The world is managed by a central computer called UniComp (referred as just "Uni" in speech), which has been programmed to keep every single human on the surface of the Earth in check. People living under the "Unification" are continually drugged by means of monthly treatments (delivered via transdermal spray or jet injector) so that they will remain satisfied and co-operative "Family members." They are told where to live, when to eat, whom to marry, when to reproduce, and the job for which they will be trained. Everyone is assigned a counselor, who acts somewhat like a mentor, confessor, and parole agent; violations against "brothers" and "sisters" by themselves and others are expected to be reported at a weekly confession.
Everyone wears a permanent identifying bracelet that interfaces with access points, which act as scanners. Uni uses them to tell "Family members" where they are allowed to go and what they are allowed to do. Around the age of 62, every person is humanely euthanized by Uni with an overdose of the treatment liquids; almost anything in them is poisonous if an excess dose is given. The general population believes that the elderly die of natural causes, and since some die at 61 or 63, no one is too suspicious of the regularity. The few who happen to be resistant to the drugs or purposely change their behavior to avoid strong doses of some of the drugs in the monthly treatment are dealt with by the programmers of UniComp. The long-lived men and women, in their underground hideaway, are the real but invisible world government. They live in absolute luxury and choose their own members through a form of meritocracy. In part, people who choose by evasion and modifying their own behavior to leave the main Family are subtly redirected to "nature preserves" of imperfect life on islands. They, however, have been put in place by the programmers as a place to isolate trouble-making Family members. The top minds in the outcasts are further manipulated into trying to overthrow the "Programmers" and the ones who nearly succeeded are forced to join the programmers to "help them maintain the equilibrium" in the "perfect" world of UniComp and "The Family."
Despite the name, the "programmers" are not allowed to program Uni since Wei Li Chun, the person who started the Unification, reserves the privilege solely to himself. Instead, they do administrative work.
Even the basic facts of nature are subject to the programmers' will: men do not grow facial hair, and it rains only at night. Dampers even control the movement of tectonic plates. Reference is made in the story to permanent settlements on Mars, Venus, and the Moon; outposts on Saturn's moon Titan and on Mercury; and even to interstellar space exploration. The outposts have their own equivalents of UniComp.
The full rhyme is sung by children bouncing a ball (similar to a clapping game):
Christ, Marx, Wood and Wei,
Led us to this perfect day.
Marx, Wood, Wei and Christ,
All but Wei were sacrificed.
Wood, Wei, Christ and Marx,
Gave us lovely schools and parks.
Wei, Christ, Marx and Wood,
Made us humble, made us good.
Only the programmers and their attendants know that Wei Li Chun remains alive as the leader of the programmers, extending his lifespan by having his head transplanted onto successive youthful bodies.
Bob Wood is mentioned throughout the novel but never discussed in detail. A painting is mentioned depicting Wood presenting the Unification Treaty. In one conversation in which the protagonist discusses his discovery that people once had varying lifespans, one character comments that controlling people's lifespans is the ultimate realization of Wei and Wood's thinking. The poem also mentions Jesus Christ, the central figure of Christianity, and presents the historical Karl Marx, an ideologue of communism, with the text describing paintings of Jesus attacking the moneychangers in the temple and Marx writing at his desk, both possibly implying an anti-capitalist ideology. These two pillars of the official state ideology are depicted on its coat of arms, with a cross and sickle. Sacrificed is a poetic synonym for dead.
Uniformity is the defining feature. There is only one language, and all ethnic groups have been eugenically merged into one race, "The Family." It is so genetically uniform that no transplants are rejected. There are only four personal names for men (Bob, Jesus, Karl, and Li) and four for women (Anna, Mary, Peace, and Yin). Instead of surnames, individuals are distinguished by a nine-character alphanumeric code, their "nameber" (a neologism from "name" and "number"), such as WL35S7497. Everyone eats "totalcakes," drinks "cokes," wears exactly the same thing, and is satisfied every day.
