This Perfect Day
Encyclopedia
This Perfect Day by Ira Levin
, is a heroic science fiction
novel of a technocratic
false-utopia
. It is often compared to Nineteen Eighty-Four
and Brave New World
.
, Marx
, Wood and Wei led us to this perfect day" is what school children learn to chant.
Uniformity is the defining feature; there is only one language
and all ethnic groups have been eugenically
merged into one race called "The Family". There are only four personal names for men (Bob, Jesus, Karl and Li) and four for women (Anna, Mary, Peace and Yin). Instead of surname
s, individuals are distinguished by a nine-character alphanumeric code, their "nameber" (a neologism from "name" and "number"), e.g. WL35S7497. Everyone eats "totalcakes", drinks "cokes", wears exactly the same thing and is satisfied - every day.
The world is managed by a central computer
called UniComp which has been programmed to keep every single human on the surface of the earth in check. People are continually drugged by means of monthly treatments (delivered via transdermal spray
or jet injector
) so that they will remain satisfied and cooperative "Family members". They are told where to live, when to eat, whom to marry, when to reproduce, and for which job 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 which interfaces with access points that act as scanners
which tell the "Family members" where they are allowed to go and what they are allowed to do. Around the age of 62, every person dies, presumably from an overdose of the treatment liquids; almost anything in them is poisonous if an excess dose is given. Now and then, someone dies at 61 or 63, so no one is too suspicious of the regularity.
Even opposition against such a life by those few who happen to be resistant to the drugs, or those who purposely change their behavior to avoid strong doses of some of the drugs in the monthly treatment, and who consequently wake up to a day which for them turns out to be anything but perfect, is dealt with by the programmer
s of UniComp. These long-lived men and women, in their underground hideaway, constitute the real, albeit invisible, world government. They live in absolute luxury and choose their own members through a form of meritocracy
. In part, people who choose, through evasion and modifying their own behavior, to leave the main Family are subtly re-directed to "nature preserves" of imperfect life on islands. These, however, have been put in place by the programmers as a place to isolate trouble-making Family members. The top minds among the outcasts are further manipulated into joining the programmers to help them maintain the equilibrium in the "perfect" world of UniComp and The Family.
Even the basic facts of nature are subject to the programmers' will - men do not grow facial hair, women do not develop breasts, and it only rains at night. Dampers even control the movement of tectonic plates. Reference is made in the story to permanent settlements on Mars
and even to interstellar space exploration; these outposts have their own equivalents of UniComp.
The full rhyme, sung by children bouncing a ball (similar to a Clapping game
):
Wei Li Chun is the name of the person who started the Unification, and, unbeknownst to all but the programmers and their attendants, remains alive as the head of the programmers, extending his lifespan by having his head transplanted onto successive youthful bodies. Bob Wood is mentioned throughout the novel, but never explained in detail. A painting is mentioned depicting Wood presenting the Unification Treaty—he may be a political leader executing the ideas of Wei. 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 the thinking of Wei and Wood. The historical Karl Marx is also rarely thought of as a martyr
, possibly suggesting the distortion of history (a common theme in the genre) or that this world is the future of an alternative history
, although maybe sacrificed is simply a poetic synonym
for dead.
Chip grows up, and begins his career. He never quite fits in as well as he should, and is denied permission to reproduce. He has formed no close adult relationships anyway. He is suddenly recruited by a group of secret resisters, who meet in the local pre-Unification museum and coach Chip into acting drugged to get his mind-altering treatments reduced. Chip is careless, and is discovered, and through him the whole group. But first he discovers that there are islands on pre-unification maps in the museum that are patched over with blue and not shown on official Unification maps . . . He is treated, and resumes his drugged existence.
Some years later, a delay in getting his treatment due to an earthquake contributes to his coming alive again. He is able to shield his arm from the treatment nozzle, and becomes fully awake for the first time. He kidnaps the girl he was attracted to in this first group, who joins him willingly as she comes fully awake, and heads for the nearest mysterious island, Majorca. They get there thanks to a boat conveniently left on the beach. They learn that the islands are more or less safety valves for the Unification society, malcontents are given hints through such clues as the maps, and manage to escape. Chip and his new wife, Lilac, find a poor existence on the island.
But Chip conceives of a plan—destroy the computer, UniComp, through explosives. He is able to recruit volunteers and gets a wealthy woman to finance the plan. He leaves behind his wife and son and journeys with the volunteers to Uni's home, where public tours (he had taken one as a child) are given. As they get there, they are betrayed by one of their own, who marches them at gunpoint into a large room—filled with applauding people. They have qualified to join the programmers of Uni, led by Wei.
Chip is initially contented, but grows less so. When another group comes in, he takes some of their explosives and goes to plant them among the machines. He is confronted by Wei, and they fight. Chip defeats Wei, and the explosives go off. Wei dies in a rain of metal, killed by the machine he helped to create. Chip leaves and prepares to return to Majorca and his family, mulling over the lives lost, and the ones now saved, from people who will not die at 62.
Ira Levin
Ira Levin was an American author, dramatist and songwriter.-Professional life:Levin attended Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa...
