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A review by dr_matthew_lloyd
Cantata-140 by Philip K. Dick
3.0
In 2010 I interviewed for (and got) a job at the Centre for Alternative Technology near Machynlleth. In the interview for this job, I was asked what I thought was the most pressing emergency regarding climate change and how it should be tackled. I answered "education", but this was not correct. What I thought then, and still believe, is that the biggest threat to the climate is over-population - the stress placed on the planet by the number of human beings who exist, continue to come into existence, and taking longer not to exist any more, continues to grow to quite terrifying, unsustainable levels. The problem with over-population is that it's a problem no-one will tackle, because how can you tackle it? I like to read a Philip K. Dick book at year, and this year's choice turns out to be his attempt to confront this problem.
To begin with, it's worth noting that this is a fairly typical PKD book. The women, where they exist, are little more than wives-who-nag and semen receptacles. One way in which over-population is addressed is through the existence of a heavily populated space-brothel, which men are encouraged to visit in order to get out their urges without making a baby. What women are supposed to do is unclear, because this is a PKD book and women don't really have sexuality in those, despite being semen receptacles. On the other hand, the society in this book is very comfortable with abortion, to the degree that when someone is known to be pregnant they are sent to an "abort-consultant" to get rid of it. I suppose, in PKD's inimitable way, there is something to this approach in that greater contraceptive availability and education alongside sexuality divorced from procreation is one way to stem the growth of the population, but it's a bit horrific to read the way its presented in this book. Furthermore, there's an attitude to abortion maintained that it is done because it is necessary - no other forms of contraception are mentioned, nor the contraceptive method of the women on the Golden Door Moments of Bliss Satellite - and even the abortionist suggests that it's immoral. It completely lacks nuance.
The main method by which population growth has been arrested is through the creation of "bibs", the slang term used to refer to those who voluntarily undergo cryogenic freezing, to be re-awoken when there is a solution to the population crisis. These "bibs" are disproportionately people of lower-classes, particularly people of colour. Now, this is the most interesting aspect of the novel. The population crisis will, by and large, disproportionately affect regions of the world of lower socio-economic development and those in the working classes, and it is great that PKD recognized this. The perspective the book takes, of course, is that of various middle-class predominantly white and predominantly able-bodied males, but it's clear who this crisis is affecting and that many of those white middle-class men are concerned primarily with the population crisis only as a political issue, not as something which really affects them personally or puts them at risk.
It's important to note that these are predominantly white men, because the book is based around a very important, historic moment: in 2080, the United States of America might just, almost, be ready to elect their first black president! Who would have thought it? But, as those of us who live in the post-PKD early twenty first century know, it’s possible for a country to have a black presidential nominee and still be incredibly racist. It’s a pretty off-putting feature of the book, to begin with, that it is presented from the perspective of several racist characters, and while it does calm down a bit (and it's abundantly clear that these aren't PKD's views) the language throughout is not what the modern world would use to describe these race relations.
Race is a predominant theme in the book, which has a vague sense of the questions PKD would come to ask two years later in [b:Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?|7083|Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?|Philip K. Dick|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327399511s/7083.jpg|830939]: what does it mean to be human? In this case, it's examining the divisions between homo sapiens and why we perceive them that way. It takes the not-uncommon SF route of suggesting that if, maybe, there was something even more different out there, we would come to realise that we are actually all very alike.
Which leads on to the final attempt to solve the population crisis: colonization. Cantata-140 (or The Crack in Space) is not a great work of post-colonialist fiction; there is little deliberation over the rights and wrongs of colonization. There is some, but it is, as ever, more concerned with the rights and wrongs of those middle-class white men rather than the region which is to be colonized, or even particularly with the colonists themselves. This gets heavily into spoiler territory, so all I will say is this: a technological solution presents itself to the population problem which is seized upon whole-heartly and then goes horribly wrong.
This isn't the best of PKD's books but it is also far from the worst, and it begins to grapple with some of the ideas which he will come to in other books and deal with much more efficiently. If you enjoy reading PKD novels, then this one is certainly one to read; if you haven't read any of his novels, try [b:A Scanner Darkly|756984|A Scanner Darkly|Philip K. Dick|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1291847224s/756984.jpg|1527439], Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? or [b:The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch|14185|The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch|Philip K. Dick|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1338461946s/14185.jpg|1399376] first. If you want to read a good book about the population crisis, go for [b:The First Born of the Dead|18730724|The First Born of the Dead|W. J. Dickson|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1382998120s/18730724.jpg|26605014] by W. J. Dickson, as it is a far more comprehensive (and recent) examination of what exactly is the problem with over-population, and what the consequences of addressing the problem might actually be.
