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Camp Concentration
In this chillingly plausible work of speculative fiction, Thomas M. Disch imagines an alternate 1970s in which America has declared war on the rest of the world and much of its own citizenry and is willing to use any weapon to assure victory. Louis Sacchetti, a poet imprisoned for draft resistance, is delivered to a secret facility called Camp Archimedes, where he is the unwilling witness to the army's conscienceless experiments in “intelligence maximization.” In the experiment, Prisoners are given Pallidine, a drug derived from the syphilis spirochete, and their mental abilities quickly rise to the level of genius. Unfortunately, a side effect of Pallidine is death.
184 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 1967
About the author
Thomas M. Disch
325 books272 followersPoet and cynic, Thomas M. Disch brought to the sf of the New Wave a camp sensibility and a sardonicism that too much sf had lacked. His sf novels include Camp Concentration, with its colony of prisoners mutated into super-intelligence by the bacteria that will in due course kill them horribly, and On Wings of Song, in which many of the brightest and best have left their bodies for what may be genuine, or entirely illusory, astral flight and his hero has to survive until his lover comes back to him; both are stunningly original books and both are among sf's more accomplishedly bitter-sweet works.
In recent years, Disch had turned to ironically moralized horror novels like The Businessman, The MD, The Priest and The Sub in which the nightmare of American suburbia is satirized through the terrible things that happen when the magical gives people the chance to do what they really really want. Perhaps Thomas M. Disch's best known work, though, is The Brave Little Toaster, a reworking of the Brothers Grimm's "Town Musicians of Bremen" featuring wornout domestic appliances -- what was written as a satire on sentimentality became a successful children's animated musical.
Thomas M. Disch committed suicide by gunshot on July 4, 2008.
In recent years, Disch had turned to ironically moralized horror novels like The Businessman, The MD, The Priest and The Sub in which the nightmare of American suburbia is satirized through the terrible things that happen when the magical gives people the chance to do what they really really want. Perhaps Thomas M. Disch's best known work, though, is The Brave Little Toaster, a reworking of the Brothers Grimm's "Town Musicians of Bremen" featuring wornout domestic appliances -- what was written as a satire on sentimentality became a successful children's animated musical.
Thomas M. Disch committed suicide by gunshot on July 4, 2008.
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March 24, 2010
Flowers for Algernon has become a minor classic, and, thanks to the movie, even people who haven't read it often know the story. Poor Charlie Gordon is given an operation which turns him from a mentally subnormal dishwasher into a genius, but the treatment turns out to be flawed. It's a great weepie, and I am one of many people who love it.
Camp Concentration is Algernon's evil twin. It's exploring the same basic theme, but I doubt it will ever be as well known. That doesn't necessarily mean it's a worse book - just that it's taking more risks, and not trying as hard to be accessible. Algernon is a tragedy; CC is a black comedy, and often a rather horrifying one. In Disch's version, the program is run by the military, who are not slow to see the possible advantages of being able to create geniuses to order from the most unpromising material. So what if it eventually kills them? We're at war, you know! (At the time, it was the Vietnam war). It turns out, however, that creating a few dozen instant geniuses, handing them all a death sentence, and locking them up together can lead to unexpected consequences.
One of most engaging things about the book is the way the story is narrated. As in Algernon, it's a diary; this time, the diary is being kept by Louis Sacchetti, a poet and conscientious objector who is assigned to the project with the brief of reporting on progress from a literary perspective. I love fictitious writers who are actually given a chance to show what they can do. Louis is not as impressive as John Shade in Pale Fire, who will no doubt keep the number one spot for a good while to come, but he's definitely keeping up with the pack, and I would say is at least as good as e.g. Randolph Ash in Possession. He's credible both as a character and as an author.
The book has flaws (difficult to discuss them without spoiling a fun plot), but all in all I found it deeper and more interesting than Algernon, and I have re-read it several times. Strongly recommended to anyone who in principle likes SF, but tends to be put off by the fact that the average SF author just can't write. Disch could, and it's odd that more people haven't come across him.
Camp Concentration is Algernon's evil twin. It's exploring the same basic theme, but I doubt it will ever be as well known. That doesn't necessarily mean it's a worse book - just that it's taking more risks, and not trying as hard to be accessible. Algernon is a tragedy; CC is a black comedy, and often a rather horrifying one. In Disch's version, the program is run by the military, who are not slow to see the possible advantages of being able to create geniuses to order from the most unpromising material. So what if it eventually kills them? We're at war, you know! (At the time, it was the Vietnam war). It turns out, however, that creating a few dozen instant geniuses, handing them all a death sentence, and locking them up together can lead to unexpected consequences.
One of most engaging things about the book is the way the story is narrated. As in Algernon, it's a diary; this time, the diary is being kept by Louis Sacchetti, a poet and conscientious objector who is assigned to the project with the brief of reporting on progress from a literary perspective. I love fictitious writers who are actually given a chance to show what they can do. Louis is not as impressive as John Shade in Pale Fire, who will no doubt keep the number one spot for a good while to come, but he's definitely keeping up with the pack, and I would say is at least as good as e.g. Randolph Ash in Possession. He's credible both as a character and as an author.
The book has flaws (difficult to discuss them without spoiling a fun plot), but all in all I found it deeper and more interesting than Algernon, and I have re-read it several times. Strongly recommended to anyone who in principle likes SF, but tends to be put off by the fact that the average SF author just can't write. Disch could, and it's odd that more people haven't come across him.
October 2, 2017
Camp Concentration – American author Thomas M. Disch’s 1968 science/speculative fiction, alternate history set in the near future where the United States has declared war on the entire world and features main character Louis Sacchetti, a poet who resists the draft and chooses prison rather than the army. But what a prison! The poet is sent to a secret camp where prisoners are given an experimental drug without their knowledge or consent, a drug that increases intelligence but in less than a year will most certainly cause death.
Written at the height of the US involvement in Vietnam and in the aftermath of CIA experiments with LSD on unknowing subjects, Disch’s novel is a hornet’s nest of vicious stings. Below are a number of stinging direct quotes from the pages of Louis Sacchetti's diary that, in effect, comprises Camp Concentration. I have included a modest comment of my own coupled with each quote. Here goes:
“The cells are as bony-clean as a dream of Philip Johnson (Grand Central Bathroom), while we, the prisoners, carry about with us the incredible, ineradicable smell of our stale, wasted flesh.” ---------- The irony of much military mentality – make sure all objects are scrubbed antiseptic clean as counterpoint to minds of the dehumanizers that are little more than open cesspools inflicting a life of psychic filth on inmates.
“Nasty as this prison is, there is this advantage to it – that it will not lead so promptly, so probably, to death. Not to mention the inestimable advantage of righteousness.” --------- Sounds like our poet is a bit naive. Little does he know that the prison officials will subject any prisoner they want to any torture they want. If things get a bit touchy, well, those officials can have their guards snuff out a prisoner’s life with no more hesitation than stepping on a cockroach. And a prisoner’s righteousness! Such nonsense can be dealt with via all sorts of manipulations, including bad diet, light deprivation and powerful drugs.
“I have an almost desperate desire to understand him, for it is R.M. and his like who perpetuate this incredible war, who believe, with a sincerity I cannot call into doubt, that in doing so they perform a moral action.” ---------- During the Vietnam War, many were the officers and soldiers who, like R.M., thought their participation in the war was highly moral. But many in the country, both in and out of the service, did not agree. It is this contrast the author’s narrator finds fascinating - Louis Sacchetti endeavors to understand the mindset of those like R.M..