It is assumed that Uni and the restriction on names were created not very long ago, since Papa Jan was one of the employees who constructed it, and he claims to have remembered when there were many names. However, to make the members genetically uniform, many generations are needed.
Levin's dystopia enjoys some commendable features as well. The Earth and its extra-planetary colonies are free of war, hunger, most diseases, crime, envy, and inter-personal violence. Thanks to rigid population control and a more rational management of the environment, the threat of human extinction has been considerably reduced.
Plot summary
Li RM35M4419, nicknamed "Chip" (as in "chip off the old block") by his nonconformist grandfather Jan, is a typical child Member, but through a mistake in genetic programming, he has one green eye. Through his grandfather's encouragement, he learns how to play a game of "wanting things," including imagining what career he might pick if he had the choice. Chip is told by his adviser that "deciding" and "picking" are manifestations of selfishness, and he tries to forget his dreams.
As Chip grows up and begins his career, he is mostly a good citizen but commits minor subversive acts, such as procuring art materials for another "nonconformist" member who was denied them. His occasional oddities attract the attention of a secret group of Members of nonconformists, like Chip. There, he meets King, a Medicenter chief who obtains members' records for potential future recruitment to the group; King's beautiful girlfriend, Lilac, a strong-willed and inquisitive woman with unusually dark skin; and Snowflake, a rare albino member. They teach Chip how to get his treatments reduced so that he can feel more and stronger emotions. Chip begins an affair with Snowflake but is really attracted to Lilac.
Chip and Lilac begin to search through old museum maps and soon discover islands around the world that have disappeared from their modern map. They begin to wonder if perhaps other "incurable" members have escaped to the islands. King tells them that the idea is nonsense, but Chip soon learns that King has already interacted with some "incurables" and that they are indeed real. Before he can tell Lilac, Chip's ruse is discovered by his adviser. He and all the other members of the group are captured and treated back into docility (except King, who takes his own life before he can be captured).
Some years later, Chip's regular treatment is delayed by an earthquake. In the meanwhile, he begins to "wake up" again and remembers Lilac and the islands. He is able to shield his arm from the treatment nozzle and becomes fully awake for the first time. He locates Lilac again and kidnaps her. At first, she fights him, but as she too becomes more "awake," she remembers the islands and comes willingly. Finding a convenient abandoned boat on the beach, they head for the nearest island of incurables, Majorca. There, they learn that UniComp, as a last resort, has planted failsafes that eventually lead all incurables to the islands, where they will be trapped forever from the treated population. After living "free" on Majorca, Chip and Lilac eventually marry and have a child together.
Chip conceives of a plan to destroy the computer, UniComp, by blowing up its refrigeration system. He recruits other incurables to join him, and they make their way to the mainland. Just as they reach UniComp, one of the incurables, an agent of the programmers, betrays his partners and leads the rest of the group at gunpoint to a secret luxurious underground city beneath UniComp, where they are met by Wei, one of the original planners of the Unification. Wei and the other "programmers" who live in UniComp have arranged the test so that the most daring and resourceful incurables will make their way to UniComp. There, they too will live in luxury as programmers.
After joining the programmers and a few tentative attempts to confide in someone, Chip shares his misgivings with no one, lies low, and dedicates himself to the task of gaining Wei's confidence. For example, to deceive Wei, Chip consents to the replacement of his green eye with a brown one even though it involves giving up a cherished part of his identity.
However, nine months later, a new group of incurables arrives, and Chip leaves the welcome party with the intention of using the newcomers' explosives to blow up the master computer. A physical struggle with Wei, who has the body of a young athlete, results in Wei being shot. Just before he is killed, Wei reveals his true motive in creating the dystopia: "there's joy in having it, in controlling, in being the only one." Chip knew all along that it was power hunger, not altruism, that drove Wei to chicanery and murder. Chip succeeds in destroying Uni with the explosives. On his way up from the underground city towards sunlight, Chip tells an angry programmer: "'There’s joy in having it': those were [Wei's] last words. Everything else was rationalization. And self-deception."
