a book about interior lives.

Another marked difference concerns our protagonists. Orwell's Winston Smith is as heroic a figure as one could hope for in his dystopia. From the beginning, we are sympathetic and rooting for him, knowing full well that he is doomed. And Smith does follow the arc from saved to damned. But Boye's Leo Kall is a faithful cog in the machine, loathsome with, at best, momentary flickers of humanity. Credibly, he changes and follows the arc from damned to ... well, we are left with optimism, but no promise. Kall ends where Smith begins. In this sense, Kallocain is less dark, ending with the message that each reader, has within him or her, the green bit of life that troubles the despot because it makes love possible.

If you liked 1984, you are doing yourself a major disservice by not reading this book. Like 1984, it is a compelling read with forward momentum. And it a cautionary tale that, it seems to me, can never be retold often enough.


Tags : Kallocain [Karin Boye, Gustaf Lannestock, Richard B. Vowles] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. <DIV>This classic Swedish novel envisioned a future of drab terror. Seen through the eyes of idealistic scientist Leo Kall,Karin Boye, Gustaf Lannestock, Richard B. Vowles,Kallocain,University of Wisconsin Press,0299038947,Literary,FICTION General,FICTION Literary,Fiction,Fiction - General,Fiction-Literary,General,Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945),Modern fiction,SWEDISH NOVEL AND SHORT STORY,ScholarlyUndergraduate,Sweden,UNIVERSITY PRESS,United States

Kallocain Karin Boye Gustaf Lannestock Richard B Vowles 9780299038946 Books Reviews

(**Plot and ending revealed**)

Nice little addition to the dystopian canon. It concerns a chemist who develops a truth serum (medication of psychoactive qualities used to obtain hidden information from subjects). He lives in a 'Chemistry City'. His name is Kall, so the drug is after his namesake. He lives in the 'World State', where individuality is curtailed by 'Police Ears and 'Police Eyes' and a redundant Police force.

He uses the drug on 'voluntary test subjects' that 'volunteer for the State'. He eventually wants to use the drug to goad any confession that his wife may have regarding loving his boss, a man named Rissen.

In the end, he is captured by the 'Universal State', a rival neighbor, when they invade the 'World State'. He remains a prisoner in much the same he was in both states, which I suppose is the irony of the all encompassing totalitarian state.

Drugs are also found in Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (1932) "Soma" and A Clockwork Orange (1962) by Anthony Burgess, "Korova Milk Bar", milk laced with drugs, "Moloko Vellocet", "Milk-plus".

Karin Boye killed herself one year after finishing this novel.

Kallocain was inspired by a trip to the Soviet Union.

Also recommended

This Perfect Day (1970) by Ira Levin

Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) by George Orwell

A Clockwork Orange (1962) by Anthony Burgess

Aniara (1956) by Harry Martinson

We (1921) by Yevgeny Zamyatin

R.U.R. (1920) by Karel Capek

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (1932)

Facial Justice (1960) by L. P. Hartley

One (1953) by David Karp

The Children's Campaign by Pär Lagerkvist
wonderful book, recommend this to anyone looking for a great novel to sit and get lost in... check it out!
The Worldstate of Kallocain appeared in print eight years before Orwell's famous story of totalitarian hell. Although weaker in some ways, it has more emotional impact in many others. It's about Kall, a chemist and loyal Fellow-Soldier of The State. His work re-opens earlier, failed studies on "truth serum" drugs. His new compounds eliminate the earlier drugs' toxic effects, the effect that destroyed the minds of so many human guinea pigs from the Voluntary Sacrificial Service. This time, the more merciful drug simply leaves its victims as passive, even cooperative partners in their own violation - the perverted wish of physical and mental rapists everywhere.

Idealist Kall sees only its potential to help the life-giving state against its enemies, at first. Of course, he sees his invention turned to the self-serving power struggles of the party oligarchs. He sees how having that drug's power corrupts its possessor, even seeing that corruption arise in himself. By then, the evil genie is out of the bottle and granting the wishes of the oppressive State.

The end of the book seems to wander. Kall sees the full force of The State's anti-terrorist army directed against a nameless little band of dreamers. He takes part in vaguely horrific trials for capital crimes against The State, with executions handed down apparently on whims and personal grudges. He ends his story with ambiguous dreams, still hoping that his pharmacological creation can live on, and still hoping (against evidence) that it can be used for genuine good.

It's worth reading, though. It captures the fears of its early Soviet and pre-Nazi era, and captures the time's faith (and fear) in the power of science. And it reminds technologists that, although scientific results have no inherent morality, the people who create and use those results do - or should.

--wiredweird
Could this novel really be mentioned in the same sentence with 1984? I was especially skeptical after reading WE -- another precursor and influence, but strangely whimsical and largely impenetrable to this American reader. However, Kallocain deserves consideration alongside 1984, ad indeed they are a duo. On the one hand, much of their inspiration came from Nazi Germany and Stalin and they both portray life in a futuristic, nightmarish, totalitarian state.

But there are major differences as well, such that 1984 and Kallocain are both fresh, unique approaches to a shared interest.

If Orwell tended toward the political and cultural diagnosis of the totalitarian state, Boye focuses on its implications for the human heart, without being sentimental. Orwell's Winston Smith does fall in love, but it is a love affair written up by an Englishman. There is sex and coffee and jam, and that very British mix of deep feeling and tenuous expression. Orwell is strongest elsewhere, in the realm of political theory and the subservience of culture to power. Boye, in contrast, brings her poetic sensibilities to bear on the interior lives of people living in the World State to great effect. Orwell's many contraptions -- Newspeak, the many offices, etc.--are not sources of fascination in Kallocain. This is a book about interior lives.

Another marked difference concerns our protagonists. Orwell's Winston Smith is as heroic a figure as one could hope for in his dystopia. From the beginning, we are sympathetic and rooting for him, knowing full well that he is doomed. And Smith does follow the arc from saved to damned. But Boye's Leo Kall is a faithful cog in the machine, loathsome with, at best, momentary flickers of humanity. Credibly, he changes and follows the arc from damned to ... well, we are left with optimism, but no promise. Kall ends where Smith begins. In this sense, Kallocain is less dark, ending with the message that each reader, has within him or her, the green bit of life that troubles the despot because it makes love possible.

If you liked 1984, you are doing yourself a major disservice by not reading this book. Like 1984, it is a compelling read with forward momentum. And it a cautionary tale that, it seems to me, can never be retold often enough.