Sidebar: During George W. Bush’s war, a huge number of cadets from the Air Force Academy were pumping Mel Gibson’s film about Christ, attempting to bully all cadets, even Jews, into watching and supporting. This to say, when the goal is achieved, when everyone upholds a common religious zeal linked to their inflicting war, there is nobody left like Louis Sacchetti to question the morality of the military action.
“Not since the playground tyrannies of childhood have the rules of the game been so utterly and; Knowledge arrogantly abrogated, and I am helpless to cope.” ---------- Again, the narrator is naïve in assuming just because he is a United States citizen protected by the law that as a prisoner he will retain his rights. Sorry, Louis, the military mentality here says the ends justify the means. As a conscientious objector you have not only surrendered your rights but also your humanity.
“It is an investigation of learning processes. I need not explain to you the fundamental importance of education with respect to the national defense effort. Ultimately it is intelligence that is a nation’s most vital resource, and education can be seen as the process of maximizing intelligence.” ---------- In similar spirit to the LSD experiments conducted by the CIA on unknowning subjects, the death producing drug Louis and others are given will ultimately produce much more intelligent military personnel. Thus the sacrifice of their lives is a contribution to a worthy cause.
“Before you were brought here you may be sure we examined every dirty little cranny of your past. We had to be certain you were harmless.” ---------- Ah, the government has no scruples or misgivings in prying into the privacy of any individual. After all, if you have nothing to hide, you have no grounds to object.
“If I should ever start feeling subjective again, I need only say the word and a guard will bring me a tranquilizer.” ---------- Drugs and counter-drugs to the rescue. Those in power can be so kind and considerate - as long as it servers their ends, that is.
“And it isn’t just Camp Archimedes. It’s the whole universe. The whole goddammed universe is a fucking concentration camp.” ---------- Rather harsh words from one of the other prisoners. To discover why he would say such a thing, I encourage you to read this distinctive novel for yourself.
Thomas M. Disch, age 28 in 1968, the publication year of Camp Concentration
December 17, 2017
This book didn't grab me straight away -- it isn't like contemporary novels aimed at a wide popular audience, where the first sentence is a hook, or the author begins in the middle of an action scene to get the reader caught up. Disch doesn't show his hand, or even his prose, right away. But once he has lulled you into complacency and snuck up on you, oh man. Great writing.
Here is a helpful list of a few words you may not use every day:
nystigmatic: subject to involuntary eye movement.
tappet: a projection that imparts a linear motion to some other component within a mechanism.
Krebiozen: an alternative cancer treatment made from mineral oil.
lutulence: dirtiness, impurity (appears to have been coined into English from the Latin by Joyce).
caliginous: misty, dim; obscure, dark.
resile: to spring or shrink back; recoil or resume original shape; abandon a position or a course of action.
semblable: (despite its suffix, a noun): a counterpart or equal to someone.
opsimath: a person who begins, or continues, to study or learn late in life.
parenchyma: the bulk of a substance. In animals, a parenchyma comprises the functional parts of an organ (as distinguished from the connective and supporting tissue) and in plants parenchyma is the ground tissue of nonwoody structures.
illapses: a gliding in; an immission or entrance of one thing into another. A sudden descent or attack.
Latria: a theological term used in Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic theology to mean adoration, a reverence directed only to the Holy Trinity. Latria carries an emphasis on the internal form of worship, rather than external ceremonies.
There are different terms for the veneration of the saints. Dulia is a Greek term meaning the veneration or homage, different in nature and degree from that given to God, that is paid to the saints. It includes, for example, honoring the saints and seeking their intercession with God. Hyperdulia, the special veneration accorded the Blessed Virgin Mary because of her unique role in the mystery of Redemption, her exceptional gifts of grace from God, and her pre-eminence among the saints.
ramiform: branching or branchlike.
anastomosis: the connection of two structures (usually used medically, eg for blood vessels).
haecceity: that property or quality of a thing by virtue of which it is unique or describable as “this (one).” The property of being a unique and individual thing. Coined by Duns Scotus.
farctate: stuffed; filled solid.
flagitious: criminal, villainous, shamefully wicked.
Musical pairing: Messiaen, who as I learned from this book was an ornithologist as well as a composer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhEHs...
Here is a helpful list of a few words you may not use every day:
nystigmatic: subject to involuntary eye movement.
tappet: a projection that imparts a linear motion to some other component within a mechanism.
Krebiozen: an alternative cancer treatment made from mineral oil.
lutulence: dirtiness, impurity (appears to have been coined into English from the Latin by Joyce).
caliginous: misty, dim; obscure, dark.
resile: to spring or shrink back; recoil or resume original shape; abandon a position or a course of action.
semblable: (despite its suffix, a noun): a counterpart or equal to someone.
opsimath: a person who begins, or continues, to study or learn late in life.
parenchyma: the bulk of a substance. In animals, a parenchyma comprises the functional parts of an organ (as distinguished from the connective and supporting tissue) and in plants parenchyma is the ground tissue of nonwoody structures.
illapses: a gliding in; an immission or entrance of one thing into another. A sudden descent or attack.
Latria: a theological term used in Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic theology to mean adoration, a reverence directed only to the Holy Trinity. Latria carries an emphasis on the internal form of worship, rather than external ceremonies.
There are different terms for the veneration of the saints. Dulia is a Greek term meaning the veneration or homage, different in nature and degree from that given to God, that is paid to the saints. It includes, for example, honoring the saints and seeking their intercession with God. Hyperdulia, the special veneration accorded the Blessed Virgin Mary because of her unique role in the mystery of Redemption, her exceptional gifts of grace from God, and her pre-eminence among the saints.
ramiform: branching or branchlike.
anastomosis: the connection of two structures (usually used medically, eg for blood vessels).
haecceity: that property or quality of a thing by virtue of which it is unique or describable as “this (one).” The property of being a unique and individual thing. Coined by Duns Scotus.
farctate: stuffed; filled solid.
flagitious: criminal, villainous, shamefully wicked.
Musical pairing: Messiaen, who as I learned from this book was an ornithologist as well as a composer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhEHs...
July 4, 2018
Amerikan ordusunun süper dahi insanlar yaratma amacıyla yürüttüğü bir deney hakkında. Kitabın anlatıcısı bir şair. Savaşa katılmayı reddettiği için hüküm giymiş ve sonunda kendini bu deneyin yapıldığı kampta gözlemci olarak buluyor. Kitap şairin günlük olarak tuttuğu notlardan oluşuyor. Goethe, Dante, Rilke, Shelley, Van Der Goes, Messiaen gibi çok sayıda yazar, şair, müzisyen ve ressama ve eserlerine gönderme var metinde. Bu eserlere aşina olmadığım için tüm göndermeleri anladığımı söyleyemem.
Bazı kısımlarını okurken zorlandım. Özellikle birinci kitaptan ikinci kitaba geçerken yazarın sayıklamaları gibi olan bir kısım var. Anlamsız gibi geliyor bu kısım. Bir yorumda "bu kısmı anlamamız beklenmiyor" demiş bir okur. Kitapta ismi geçince merak edip baktığım Messiaen'in bir kaç parçasını dinleyince yazarın bu kısımda neden böyle bir yol izlediğini anladım biraz. Messiaen'in eserleri için "En iyi müzik bir tür estetik çorbadır" diyor yazar.
İyilik, kötülük, güzellik, din, cehennem, deha gibi bir sürü konuda görüşlerini paylaşmış yazar. Bazı kısımları zorlasa da okumaktan keyif aldığım bir kitap oldu. Bilimkurgu sevenlere tavsiye ederim.
Tercüme etmenin de baya zor olduğunu düşünüyorum, çevirmene takdir ve teşekkürlerimi iletmek isterim.