The book ends with Chip riding a helicopter toward Majorca, where Lilac, their son, financial sponsors, and friends are hopefully waiting for him. For the first time in his life, he sees raindrops in daytime, nature's affirmation that the era of slavery and total control is finally over.
Reception
Cherry Wilder, discussing This Perfect Day, stated, "The ideology of the "utopia" is weak, but the quality of the writing and the level of invention are high."[2]David Pringle gave This Perfect Day two stars out of four and described the book as "a slickly-written update of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, lacking in originality but very professionally put together."[1]
A utopia typically describes an imaginary community or society that possesses highly desirable or near-perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, which describes a fictional island society in the New World.
Utopian and dystopian fiction are subgenres of science fiction that explore social and political structures. Utopian fiction portrays a setting that agrees with the author's ethos, having various attributes of another reality intended to appeal to readers. Dystopian fiction offers the opposite: the portrayal of a setting that completely disagrees with the author's ethos. Some novels combine both genres, often as a metaphor for the different directions humanity can take depending on its choices, ending up with one of two possible futures. Both utopias and dystopias are commonly found in science fiction and other types of speculative fiction.
José de Sousa Saramago was a Portuguese writer. He was the recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature for his "parables sustained by imagination, compassion and irony [with which he] continually enables us once again to apprehend an elusory reality." His works, some of which can be seen as allegories, commonly present subversive perspectives on historic events, emphasizing the theopoetic human factor. In 2003 Harold Bloom described Saramago as "the most gifted novelist alive in the world today" and in 2010 said he considers Saramago to be "a permanent part of the Western canon", while James Wood praises "the distinctive tone to his fiction because he narrates his novels as if he were someone both wise and ignorant."
Mallorca, or Majorca, is the largest of the Balearic Islands, which are part of Spain, and the seventh largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.
Rosemary's Baby is a 1967 horror novel by American writer Ira Levin; it was his second published book. It was the best-selling horror novel of the 1960s, selling over four million copies. The high popularity of the novel was a catalyst for a "horror boom", and horror fiction would achieve enormous commercial success in its wake.
Ira Marvin Levin was an American novelist, playwright, and songwriter. His works include the novels A Kiss Before Dying (1953), Rosemary's Baby (1967), The Stepford Wives (1972), This Perfect Day (1970), The Boys from Brazil (1976), and Sliver (1991). Levin also wrote the play Deathtrap (1978). Many of his novels and plays have been adapted into films. He received the Prometheus Hall of Fame Award and several Edgar Awards.
The Stepford Wives is a 1972 satirical "feminist horror" novel by Ira Levin. The story concerns Joanna Eberhart, a talented photographer, wife, and young mother who suspects that something in the town of Stepford is changing the wives from free-thinking, intelligent women into compliant wives dedicated solely to homemaking. As her friends slowly transform, Joanna realizes the horrific truth.
In cryptography, Skipjack is a block cipher—an algorithm for encryption—developed by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA). Initially classified, it was originally intended for use in the controversial Clipper chip. Subsequently, the algorithm was declassified.
The Unification Church (Korean: 통일교) is a new religious movement derived from Christianity, whose members are called Unificationists or sometimes informally Moonies. Sun Myung Moon (1920–2012) began gaining followers after the Second World War. On 1 May 1954 in Seoul, South Korea, Moon formally founded the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity (HSA-UWC), the Unification Church's full name, until 1994, when it was officially changed to the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification. It has a presence in approximately 100 countries around the world. Its leaders are Moon and his wife, Hak Ja Han, whom their followers honor with the title "True Parents".
Henry Bernard Levin was an English journalist, author and broadcaster, described by The Times as "the most famous journalist of his day". The son of a poor Jewish family in London, he won a scholarship to the independent school Christ's Hospital and went on to the London School of Economics, graduating in 1952. After a short spell in a lowly job at the BBC selecting press cuttings for use in programmes, he secured a post as a junior member of the editorial staff of a weekly periodical, Truth, in 1953.