, is a heroic science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
novel of a technocratic
Technocracy (bureaucratic)
Technocracy is a form of government where technical experts are in control of decision making in their respective fields. Economists, engineers, scientists, health professionals, and those who have knowledge, expertise or skills would compose the governing body...
false-utopia
Utopia
Utopia is an ideal community or society possessing a perfect socio-politico-legal system. The word was imported from Greek by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean. The term has been used to describe both intentional communities that attempt...
. It is often compared to Nineteen Eighty-Four
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell is a dystopian novel about Oceania, a society ruled by the oligarchical dictatorship of the Party...
and Brave New World
Brave New World
Brave New World is Aldous Huxley's fifth novel, written in 1931 and published in 1932. Set in London of AD 2540 , the novel anticipates developments in reproductive technology and sleep-learning that combine to change society. The future society is an embodiment of the ideals that form the basis of...
.
Plot backstory
The story is set in a seemingly perfect global society whose genesis is vague: "ChristChrist
Christ is the English term for the Greek meaning "the anointed one". It is a translation of the Hebrew , usually transliterated into English as Messiah or Mashiach...
, Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
, Wood and Wei led us to this perfect day" is what school children learn to chant.
Uniformity is the defining feature; there is only one language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
and all ethnic groups have been eugenically
Eugenics
Eugenics is the "applied science or the bio-social movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population", usually referring to human populations. The origins of the concept of eugenics began with certain interpretations of Mendelian inheritance,...
merged into one race called "The Family". There are only four personal names for men (Bob, Jesus, Karl and Li) and four for women (Anna, Mary, Peace and Yin). Instead of surname
Surname
A surname is a name added to a given name and is part of a personal name. In many cases, a surname is a family name. Many dictionaries define "surname" as a synonym of "family name"...
s, individuals are distinguished by a nine-character alphanumeric code, their "nameber" (a neologism from "name" and "number"), e.g. WL35S7497. Everyone eats "totalcakes", drinks "cokes", wears exactly the same thing and is satisfied - every day.
The world is managed by a central computer
Computer
A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...
called UniComp which has been programmed to keep every single human on the surface of the earth in check. People are continually drugged by means of monthly treatments (delivered via transdermal spray
Metered Dose Transdermal Spray
Working in a similar manner to a transdermal patch, a metered dose transdermal spray delivers a drug to the surface of the skin which is absorbed into the circulation on a sustained basis...
or jet injector
Jet injector
A jet injector is a type of medical injecting syringe that uses a high-pressure narrow jet of the injection liquid instead of a hypodermic needle to penetrate the epidermis...
) so that they will remain satisfied and cooperative "Family members". They are told where to live, when to eat, whom to marry, when to reproduce, and for which job 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
Confession
This article is for the religious practice of confessing one's sins.Confession is the acknowledgment of sin or wrongs...
.
Everyone wears a permanent identifying bracelet which interfaces with access points that act as scanners
Scanners
Scanners is a 1981 science-fiction horror film written and directed by David Cronenberg and starring Jennifer O'Neill, Stephen Lack, Michael Ironside, and Patrick McGoohan...
which tell the "Family members" where they are allowed to go and what they are allowed to do. Around the age of 62, every person dies, presumably from an overdose of the treatment liquids; almost anything in them is poisonous if an excess dose is given. Now and then, someone dies at 61 or 63, so no one is too suspicious of the regularity.
Even opposition against such a life by those few who happen to be resistant to the drugs, or those who purposely change their behavior to avoid strong doses of some of the drugs in the monthly treatment, and who consequently wake up to a day which for them turns out to be anything but perfect, is dealt with by the programmer
Programmer
A programmer, computer programmer or coder is someone who writes computer software. The term computer programmer can refer to a specialist in one area of computer programming or to a generalist who writes code for many kinds of software. One who practices or professes a formal approach to...
s of UniComp. These long-lived men and women, in their underground hideaway, constitute the real, albeit invisible, world government. They live in absolute luxury and choose their own members through a form of meritocracy
Meritocracy
Meritocracy, in the first, most administrative sense, is a system of government or other administration wherein appointments and responsibilities are objectively assigned to individuals based upon their "merits", namely intelligence, credentials, and education, determined through evaluations or...
. In part, people who choose, through evasion and modifying their own behavior, to leave the main Family are subtly re-directed to "nature preserves" of imperfect life on islands. These, however, have been put in place by the programmers as a place to isolate trouble-making Family members. The top minds among the outcasts are further manipulated into joining the programmers to help them maintain the equilibrium in the "perfect" world of UniComp and The Family.
Even the basic facts of nature are subject to the programmers' will - men do not grow facial hair, women do not develop breasts, and it only rains at night. Dampers even control the movement of tectonic plates. Reference is made in the story to permanent settlements on Mars
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...
and even to interstellar space exploration; these outposts have their own equivalents of UniComp.
The full rhyme, sung by children bouncing a ball (similar to a Clapping game
Clapping game
A clapping game is a type of usually cooperative game which is generally played by two players and involves clapping as accompaniment to a singing game or reciting of a rhyme...