Bazı kısımlarını okurken zorlandım. Özellikle birinci kitaptan ikinci kitaba geçerken yazarın sayıklamaları gibi olan bir kısım var. Anlamsız gibi geliyor bu kısım. Bir yorumda "bu kısmı anlamamız beklenmiyor" demiş bir okur. Kitapta ismi geçince merak edip baktığım Messiaen'in bir kaç parçasını dinleyince yazarın bu kısımda neden böyle bir yol izlediğini anladım biraz. Messiaen'in eserleri için "En iyi müzik bir tür estetik çorbadır" diyor yazar.
İyilik, kötülük, güzellik, din, cehennem, deha gibi bir sürü konuda görüşlerini paylaşmış yazar. Bazı kısımları zorlasa da okumaktan keyif aldığım bir kitap oldu. Bilimkurgu sevenlere tavsiye ederim.
Tercüme etmenin de baya zor olduğunu düşünüyorum, çevirmene takdir ve teşekkürlerimi iletmek isterim.
July 14, 2010
In this alternate America, the country didn't stop with Vietnam. It declared war on the world. Scientists work on creating and perfecting the latest in weapons and germ warfare. When Louis Sacchetti, a poet and war protestor, is moved from his prison to a secret underground camp called Camp Archimedes, he is at first bemused and impressed by the good food yet wary. The director of the camp, General Humphrey Haast - or "HH" as Sacchetti calls him - has had Louis brought there in order for him to keep a detailed record of the project. The project, as HH explains to him, is to inject criminals with a strain of syphilis, a virus that turns them into geniuses - but shortens their lifespan to about a year.
As Sacchetti gets to know the guinea pigs, including their apparent leader, Mordecai, he learns that Mordecai is working on an alchemical project that HH is more excited about than anyone else. But on the big day, nothing goes as expected - least of all for Sacchetti, who finally realises the truth about his role in Camp Archimedes.
I do like these kinds of stories - which sounds awfully trite, but I mean that I love apocalyptic, post-apocalyptic, and dystopian fiction, for various reasons. This began strongly, albeit a bit uneventfully, and then, hm, petered out until it got to a solid ending that only slightly mollified me. It's written as Sacchetti's diary, and he has an affable, cheerful voice. He's like the jolly fat man (he describes himself as obese), and even when he's feeling other moods, his underlying personality is still there. He's slightly cheeky, has a bit of a split personality, and is very much a voice that bridges us the readers to this world gone crazy. It's black comedy, dark comedy, and the prisoners-cum-geniuses are like Shakespearian characters. I loved the tone of the novel, Sacchetti's voice, even though there were some problems with it, as I'll go into below.
The novel is divided into two sections, and the sections are noticeably different. Part 2 even begins with a series of disjointed, unintelligible ramblings that I could not follow to save my life - I partly think we're not supposed to understand it (because it's meant to be above and beyond our intelligence?), and I partly worry that I just don't have enough of a classical background to understand it. Like this:
That was one of the more lucid paragraphs. Here's another example, just for good measure:
I suspect there's plenty of sense in this, but despite my love of puzzles, this is like a puzzle where the clues have been withheld, given to a special few, and then flaunted in front of you. But most of it's not written like that. Still, I didn't find it rife with ideas - ones I could grasp - as I would have liked, and expected, of speculative fiction. I was quite disappointed, and I struggled to end it. It moved beyond me and left me behind, gasping and flopping around like a fish on the bank, left behind after the tide has gone on a greater voyage than I.
Also, I generally consider my vocabulary to be pretty damn good, but I don't think I've ever come across so many words I didn't know in one book before. I can't tell if they're made up, incorrect grammar, or words that have become obsolete (or are out of my field - like "stelae"). Talk about a book that makes you doubt yourself!
As for the story, it is as I mentioned rather uneventful, even ponderous. We get a very narrow field of vision, seeing and understanding only what Sacchetti shares with us, and because his transcripts are being openly read every day by HH and the psychiatrist, Dr Busk, he's not even a terribly reliable narrator. It's interesting actually what he doesn't say, the things you'd expect him to say - like judgements, like anger and indignation - that he either doesn't think and feel, or keeps to himself.
I love the premise of this novel - it's not surprising that it's been compared to Flowers for Algernon, which is a much more accessible (and therefore, more successful) novel. Camp Concentration is also, perhaps, a more adult novel - being bleaker, more cynical, more of a tragedy perhaps, and all the time with a slight smirk on its face. There are the general themes that speak loudly of ethics and war and the farce of war; and more subtle ideas that slipped me by (I'm sure they're there, because of how the characters talked).
It's a thinking novel, and frankly it's too hot to think that clearly. It would make a good book to read with other people, in order to share ideas and impressions. Unless you like to puzzle over these things strictly on your own.
As Sacchetti gets to know the guinea pigs, including their apparent leader, Mordecai, he learns that Mordecai is working on an alchemical project that HH is more excited about than anyone else. But on the big day, nothing goes as expected - least of all for Sacchetti, who finally realises the truth about his role in Camp Archimedes.
I do like these kinds of stories - which sounds awfully trite, but I mean that I love apocalyptic, post-apocalyptic, and dystopian fiction, for various reasons. This began strongly, albeit a bit uneventfully, and then, hm, petered out until it got to a solid ending that only slightly mollified me. It's written as Sacchetti's diary, and he has an affable, cheerful voice. He's like the jolly fat man (he describes himself as obese), and even when he's feeling other moods, his underlying personality is still there. He's slightly cheeky, has a bit of a split personality, and is very much a voice that bridges us the readers to this world gone crazy. It's black comedy, dark comedy, and the prisoners-cum-geniuses are like Shakespearian characters. I loved the tone of the novel, Sacchetti's voice, even though there were some problems with it, as I'll go into below.
The novel is divided into two sections, and the sections are noticeably different. Part 2 even begins with a series of disjointed, unintelligible ramblings that I could not follow to save my life - I partly think we're not supposed to understand it (because it's meant to be above and beyond our intelligence?), and I partly worry that I just don't have enough of a classical background to understand it. Like this:
Someday in our colleges Himmler will be studied. The last of the great chiliasts. The landscapes of his interior world will elicit only an agreeable amount of terror. (Of beauty, therefore.) Consider that the transcripts of the atrocity trials are already, these many years, offered for our entertainment in theaters. Beauty is nothing but the beginning ... (p.115)
That was one of the more lucid paragraphs. Here's another example, just for good measure:
Without science we would't have these rows of uprisen stelae. It (science) is a veil over open lips, it is the word unspoken. Even the damned are reverent at that alter. (p114)
I suspect there's plenty of sense in this, but despite my love of puzzles, this is like a puzzle where the clues have been withheld, given to a special few, and then flaunted in front of you. But most of it's not written like that. Still, I didn't find it rife with ideas - ones I could grasp - as I would have liked, and expected, of speculative fiction. I was quite disappointed, and I struggled to end it. It moved beyond me and left me behind, gasping and flopping around like a fish on the bank, left behind after the tide has gone on a greater voyage than I.
Also, I generally consider my vocabulary to be pretty damn good, but I don't think I've ever come across so many words I didn't know in one book before. I can't tell if they're made up, incorrect grammar, or words that have become obsolete (or are out of my field - like "stelae"). Talk about a book that makes you doubt yourself!
As for the story, it is as I mentioned rather uneventful, even ponderous. We get a very narrow field of vision, seeing and understanding only what Sacchetti shares with us, and because his transcripts are being openly read every day by HH and the psychiatrist, Dr Busk, he's not even a terribly reliable narrator. It's interesting actually what he doesn't say, the things you'd expect him to say - like judgements, like anger and indignation - that he either doesn't think and feel, or keeps to himself.
