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Mar 2022
10:01am, 2 Mar 2022
51,050 posts
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McGoohan
They may be the face I can’t forget
A trace of pleasure or regret
May be my treasure or
The price I have to pay
They may be the song that summer sings
May be the chill that autumn brings
May be a hundred different things
Within the measure of a day
They may be the beauty or the beast
May be the famine or the feast
May turn each day into a heaven
Or a hell
They may be the mirror of my dream
A smile reflected in a stream
She may not be what she may seem
Inside her shell
They who always seems so happy in a crowd
Whose eyes can be so private and so proud
No-one’s allowed to see them
When they cry
They may be the love that cannot hope to last
May come to me from shadows of the past
That I remember
'Till the day I die
Beautiful words there which sprang forth from Charles Aznavour when he first read They by Kay Dick.
What words will issue from your brain? Share them below.
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Mar 2022
10:09am, 2 Mar 2022
67,608 posts
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Diogenes
They might be giant(s)?
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Mar 2022
4:49pm, 3 Mar 2022
51,059 posts
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McGoohan
Philip Kay Dick
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Mar 2022
2:51pm, 4 Mar 2022
53,305 posts
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LindsD
Oh, you two!
Am I first? I finished this last night. As I said, I had a horrific nightmare the first night after reading it, although I have them frequently, so probably not the book's fault.
I liked this, although it was a bit of a one-trick pony imho. Each chapter seemed to stand alone, or at least I couldn't work out how they fitted together. This might be because I didn't pay any attention to the names and they were all generic English. I'd be interested if anyone else could follow the relationships between the characters between chapters, if there were any. That said, I did like it. It was oppressive and menacing, and some of the actions of 'They'/society were horribly believable and familiar. Some, obviously, echoed other sci-fi works, or maybe predated them, as I know this was out of print for decades. I thought that the drive to create against all the odds was well-described, and also the contrast between what 'They' wanted/thought desirable for society and the beauty of the landscape/art.
I liked it, and gave it a seven.
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Mar 2022
5:25pm, 7 Mar 2022
67,801 posts
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Diogenes
I’ve started it today.
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Mar 2022
1:16am, 9 Mar 2022
86,985 posts
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Hanneke
I cannot sleep and nearly started it but going to finish Dunces in stead, never fails to send me to sleep...
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Mar 2022
9:51am, 11 Mar 2022
67,930 posts
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Diogenes
I finished this book this morning. Overall, I was somewhat underwhelmed. It was clearly a deliberately fragmented story, but the fragments were so small and scattered it was hard to make sense of anything.
I think there was little relationship between the characters in each section, except obliquely, apart from the female narrator being the same person. Chronologically, I thought each section moved backwards in time, until we got to the most final section, Hallo Love, which either came first or was almost separate. The early sections seemed to be about the fight for self-expression and the value of art, whereas the latter part seemed more focused on emotion and memory and the destruction of these things, both of which are captured and sustained in the art we make. There was an interesting theme in the first two parts about whether the value of art is in the act of creation or its preservation and availability. One artist is blinded trying to save his work, another works frantically painting canvases of yellow, blue and red, trying to capture every shade and tone, while a poet ensures that They destroy all his poems as a final act of control.
They, of course, are philistines, unfeeling, unthinking brutes who distrust all that is natural and without function. Nature is threatening, as its cultivation. Animals are especially feared, and pets tortured and killed. I think this book must set some kind of record for the number of times the word 'dog' is used in the text.
Over the course of time artists, who at first bond together to form communities where they can continue to live and work as they choose, supported by philanthropic leaders, are slowly, incrementally, stripped of their resources and tools, and then dispersed or removed entirely. Those that remain are forced to work surreptitiously, always under suspicion until they either give in or give themselves away.
The audiobook contains an afterword explaining that the final part, Hallo Love, was originally published in a magazine and was inspired by a contemporary technique of treating people suffering excessive grief by raising their emotions and leaving them cleansed. I was reminded of Macbeth's wishes for Lady Macbeth as she lost her mind through guilt over the murder of Duncan. I'm unclear if the rest of the book came out, backwards almost, of this, but it would make sense.
The style of the book reminded me a lot of things I read in my late teens and early twenties, although I can only think of Ballard as an example at the moment. The characters in these books seemed to inhabit a world of mature, adult certainty, one in which I thought I'd come to live. I'm still waiting. Despite living in dystopian extremis, the characters have purpose and direction, always knowing what must be done. Despite the feminist credentials of Kay Dick, each section has a calming, reassuring man as a guide and leader, and while the woman with the dog is equally self-assured and resourceful, she is always an observer and a follower, which I found a little irritating.
It's a strange thing to give works of art marks out of ten. We do it for books and records and films, but we don't do it for paintings and sculptures. Thinking about this book, I would struggle to give it more than 6. It's probably a 5.5, if we could give half-marks. I like the idea but I don't think it is convincing or cohesive enough as either a dystopian thriller or an exploration of the need for and nature of art. The amorphous 'They' are not ruthless enough, They hover around like vultures waiting for carrion bones to pick, surveying their prey, hounding them, without having the guts or the teeth to go in for the kill. Perhaps that's what it would be like if society went that way, cowards hovering on the fringes feasting on leftovers and easy-pickings?
Still, I've enjoyed thinking and writing about this book, so that's a 'good thing' about it.
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Mar 2022
2:19pm, 11 Mar 2022
53,450 posts
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LindsD
Thank you. I enjoyed reading that.
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Mar 2022
3:03pm, 11 Mar 2022
67,948 posts
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Diogenes
I think that what troubled me most about the book is that I don't think the author knew what was going on in the world she'd created. It's all very well not telling the reader everything, but the writer needs to know the whole thing or else it doesn't hang together, and it shows.
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Mar 2022
3:08pm, 11 Mar 2022
53,451 posts
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LindsD
I think I would agree with that, hence my confusion and inability to 'keep up'.
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Book Group
Dec 2024