):
- 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.
Wei Li Chun is the name of the person who started the Unification, and, unbeknownst to all but the programmers and their attendants, remains alive as the head of the programmers, extending his lifespan by having his head transplanted onto successive youthful bodies. Bob Wood is mentioned throughout the novel, but never explained in detail. A painting is mentioned depicting Wood presenting the Unification Treaty—he may be a political leader executing the ideas of Wei. 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 the thinking of Wei and Wood. The historical Karl Marx is also rarely thought of as a martyr
Martyr
A martyr is somebody who suffers persecution and death for refusing to renounce, or accept, a belief or cause, usually religious.-Meaning:...
, possibly suggesting the distortion of history (a common theme in the genre) or that this world is the future of an alternative history
Virtual history
Counterfactual history, also sometimes referred to as virtual history, is a form of historiography which attempts to answer "what if" questions known as counterfactuals...
, although maybe sacrificed is simply a poetic synonym
Artistic license
Artistic licence is a colloquial term, sometimes euphemism, used to denote the distortion of fact, alteration of the conventions of grammar or language, or rewording of pre-existing text made by an artist to improve a piece of...
for dead.
Plot summary
We first see Li RM35M4419 as a child, nicknamed "Chip" by his nonconformist grandfather, Jan, who dates from the time when the Unification was less refined than it is now—there were then over 20 names for boys alone. Jan encourages Chip to be more than just a nameber.Chip grows up, and begins his career. He never quite fits in as well as he should, and is denied permission to reproduce. He has formed no close adult relationships anyway. He is suddenly recruited by a group of secret resisters, who meet in the local pre-Unification museum and coach Chip into acting drugged to get his mind-altering treatments reduced. Chip is careless, and is discovered, and through him the whole group. But first he discovers that there are islands on pre-unification maps in the museum that are patched over with blue and not shown on official Unification maps . . . He is treated, and resumes his drugged existence.
Some years later, a delay in getting his treatment due to an earthquake contributes to his coming alive again. He is able to shield his arm from the treatment nozzle, and becomes fully awake for the first time. He kidnaps the girl he was attracted to in this first group, who joins him willingly as she comes fully awake, and heads for the nearest mysterious island, Majorca. They get there thanks to a boat conveniently left on the beach. They learn that the islands are more or less safety valves for the Unification society, malcontents are given hints through such clues as the maps, and manage to escape. Chip and his new wife, Lilac, find a poor existence on the island.
But Chip conceives of a plan—destroy the computer, UniComp, through explosives. He is able to recruit volunteers and gets a wealthy woman to finance the plan. He leaves behind his wife and son and journeys with the volunteers to Uni's home, where public tours (he had taken one as a child) are given. As they get there, they are betrayed by one of their own, who marches them at gunpoint into a large room—filled with applauding people. They have qualified to join the programmers of Uni, led by Wei.
Chip is initially contented, but grows less so. When another group comes in, he takes some of their explosives and goes to plant them among the machines. He is confronted by Wei, and they fight. Chip defeats Wei, and the explosives go off. Wei dies in a rain of metal, killed by the machine he helped to create. Chip leaves and prepares to return to Majorca and his family, mulling over the lives lost, and the ones now saved, from people who will not die at 62.
See also
- THX 1138THX 1138THX 1138 is a 1971 science fiction film directed by George Lucas in his directorial debut. The film is based on a screenplay by Lucas and Walter Murch...
- World governmentWorld governmentWorld government is the notion of a single common political authority for all of humanity. Its modern conception is rooted in European history, particularly in the philosophy of ancient Greece, in the political formation of the Roman Empire, and in the subsequent struggle between secular authority,...
- The MatrixThe MatrixThe Matrix is a 1999 science fiction-action film written and directed by Larry and Andy Wachowski, starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano, and Hugo Weaving...
- GattacaGattacaGattaca is a 1997 science fiction film written and directed by Andrew Niccol. It stars Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman and Jude Law with supporting roles played by Loren Dean, Ernest Borgnine, Gore Vidal and Alan Arkin....
- Never Let Me Go (novel)
Editions
- Hardcover: Random HouseRandom HouseRandom House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...
(June 1970) ISBN 0-394-44858-8 - Paperback: Fawcett Books (November 1976) ISBN 0-449-22638-7
- Paperback: Fawcett Books (March 1971) ISBN 0-449-01536-125
- Paperback: Pegasus Books (November 2010) ISBN 978-1-60598-129-1
- Audio Cassette: Book of the Road Audio (December 1985) ISBN 0-931969-32-8: Un bonheur insoutenable, J'ai lu, N°434, 1972 ISBN 2-290-33285-2: Die sanften Ungeheuer, Hoffmann und Campe 1972, ISBN 3-455-04403-4: Questo giorno perfetto, Garzanti 1970: De dag der dagen: En vacker dag: Fagre nye elektronverden, 1989: O zi perfecta, Vremea 1995
External links
- Punkish/thrash book report: http://www.intercoursewiththedead.com/perfect.htm
- By-category breakdown: http://www.allscifi.com/topics/info_8144.asp