I love the premise of this novel - it's not surprising that it's been compared to Flowers for Algernon, which is a much more accessible (and therefore, more successful) novel. Camp Concentration is also, perhaps, a more adult novel - being bleaker, more cynical, more of a tragedy perhaps, and all the time with a slight smirk on its face. There are the general themes that speak loudly of ethics and war and the farce of war; and more subtle ideas that slipped me by (I'm sure they're there, because of how the characters talked).
It's a thinking novel, and frankly it's too hot to think that clearly. It would make a good book to read with other people, in order to share ideas and impressions. Unless you like to puzzle over these things strictly on your own.
November 24, 2010
This was published in 1968 and it feels like something written at least a decade or two later. I am rather surprised by how much this book is sticking with me. I finished today but I dreamt about it last night. It was the first thing I thought of when I awoke this morning. I wish more people knew of this book. I find it hard to believe that so few, at least here on Goodreads, have read this.
As other reviews have mentioned, this book is not perfect. I would rate 4 stars if considering that but I am choosing to rate solely on how this book made me feel and all of the wonderful imagery Disch forced upon me.
If you can find this book, I strongly recommend taking the time to read it. The characters are interesting and if you understand even half of the references Disch employs (I admit, there were a few I was oblivious to), then you will more than likely be happy you read this. Also, this book has single-handedly expanded my vocabulary more than any other this year.
As other reviews have mentioned, this book is not perfect. I would rate 4 stars if considering that but I am choosing to rate solely on how this book made me feel and all of the wonderful imagery Disch forced upon me.
If you can find this book, I strongly recommend taking the time to read it. The characters are interesting and if you understand even half of the references Disch employs (I admit, there were a few I was oblivious to), then you will more than likely be happy you read this. Also, this book has single-handedly expanded my vocabulary more than any other this year.
September 4, 2016
What should be shocking instead arouses a curiosity. Camp Concentration details a government experiment where prisoners are injected with a compound which makes them progressively hyper intelligent before the syphilis component in the injection leads them to madness and death. A poet who had been imprisoned as a conscientious objector to the forever war is asked to chronicle the process. The inmates stage a play Faustus (by Kit Marlow) and the poet pens a play Auschwitz: a comedy. The whole enterprise feels like it is staged, people speak in speeches, think Marat/Sade meets Punishment Park. The Peter Watkins reference is telling, both Camp Concentration and Punishment Park can't escape feeling dated. our concepts of dissent have evolved, been altered. My initial high hopes melted to bemusement.
February 10, 2024
Ursula K. LeGuin blurbs the cover of Camp Concentration with "It is a work of art, and if you read it, you will be changed." As a fan of LeGuin, this had me intrigued, and I really liked Disch's The Genocides, so I thought I would give this a go. While I did like this, it also proved to be a very taxing read, and not just emotionally. While obviously an antiwar novel (this was first published in 1968), Disch reaches for much more here, something akin to a deep probing of the human psyche, but I felt this latter aspect was a bit too blasé for my tastes. YMMV!
Set in the 1970s, where America is basically at war with the rest of the world, our main protagonist, Louis Sacchetti, is a 'conchie', e.g., a conscientious objector, and starts the novel in prison somewhere as a result. Sacchetti, a poet by profession, largely narrates this via his prison diaries, and Disch really ran with the poet aspect. After some time, Sacchetti is transferred to a new prison, and while the accommodations are much nicer, it is really a military camp where the prisoners are experiments. The drug Pallidine, derived from the syphilis spirochete, turns the victim into a genius, but alas, also kills the victim in less than a year.
Why is the military doing this? I presume in the hopes of generating some new weapons or such, or new tech; it is never very clear. In any case, Sacchetti is transferred there to record the results. What makes this hard going at time concerns how Disch drops heavy philosophical concepts, ideas, names at a rapid pace; Sacchetti is writing about geniuses after all! I have a pretty strong background in philosophy and history and this had my head spinning a bit! Also, Disch peppered the discourse with lots of 5 dollar words that had me referencing my dictionary. I know, geniuses and all that, but geez!
Regarding the deep probing of the human psyche, well, what do people think about when they know they only have months to live, and their IQs are off the charts? Why did the US decide to wage war on the world except for power hungry folks at the top of the food chain. The rather oblique and acerbic reflections on the powers that be resonated with me for sure, but the bleak nature of the human condition became a bit overwhelming at times. I am not sure if this changed my life, but it is guaranteed to make you think. 3.5 stars, rounding down for the bizarre denouement.
Set in the 1970s, where America is basically at war with the rest of the world, our main protagonist, Louis Sacchetti, is a 'conchie', e.g., a conscientious objector, and starts the novel in prison somewhere as a result. Sacchetti, a poet by profession, largely narrates this via his prison diaries, and Disch really ran with the poet aspect. After some time, Sacchetti is transferred to a new prison, and while the accommodations are much nicer, it is really a military camp where the prisoners are experiments. The drug Pallidine, derived from the syphilis spirochete, turns the victim into a genius, but alas, also kills the victim in less than a year.
Why is the military doing this? I presume in the hopes of generating some new weapons or such, or new tech; it is never very clear. In any case, Sacchetti is transferred there to record the results. What makes this hard going at time concerns how Disch drops heavy philosophical concepts, ideas, names at a rapid pace; Sacchetti is writing about geniuses after all! I have a pretty strong background in philosophy and history and this had my head spinning a bit! Also, Disch peppered the discourse with lots of 5 dollar words that had me referencing my dictionary. I know, geniuses and all that, but geez!
Regarding the deep probing of the human psyche, well, what do people think about when they know they only have months to live, and their IQs are off the charts? Why did the US decide to wage war on the world except for power hungry folks at the top of the food chain. The rather oblique and acerbic reflections on the powers that be resonated with me for sure, but the bleak nature of the human condition became a bit overwhelming at times. I am not sure if this changed my life, but it is guaranteed to make you think. 3.5 stars, rounding down for the bizarre denouement.
January 14, 2013
WARNING: This review contains vulgarity. Just so you know. Thanks.
"Well, you read it. How'd it go?"
"Well."
"Three stars well?"
"Yep."
"Only three."
"For now."
"Because ...?"
"Because I am going to have to read this again. That middle section of Sacchetti's ramblings needs to be dissected. I need more time with that portion, and I need to read the whole thing again at a time when I can focus on it and only it."
"So you're three stars is kind of bullshit?"
"Yeah. Kind of. But I can't give it anything else at the moment. I will say this, I think it is kind of brilliant, and definitely better than any other "let's make them smart" sci-fis I've ever read, and the end is at least as good as Amazing Spider-Man #700."
"That good?"
"Okay, I was fucking with you there. I think seven hundred wins in the you-know-what sweepstakes. Yeah, I think the ending may be exactly why I am uncomfortable giving this more than three stars right away."
"So it was cheesy like a comic book?"
"As much as it pains me to say it, yes."
"But you loved the last Amazing Spider-Man, so why not this?"
"Ummm ... I think you know. The real problem, though, my real problem was the stakes. I think Disch expected his audience to be shocked by the Faustian shit that was going on in Camp Archimedes, and the fact that I wasn't, that what was happening is precisely what I would expect the American government to be wrapped up in (Tuskegee syphilis experiment anyone?), made me feel like Disch was trying too hard to dazzle me, but this is probably a problem of me and my time rather than Disch and his. So ...."
"So ...?"
"So I am coming back and giving this another go someday. Disch deserves another crack."
"In the meantime?"
"I'm going to read Spidey again, of course."
"Well, you read it. How'd it go?"
"Well."
"Three stars well?"
"Yep."
"Only three."
"For now."
"Because ...?"