Samuel Grosvenor Wood was an American film director and producer who is best known for having directed such Hollywood hits as A Night at the Opera, A Day at the Races, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, The Pride of the Yankees, and For Whom the Bell Tolls and for his uncredited work directing parts of Gone with the Wind. He was also involved in a few acting and writing projects.
Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ is a novel by Lew Wallace, published by Harper and Brothers on November 12, 1880, and considered "the most influential Christian book of the nineteenth century". It became a best-selling American novel, surpassing Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) in sales. The book also inspired other novels with biblical settings and was adapted for the stage and motion picture productions.
The Owl in Daylight is a novel Philip K. Dick was writing at the time of his death in 1982. He had already been paid an advance for the book by the publisher and was working against a deadline. After his death, his estate approached other writers about the possibility of someone completing the novel based on his notes, but that proved to be impossible, as he had never formally outlined the story. Dick viewed the novel as his Finnegans Wake. The idea was inspired partly by an entry in the Encyclopædia Britannica on Beethoven that referred to him as the most creative genius of all time, partly by traditional views of what constitutes the human heaven, and finally by the Faust story.
Peter Anthony Grayson Rawlinson, Baron Rawlinson of Ewell, was an English barrister, Conservative politician and author. He served as Member of Parliament for Epsom for 23 years, from 1955 to 1978, and held the offices of Solicitor General (1962–1964) and Attorney General for England and Wales (1970–1974) and for Northern Ireland (1972–1974). Had he been appointed Lord Chancellor, as seemed likely during the mid-1970s, he would have been the first Roman Catholic to hold that position since Thomas More in 1532.
Fire on the Mountain is a 1988 novel by the American author Terry Bisson. It is an alternate history describing the world as it would have been had John Brown succeeded in his raid on Harper's Ferry and touched off a slave rebellion in 1859, as he intended.
Deathtrap is a 1978 American play written by Ira Levin with many plot twists and which refers to itself as a play within a play. It is in two acts with one set and five characters. It holds the record for the longest-running comedy-thriller on Broadway, and was nominated for four Tony Awards, including Best Play. Deathtrap was well received by many and has been frequently revived. It was adapted into a film starring Michael Caine, Dyan Cannon and Christopher Reeve in 1982.
A dystopia, also called a cacotopia or anti-utopia, is a community or society that is extremely bad or frightening. It is often treated as an antonym of utopia, a term that was coined by Sir Thomas More and figures as the title of his best known work, published in 1516, which created a blueprint for an ideal society with minimal crime, violence, and poverty. The relationship between utopia and dystopia is in actuality, not one of simple opposition, as many dystopias claim to be utopias and vice versa.
Rathmell Academy was a Dissenting academy set up at Rathmell, North Yorkshire, and was the oldest non-conformist seat of learning in the north of England. The academy was established in 1670 by Richard Frankland M.A., and which was carried on, in spite of much persecution and many changes of venue, for nearly 30 years.
In Marxist thought, a communist society or the communist system is the type of society and economic system postulated to emerge from technological advances in the productive forces, representing the ultimate goal of the political ideology of communism. A communist society is characterized by common ownership of the means of production with free access to the articles of consumption and is classless, stateless, and moneyless, implying the end of the exploitation of labour.
Christ Enthroned is a tempera painting by Elias Moskos, a representative of the Late Cretan School. The artist was also associated with the Heptanese School due to his migration to Zakinthos and the transition of his painting style. Moskos also taught painting. Most of his students became church committee members. Church committees were responsible for commissioning paintings. He was active from 1645 to 1687 on the islands of Crete, Zakynthos, and Kefalonia. Fifty-two of his works survived, over half of them were signed. Two other painters named Moskos were active during the same period Ioannis Moskos and Leos Moskos.
References
1 2 David Pringle, The Ultimate Guide To Science Fiction. New York: Pharos Books: St. Martins Press, 1990. ISBN0886875374 (p.318).
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