To begin with, it's worth noting that this is a fairly typical PKD book. The women, where they exist, are little more than wives-who-nag and semen receptacles. One way in which over-population is addressed is through the existence of a heavily populated space-brothel, which men are encouraged to visit in order to get out their urges without making a baby. What women are supposed to do is unclear, because this is a PKD book and women don't really have sexuality in those, despite being semen receptacles. On the other hand, the society in this book is very comfortable with abortion, to the degree that when someone is known to be pregnant they are sent to an "abort-consultant" to get rid of it. I suppose, in PKD's inimitable way, there is something to this approach in that greater contraceptive availability and education alongside sexuality divorced from procreation is one way to stem the growth of the population, but it's a bit horrific to read the way its presented in this book. Furthermore, there's an attitude to abortion maintained that it is done because it is necessary - no other forms of contraception are mentioned, nor the contraceptive method of the women on the Golden Door Moments of Bliss Satellite - and even the abortionist suggests that it's immoral. It completely lacks nuance.
The main method by which population growth has been arrested is through the creation of "bibs", the slang term used to refer to those who voluntarily undergo cryogenic freezing, to be re-awoken when there is a solution to the population crisis. These "bibs" are disproportionately people of lower-classes, particularly people of colour. Now, this is the most interesting aspect of the novel. The population crisis will, by and large, disproportionately affect regions of the world of lower socio-economic development and those in the working classes, and it is great that PKD recognized this. The perspective the book takes, of course, is that of various middle-class predominantly white and predominantly able-bodied males, but it's clear who this crisis is affecting and that many of those white middle-class men are concerned primarily with the population crisis only as a political issue, not as something which really affects them personally or puts them at risk.
It's important to note that these are predominantly white men, because the book is based around a very important, historic moment: in 2080, the United States of America might just, almost, be ready to elect their first black president! Who would have thought it? But, as those of us who live in the post-PKD early twenty first century know, it’s possible for a country to have a black presidential nominee and still be incredibly racist. It’s a pretty off-putting feature of the book, to begin with, that it is presented from the perspective of several racist characters, and while it does calm down a bit (and it's abundantly clear that these aren't PKD's views) the language throughout is not what the modern world would use to describe these race relations.
Race is a predominant theme in the book, which has a vague sense of the questions PKD would come to ask two years later in [b:Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?|7083|Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?|Philip K. Dick|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327399511s/7083.jpg|830939]: what does it mean to be human? In this case, it's examining the divisions between homo sapiens and why we perceive them that way. It takes the not-uncommon SF route of suggesting that if, maybe, there was something even more different out there, we would come to realise that we are actually all very alike.
Which leads on to the final attempt to solve the population crisis: colonization. Cantata-140 (or The Crack in Space) is not a great work of post-colonialist fiction; there is little deliberation over the rights and wrongs of colonization. There is some, but it is, as ever, more concerned with the rights and wrongs of those middle-class white men rather than the region which is to be colonized, or even particularly with the colonists themselves. This gets heavily into spoiler territory, so all I will say is this: a technological solution presents itself to the population problem which is seized upon whole-heartly and then goes horribly wrong.
This isn't the best of PKD's books but it is also far from the worst, and it begins to grapple with some of the ideas which he will come to in other books and deal with much more efficiently. If you enjoy reading PKD novels, then this one is certainly one to read; if you haven't read any of his novels, try [b:A Scanner Darkly|756984|A Scanner Darkly|Philip K. Dick|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1291847224s/756984.jpg|1527439], Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? or [b:The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch|14185|The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch|Philip K. Dick|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1338461946s/14185.jpg|1399376] first. If you want to read a good book about the population crisis, go for [b:The First Born of the Dead|18730724|The First Born of the Dead|W. J. Dickson|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1382998120s/18730724.jpg|26605014] by W. J. Dickson, as it is a far more comprehensive (and recent) examination of what exactly is the problem with over-population, and what the consequences of addressing the problem might actually be.