"Because I am going to have to read this again. That middle section of Sacchetti's ramblings needs to be dissected. I need more time with that portion, and I need to read the whole thing again at a time when I can focus on it and only it."
"So you're three stars is kind of bullshit?"
"Yeah. Kind of. But I can't give it anything else at the moment. I will say this, I think it is kind of brilliant, and definitely better than any other "let's make them smart" sci-fis I've ever read, and the end is at least as good as Amazing Spider-Man #700."
"That good?"
"Okay, I was fucking with you there. I think seven hundred wins in the you-know-what sweepstakes. Yeah, I think the ending may be exactly why I am uncomfortable giving this more than three stars right away."
"So it was cheesy like a comic book?"
"As much as it pains me to say it, yes."
"But you loved the last Amazing Spider-Man, so why not this?"
"Ummm ... I think you know. The real problem, though, my real problem was the stakes. I think Disch expected his audience to be shocked by the Faustian shit that was going on in Camp Archimedes, and the fact that I wasn't, that what was happening is precisely what I would expect the American government to be wrapped up in (Tuskegee syphilis experiment anyone?), made me feel like Disch was trying too hard to dazzle me, but this is probably a problem of me and my time rather than Disch and his. So ...."
"So ...?"
"So I am coming back and giving this another go someday. Disch deserves another crack."
"In the meantime?"
"I'm going to read Spidey again, of course."
August 16, 2021
Camp Concentration is the most challenging of Disch's novels that I've read, but also perhaps the most thought-provoking. (If Kafka has been doing genre work in 1968...) It's a dystopian work that I think belongs much more in the category of "literature" than most of the science fiction I read, though it seems to owe something to Flowers For Algernon and The Prisoner...(of which, ironically, Disch wrote an adaptation). It's an epistemological book, and Disch doesn't take time to expand and explain and it's occasionally necessary to re-read sections and figure out what he was really saying. It's a good, intellectual feed your head book, as Grace told us.
May 13, 2008
If Philip K Dick had written "Flowers for Algernon", it would have come out like this.
February 28, 2024
I know some readers don’t class this novel as science fiction—it’s not really about the future, it’s not at all about predicting the future, and so on—but I’ve reread Camp Concentration a number of times now and, for me, it’s an example of what SF can be at its very best.
It is the near-future here (or the near-future from 1968 when Thomas Disch wrote it) and there’s a large-scale war in progress. The story itself is set inside a complex called Camp Archimedes, built deep underground in a disused goldmine and which is simultaneously both prison and research facility. Its inmates (who volunteered for this as a way of escaping life in a conventional prison or US Army brig) are human guinea-pigs deliberately infected with Pallidine, a preparation containing a bacterium derived from the one which causes syphilis. In real life, syphilis has often been linked with genius—as if the spirochaete which causes the one also somehow unleashes the other—and so it is here: “Sometimes I think maybe it wasn’t such a big mistake. I’ll say this for the stuff they gave us—it beats acid. With acid you think you know everything; with this, you goddamn well do.” There’s quite a price to pay though: in the space of just a few short months this Pallidine not only raises your IQ to genius level—it also kills you.
Into this antechamber of Hell comes poet Louis Sacchetti, jailed as a conscientious objector to the ongoing war, then transferred to Archimedes and assigned the task of keeping a journal as an additional, independent and more subjective record of the experiment as it proceeds. By the time he arrives, some of the inmates have been there for months already and, as their minds soar, are very close to death. And they seem to be wasting their genius: the aim of the programme was to devise entirely new kinds of weaponry for the military, yet the prisoners seem to have become obsessed with … alchemy. Yes, this is what Sacchetti stumbles into: Camp A’s collective genius is being frittered away on concocting an Elixir of Everlasting Life, on attempting to cheat death using alchemy.
I love everything about this book. For a start, there’s the richness and imagery of Disch’s prose (his journalist Louis Sacchetti is a published poet). Then there’s the subterranean setting: laboratory-like, hermetic, a former goldmine. In fact there’s a lot of alchemical symbolism, but just as in mediaeval Europe where alchemy was sometimes a cover, a harmless-looking front for more covert experimentations, so too here. Much of the mediaeval version, too, was really about the transformation, not of base metals into gold, but of the alchemist.
Camp Archimedes also resembles a stage—claustrophobic, artificial, the prisoners’ every word and deed minutely scrutinised—and the play being acted out on its boards is familiar enough: selling your soul to Satan in exchange for knowledge and all that. But, with the liquid gold of Pallidine coursing through your veins, might you become cunning enough to outwit even the Devil?
It is the near-future here (or the near-future from 1968 when Thomas Disch wrote it) and there’s a large-scale war in progress. The story itself is set inside a complex called Camp Archimedes, built deep underground in a disused goldmine and which is simultaneously both prison and research facility. Its inmates (who volunteered for this as a way of escaping life in a conventional prison or US Army brig) are human guinea-pigs deliberately infected with Pallidine, a preparation containing a bacterium derived from the one which causes syphilis. In real life, syphilis has often been linked with genius—as if the spirochaete which causes the one also somehow unleashes the other—and so it is here: “Sometimes I think maybe it wasn’t such a big mistake. I’ll say this for the stuff they gave us—it beats acid. With acid you think you know everything; with this, you goddamn well do.” There’s quite a price to pay though: in the space of just a few short months this Pallidine not only raises your IQ to genius level—it also kills you.
Into this antechamber of Hell comes poet Louis Sacchetti, jailed as a conscientious objector to the ongoing war, then transferred to Archimedes and assigned the task of keeping a journal as an additional, independent and more subjective record of the experiment as it proceeds. By the time he arrives, some of the inmates have been there for months already and, as their minds soar, are very close to death. And they seem to be wasting their genius: the aim of the programme was to devise entirely new kinds of weaponry for the military, yet the prisoners seem to have become obsessed with … alchemy. Yes, this is what Sacchetti stumbles into: Camp A’s collective genius is being frittered away on concocting an Elixir of Everlasting Life, on attempting to cheat death using alchemy.
I love everything about this book. For a start, there’s the richness and imagery of Disch’s prose (his journalist Louis Sacchetti is a published poet). Then there’s the subterranean setting: laboratory-like, hermetic, a former goldmine. In fact there’s a lot of alchemical symbolism, but just as in mediaeval Europe where alchemy was sometimes a cover, a harmless-looking front for more covert experimentations, so too here. Much of the mediaeval version, too, was really about the transformation, not of base metals into gold, but of the alchemist.
Camp Archimedes also resembles a stage—claustrophobic, artificial, the prisoners’ every word and deed minutely scrutinised—and the play being acted out on its boards is familiar enough: selling your soul to Satan in exchange for knowledge and all that. But, with the liquid gold of Pallidine coursing through your veins, might you become cunning enough to outwit even the Devil?
October 13, 2018
Ho dato un indecisissimo 6. Ero propenso ad una sufficienza piena fin quasi a metà, poi scende molto di tiro per rialzarsi egregiamente nella parte finale ma sopratutto nel finale stesso.
Oggi sarebbe considerato un pò un romanzo trito e ritrito (non dico noioso perchè le parti noiose sono brevissime) ma mi rendo conto che contestualizzandolo agli anni 70 quando è stato scritto poteva considerarsi qualcosa di originale o quantomeno attuale. Essendo comparso in Italia negli anni 80 (correggetemi se sbaglio) secondo me non ha avuto nessun genere di successo che forse avrebbe meritato.
Devo essere sincero, non è che mi sia piaciuto cosi tanto da osannarlo o da consigliarlo e sono particolarmente felice che fosse breve e scorrevole.
