Reviews - Kallocain | The StoryGraph

527 reviews for:

Kallocain

Karin Boye

3.72 AVERAGE

malachian's review against another edition

3.0

challenging dark slow-paced

morganmorganmor's review against another edition

Thank you, Ed, for the recommendation and for lending me a copy.

This was good. I think this book was the best I’ve read at conveying what’s going on internally versus what Kall says/does, as often it is him that suggests more totalitarian measures, e.g. expanding the use of Kallocain to everyone to try and catch what Orwell would call “thought-crime”. The omission of the contents of his evenings of military service was interesting too as a reflection of their wider culture of euphemism/omission. Seeing ideas from More’s Utopia being used, e.g. the transferral of people between cities to maintain population, helped me think about the gaps between that and the World State. I don’t know what to make of the relationship between Kall and Rissen (in my head he seems to have become O’Brien) and Kall’s denunciation and repentance with regards to the society’s egalitarianism; it wasn’t as overtly theoretical as 1984 (which does basically have a theory textbook in the middle, to be fair). The narrative was smooth but I didn’t feel particularly driven to read by it, except towards the end, but I think that fits the life of exhaustion/ennui in the World State.

sirithe1st's review against another edition

5.0

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Ååååå jättebra! Kortare och bättre än 1984 👍

tetrollet's review against another edition

3.25

dark reflective sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

ed_moore's review against another edition

4.75

dark tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

‘“Because then you would see that you’ve been scraped bare, exposed right down to your naked skeleton - and who has the strength to see that? Who wants to see his wretchedness until he is compelled to? Not compelled by human beings. Compelled by the emptiness and the cold”

Karin Boye’s ‘Kallocain’ depicts a totalitarian society similar in power structures to the Airstrip One of ‘1984’. It follows the development of the drug kallocain that forces those accused to speak the truth, a terrifying decay in free speech and free will.

Leo Kall, the protagonist and inventor of the drug remains loyal to the state however has an Oppenheimer-esque guilt complex that he battles with, this exploring the human reaction to the greater effects of one’s creations, something that could be associated to the development of artificial intelligence in the modern day. A limited pool of characters allowed for good development in a not so long book, though Linda is really given the tougher end of things.

Boye’s political vision written in the early years of WW2 does a very successful job of exploring the bleak and likely looking future for society in the wake of Nazi power, and can too be reciprocal of the modern day.