La storia in se è buona, niente di troppo originale o sconvolgente, ma che si poteva svolgere in una 50ina di pagine. Il resto è chiacchiere deliranti e pretenziose senza un reale significato per la storia, pieno di riferimenti, camei e citazioni che, se non contestualizzate nel testo, non hanno nemmeno molto motivo d'essere.
Oggi sarebbe considerato un pò un romanzo trito e ritrito (non dico noioso perchè le parti noiose sono brevissime) ma mi rendo conto che contestualizzandolo agli anni 70 quando è stato scritto poteva considerarsi qualcosa di originale o quantomeno attuale. Essendo comparso in Italia negli anni 80 (correggetemi se sbaglio) secondo me non ha avuto nessun genere di successo che forse avrebbe meritato.
Devo essere sincero, non è che mi sia piaciuto cosi tanto da osannarlo o da consigliarlo e sono particolarmente felice che fosse breve e scorrevole.
La storia in se è buona, niente di troppo originale o sconvolgente, ma che si poteva svolgere in una 50ina di pagine. Il resto è chiacchiere deliranti e pretenziose senza un reale significato per la storia, pieno di riferimenti, camei e citazioni che, se non contestualizzate nel testo, non hanno nemmeno molto motivo d'essere.
December 16, 2021
Camp Concentration by Thomas M. Disch (1968).
I’ll let Ursula K. Le Guin’s words of unqualified praise—printed on the book’s front cover like a papal bull-urb of literary endorsement—do the heavy lifting here:
“It is a work of art, and if you read it, you will be changed.”
This book was terrifying, yet full of pathos and dark humor.
I’ll let Ursula K. Le Guin’s words of unqualified praise—printed on the book’s front cover like a papal bull-urb of literary endorsement—do the heavy lifting here:
“It is a work of art, and if you read it, you will be changed.”
This book was terrifying, yet full of pathos and dark humor.
August 23, 2021
Üstün insan olmak ya da üretebilmek hep gündemde olan bir konu olmuştur zaten.
Bu kitapta da bunun bir yolunu bulduklarını düşünüp belirli deneyler yapıyorlar. Karakterimiz şair ise günlüğünde bize bunlardan bahsediyor.
Büyük bir deha üretirken deliliğin sınırlarında da geziyorlar.
İkinci kitapta ise bazı bölümleri anlamamız beklenmiyor sanırım. Sayıklamalar, hezeyanlar.
Deney başarılı olabilecek mi?
Bu kitapta da bunun bir yolunu bulduklarını düşünüp belirli deneyler yapıyorlar. Karakterimiz şair ise günlüğünde bize bunlardan bahsediyor.
Büyük bir deha üretirken deliliğin sınırlarında da geziyorlar.
İkinci kitapta ise bazı bölümleri anlamamız beklenmiyor sanırım. Sayıklamalar, hezeyanlar.
Deney başarılı olabilecek mi?
December 17, 2012
Camp Concentration by Disch and Otto by Tom Ungerer
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
A pair made in a sort of hell, I guess, birthday books read back to back.
I don’t understand why Otto is badly written, when the author is obviously capable of writing good text in English. If you want to write some sort of nightmare for children – even worse, a nightmare that really happened – one has to be very careful, I imagine and this isn’t. It uses badly cliched English that is inappropriate for any readership, let alone kids. He describes the bombing of his German town thus: ‘Among the ruins and the fires lay innocent victims.’ What on earth does that mean? That some of the civilians bombed in German towns weren’t innocent victims? Does he mean anybody killed by these bombs were innocent victims? One could conceive of an argument along the lines of all the innocent victims being in concentrations camps, after all – two words ignored by this children’s book. Then there is the general dilemma of writing about such a topic for children: I am uneasy about his treatment, really uneasy about picking such a theme and coming up with a happy ending. Finally, the language is stilted, quite unattractive to read. I don’t understand why a child would want to read it.
Nor, as an adult, would I consider giving it to a child. ‘Mummy why did Oskar let those men take his friend away? Why didn’t his mother help? Why didn’t….If somebody wanted to take my friend away, would you stop them, Mummy?’ ‘Well, no, I wouldn’t, Oskar. It’s better just to watch when that happens and be glad it isn’t happening to you’. Honestly. The more I think about this book, the more I am really unhappy about it.
The pictures are nice.
Unfortunately Camp Concentration has no pictures. It does, however, avoid avoiding the words concentration camp. One can only assume, knowing that Disch considers himself too clever for words – no, not too clever for words, his books are full of his cleverness, little jokes for his friends and so on, exactly the sort of thing I object to when reading clever dicks – one can only assume that moving the word order is a play on his own camp ways as they are expressed in this book, much as it may have other rationales as well. It was explained to me after I finished reading this – and I must confess that my reading became cursory after a while – that I had missed all the clues. Was I supposed to know there were clues and that I was reading a mystery book? If I was supposed to realise this, it was badly communicated to me. If I wasn’t supposed to realise it, we are left with a denouement which is rather like one of those who-dun-its where the author cheats. There are always flashes of good writing in Disch’s work, but the point is, SO WHAT? There are probably a thousand people on goodreads, and tens of thousands of bloggers out there who produce such flashes, or, amazingly, keep it up. I think Disch is lazy, but because he has such tickets on his cleverness, he doesn’t think that matters. I beg to differ. But then, to be fair, I don’t think cleverness is nearly sufficient to produce a good piece of writing. Not nearly.
It is interesting to consider that we have here two examples of genre writing, both of which consistently fall down in the writing department. Picture books need good pictures and good text is only ever ‘nice if you can get it’. Science fiction is full of examples of authors who have great ideas but who can’t write. Six year olds probably don’t care and nor do science fiction buffs. Unfortunately I am neither.
As I meander through...
p. 19 ...people who can't diet for days running shouldn't attempt hunger strikes
p23 What gives? A question that is on the tip of every guinea-pig's tongue
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
A pair made in a sort of hell, I guess, birthday books read back to back.
I don’t understand why Otto is badly written, when the author is obviously capable of writing good text in English. If you want to write some sort of nightmare for children – even worse, a nightmare that really happened – one has to be very careful, I imagine and this isn’t. It uses badly cliched English that is inappropriate for any readership, let alone kids. He describes the bombing of his German town thus: ‘Among the ruins and the fires lay innocent victims.’ What on earth does that mean? That some of the civilians bombed in German towns weren’t innocent victims? Does he mean anybody killed by these bombs were innocent victims? One could conceive of an argument along the lines of all the innocent victims being in concentrations camps, after all – two words ignored by this children’s book. Then there is the general dilemma of writing about such a topic for children: I am uneasy about his treatment, really uneasy about picking such a theme and coming up with a happy ending. Finally, the language is stilted, quite unattractive to read. I don’t understand why a child would want to read it.
Nor, as an adult, would I consider giving it to a child. ‘Mummy why did Oskar let those men take his friend away? Why didn’t his mother help? Why didn’t….If somebody wanted to take my friend away, would you stop them, Mummy?’ ‘Well, no, I wouldn’t, Oskar. It’s better just to watch when that happens and be glad it isn’t happening to you’. Honestly. The more I think about this book, the more I am really unhappy about it.
The pictures are nice.
Unfortunately Camp Concentration has no pictures. It does, however, avoid avoiding the words concentration camp. One can only assume, knowing that Disch considers himself too clever for words – no, not too clever for words, his books are full of his cleverness, little jokes for his friends and so on, exactly the sort of thing I object to when reading clever dicks – one can only assume that moving the word order is a play on his own camp ways as they are expressed in this book, much as it may have other rationales as well. It was explained to me after I finished reading this – and I must confess that my reading became cursory after a while – that I had missed all the clues. Was I supposed to know there were clues and that I was reading a mystery book? If I was supposed to realise this, it was badly communicated to me. If I wasn’t supposed to realise it, we are left with a denouement which is rather like one of those who-dun-its where the author cheats. There are always flashes of good writing in Disch’s work, but the point is, SO WHAT? There are probably a thousand people on goodreads, and tens of thousands of bloggers out there who produce such flashes, or, amazingly, keep it up. I think Disch is lazy, but because he has such tickets on his cleverness, he doesn’t think that matters. I beg to differ. But then, to be fair, I don’t think cleverness is nearly sufficient to produce a good piece of writing. Not nearly.
It is interesting to consider that we have here two examples of genre writing, both of which consistently fall down in the writing department. Picture books need good pictures and good text is only ever ‘nice if you can get it’. Science fiction is full of examples of authors who have great ideas but who can’t write. Six year olds probably don’t care and nor do science fiction buffs. Unfortunately I am neither.
As I meander through...
p. 19 ...people who can't diet for days running shouldn't attempt hunger strikes
p23 What gives? A question that is on the tip of every guinea-pig's tongue
May 1, 2023
“This is my journal. I can be candid here. Candidly, I could not be more miserable.”
As part of my prep for a future episode of the podcast meant to debate the best SF novels of 1968, I had to read this novel. I know that sounds like punishment the way I worded it. This novel and 334 by Disch have been on my list to read for a long time. Weird new wave SF from the 60s is pretty much my jam, so I expected to like it.
The concept is not totally original as Flowers for Algernon became a classic, and you would not be wrong to point out how similar the plots are. Disch spins this yarn with a similar concept but reflects the dark fears of the era.
It is considered a new-wave classic so it makes sense that we would read it and debate in the Patheon of 1968, a tough year on planet Earth, but a great year for the Science fiction made on said planet. This book should stand alone in this review. If you want to hear my thoughts on how it stacks up you’ll have to listen to the show. (I will link to this review - When it is out)
Camp Concentration is one of those novels that doesn’t depend on a story, plot, or narrative drive. It is a vibe novel. I am not against such literary endeavors but they are much less my jam, that a story with a beginning, middle, and end. Told through a series of journal entries, like all novels with this set-up the author is confined to staying in character, and writing with the limitation of a journal. I find it is hard for most authors not to cheat in the first-person narrative. Stephen King is a master at not cheating, his recent hard case crime novel Later, the prose “grew up” with the character.
Considering the concept of this novel I was looking for details to show that the main character was growing smarter in the narrative. This is the story of Louis Sacchetti, a poet in prison for draft resistance who is sent to Camp Archimedes. He is unwilling part of an experiment to increase intelligence through a drug called Pallidine.
“Though opposition is a hopeless task, acquiescence would be worse.”
I don’t really understand why the military would take draft resistors and criminals for this task, except for general dehumanization, and even though the back cover refers to the book as chillingly plausible I don’t think it was. That’s Okay I think the surreal nature is a strength. It doesn’t have to be realistic to comment on the times. I am not sure Robert McNamara could ever in any reality become president it is an interesting fear projected by a late 60s progressive poet/new wave SF writer.
Disch seems to projecting the idea that McNamara was on the verge of taking our country from a conflict in Southeast Asia and a cold war to a global devastating conflict.
“We were sent out of the prison today on a detail to cut down and burn blighted trees. A new Virus, or one of our own, gone astray. The landscape outside the prison is, despite the season, nearly as desolate as that within. The War has devoured the reserves of our affluence and is damaging the fibers of every day.”
I want to say just because it didn’t happen doesn’t make this speculative commentary any less valid or important. The fears of a cold war going hot were a very important part of human survival. We might not be here with the post-nuclear novels and films. Not just because Regan watch the Day After.
At the time it was written to think of Robert McNamara as bloodthirsty and it was a fair position to depict as a heartless American Stalin. I am not sure how hindsight affects this novel considering McNamara’s change of heart documented in the 2003 documentary The Fog of War. Certainly, it changes nothing for the dead on either side of the conflict. He did what he did, Disch’s speculative commentary can only exist on the level of 1967/68’s McNamara.
Camp Concentration also feels like a literary take on the same ground that the Peter Watkins film Punishment Park attacked. The clash of the late 60s progressives culture and pro-war erupted in Chicago at the Democratic national convention. The genre attacked the war in subtle metaphors on Star Trek and not so subtle in novels like Leguin's The Word for World is Forest and Hadleman’s Forever War.
The novel is not as intense as Punishment Park, a movie that is gut-wrenching for activists to watch. Disch calmly gets into the character of a man writing a journal behind bars. As such the first half of the novel has only hints at Speculative elements and world-building.
“Knowledge is devalued when it becomes too generally known”
Louis Sacchetti is not a part of Robert McNamera’s America and I found myself wondering what that country was like. Disch wants the reader to understand that the characters in the camp have no connection to the outside world or the war. They can’t stop it or affect it. The walls of their mind-expanding doesn’t give them any power to stop the war machine - a very on-the-nose analogy but that is the feeling that was the message Disch was laying down.
Most of the vibes and tones that make the second half of the novel feel Sci-fi are in the reaction to drugs. As Louis and his fellow prisoners become smarter they look for solutions. Like the novel that beat it for the 1969 Hugo Stand on Zanzibar, this novel touches on overpopulation. The prisoners realize the problems are bigger.
I admit I was a little bored in the second half. Louis writes about the downfall of the country and the globalist American power. Making the population into geniuses won’t keep them from having casual sex and spreading, huh what? Wait, that came out of nowhere. I can’t make sense of one thing - maybe it was this reader. Were these projections or were they actually happening in the story?
I was a little unclear towards the end. Thomas Disch is a great writer, and the prose is better than average Science Fiction. He has a point of view and it is getting expressed, I am not sure that makes this a good, or great novel. I like stories. I felt this novel did lots of things well, but I didn’t really feel any story.
February 27, 2022
A Harsh Reaction to the Vietnam War and CIA Testing of LSD on People
This is one of three books by Thomas M. Disch selected in Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels : An English-Language Selection, 1949-1984, written in 1968 during the height of the social upheaval of the cultural revolution happening in the US, and its military involvement in the Vietnam War.
It's also about the CIA and its testing of LSD on unwitting subjects with various nefarious purposes, and about general distrust and loathing for the military-industrial complex. It's got a wicked sense of humor, its overweight poet narrator is very erudite and Disch packs his diary entries with literary and intellectual references to the breaking point. It's a novel about the frightening prospect of super-intelligence forced onto a prison population, that is also a death sentence, and what the consequences are.
It's a harsh and bitter story, but again is told with such black humor and panache that it will never bore you. There are some extended passages where the narrator, already suffering from severe physical and mental side-effects of the super-drug Pallidine, ceases to make much sense to mere mortals. But it's carried off quite well, as the narrator knows that his nemesis captors are reading his journal entries (they asked him to write them, after all), so makes all kinds of quips at the reader.
All in all, it is as another reviewer said the Evil Twin of Flowers for Algernon, and may be well be a brilliant book, very much of its time but with universal concerns on its mind, and some pretty dark conclusions along the way.
This is one of three books by Thomas M. Disch selected in Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels : An English-Language Selection, 1949-1984, written in 1968 during the height of the social upheaval of the cultural revolution happening in the US, and its military involvement in the Vietnam War.
It's also about the CIA and its testing of LSD on unwitting subjects with various nefarious purposes, and about general distrust and loathing for the military-industrial complex. It's got a wicked sense of humor, its overweight poet narrator is very erudite and Disch packs his diary entries with literary and intellectual references to the breaking point. It's a novel about the frightening prospect of super-intelligence forced onto a prison population, that is also a death sentence, and what the consequences are.
It's a harsh and bitter story, but again is told with such black humor and panache that it will never bore you. There are some extended passages where the narrator, already suffering from severe physical and mental side-effects of the super-drug Pallidine, ceases to make much sense to mere mortals. But it's carried off quite well, as the narrator knows that his nemesis captors are reading his journal entries (they asked him to write them, after all), so makes all kinds of quips at the reader.
All in all, it is as another reviewer said the Evil Twin of Flowers for Algernon, and may be well be a brilliant book, very much of its time but with universal concerns on its mind, and some pretty dark conclusions along the way.
December 14, 2017
Una lettura non facile, ma senza dubbio affascinante,
Ci sono dentro tutti gli anni settanta del novecento, con tanto di deliri psichedelici, complotti delle big pharma e del governo. l'esercito e la guerra.
Molta poesia.
Non si può prescindere da questo libro comunque, anche se non è il miglior romanzo di fantascienza, serve comunque a dimostrare come il genere comprenda una tale varietà di stili e tematiche che lo rendono sempre vivo ed attuale.
Ci sono dentro tutti gli anni settanta del novecento, con tanto di deliri psichedelici, complotti delle big pharma e del governo. l'esercito e la guerra.
Molta poesia.
Non si può prescindere da questo libro comunque, anche se non è il miglior romanzo di fantascienza, serve comunque a dimostrare come il genere comprenda una tale varietà di stili e tematiche che lo rendono sempre vivo ed attuale.
September 1, 2021
3,5'dan 4 🤔
"Peki ama kendimde değilsem kimim?"
Dünyada savaş ve salgın hastalıklar vardır. Şair-yazar Louis Sacchetti vicdani redçi olarak bu savaşa katılmaz. Sonucunda kendini kobaylar kampında bulur. Kampta yapılan deneylerin amacı ise kobayları zeka seviyelerini arttırmak. Kamp yöneticisi kendisinden burada edindiği gözlemleri ve değerlendirmelerini günlük olarak yazmasını ister. Böylece biz de kamptaki olaylara ve daha da önemlisi Sacchetti'nin değişimine tanık oluyoruz.
İkinci bölüm kobayımızın zekasının artmasıyla gittikçe anlaşılmaz bir hal alıyor. Çünkü zeka artışı deliliğe neden oluyor. Bu bölümde sayıklamalar ve hezeyanları okumak ve anlamak oldukça zorladı. Sanırım yazarın amacı da buydu zaten.
Kitabın sonu oldukça şaşırtıcıydı. "Peki tamam, bundan sonra ne olacak?" dedim 🤔
Herkes sever mi bilmem ama farklı bir okuma deneyimi oldu.
"Peki ama kendimde değilsem kimim?"
Dünyada savaş ve salgın hastalıklar vardır. Şair-yazar Louis Sacchetti vicdani redçi olarak bu savaşa katılmaz. Sonucunda kendini kobaylar kampında bulur. Kampta yapılan deneylerin amacı ise kobayları zeka seviyelerini arttırmak. Kamp yöneticisi kendisinden burada edindiği gözlemleri ve değerlendirmelerini günlük olarak yazmasını ister. Böylece biz de kamptaki olaylara ve daha da önemlisi Sacchetti'nin değişimine tanık oluyoruz.
İkinci bölüm kobayımızın zekasının artmasıyla gittikçe anlaşılmaz bir hal alıyor. Çünkü zeka artışı deliliğe neden oluyor. Bu bölümde sayıklamalar ve hezeyanları okumak ve anlamak oldukça zorladı. Sanırım yazarın amacı da buydu zaten.
Kitabın sonu oldukça şaşırtıcıydı. "Peki tamam, bundan sonra ne olacak?" dedim 🤔
Herkes sever mi bilmem ama farklı bir okuma deneyimi oldu.
September 2, 2017
Un libro difficile da affrontare, sia per il tema trattato che per il tipo di scrittura. Ci sono pagine per le quali non trovo un aggettivo migliore di delirante; d'altra parte è esattamente quanto voluto da Disch nella sua analisi introspettiva del protagonista che, ricordiamolo, è rinchiuso in un campo di detenzione in cui i prigionieri sono usati come cavie.
Forse non ho capito appieno tutto quello che l'autore voleva dire, potrei volerlo rileggere in futuro. È curioso che anche l'altro libro di Disch che ho letto 20 anni fa (Le ali della mente) mi abbia lasciato un ricordo simile e la voglia di rileggerlo.
Consiglio la lettura di "Campo Archimede", a patto di affrontarlo in un momento in cui il vostro stato mentale sia "ben disposto" a un libro a tratti delirante, spesso oscuro e introspettivo, perennemente angosciante. Non l'angoscia dell'horror ma quella molto più terrificante di una realtà possibile.
Forse non ho capito appieno tutto quello che l'autore voleva dire, potrei volerlo rileggere in futuro. È curioso che anche l'altro libro di Disch che ho letto 20 anni fa (Le ali della mente) mi abbia lasciato un ricordo simile e la voglia di rileggerlo.
Consiglio la lettura di "Campo Archimede", a patto di affrontarlo in un momento in cui il vostro stato mentale sia "ben disposto" a un libro a tratti delirante, spesso oscuro e introspettivo, perennemente angosciante. Non l'angoscia dell'horror ma quella molto più terrificante di una realtà possibile.
February 19, 2024
Just unbelievably good.
December 9, 2008
Someone has something insightful to say about venereal disease and philosophy of mind and his name isn't David Cronenberg! Saints be praised!
Seriously though this will leave you starved for science fiction written by a WRITER as opposed to a thinker or a schemer.
Seriously though this will leave you starved for science fiction written by a WRITER as opposed to a thinker or a schemer.
October 27, 2013
I find that it isn't easy to run across books by Thomas Disch, he's a fairly obscure pulp scifi author. After reading two of his books, I understand why he's both critically acclaimed in reviews but not a common find in the bookstore. The mechanics of his writing obscure the overall story and tend to create a slog for the reader. The other Disch book I have read to date is "Puppies of Terra". Both books have a very inventive plots and a few solid characters but appear to act as a soapbox for Disch to write several chapters of allusion-heavy monologues interspersed with enough plot points to hold a story together.
I felt that the plot and big reveal for "Camp Concentration" might be worth the slog, but it was not always an enjoyable experience. Several times I put the book down when I got sick of the pretentiousness and didn't feel bad about not picking it up for a few days. I skimmed more of the monologues than I care to admit and really didn't miss much.
One thing I found problematic was the fact that unlike he somewhat similar book "flowers for algernon", you can't see the progress of the disease in anyone. You know the main character is infected only because he writes a play he thinks is his best work and gets a dream about it, but there's nothing in his actual writing to indicate the progress of the disease and his burgeoning intellect. While you might not expect such a dramatic change as in Algernon's Charlie, you should expect some subtle change in writing, or in the behavior of those around him who were in different phases of the disease. Instead we mostly saw end products.
Additionally as in many other works of the genre and time, "Camp Concentration" has a mild dose of racism tempered only by its heavy sexism. There is only one black character ( Mordecai) and one female character (Dr. Busk) and neither is either flattering or spoken of well between characters. Mordecai manages to prove himself to be a powerful, insightful, and multifaceted character by the end, but as usual, the female character is defined strictly by her sexual activity - lack or excess. Her academic credentials only serve to put her in the position to exercise her sexual power. Her only real function in the plot is her vagina, and the main character and another high ranking official, Haast, constantly make disparaging remarks about her apparent sexual conservatism.
But what is good about the book? It's a refreshing break from the Hero's Journey, its not fluff, its an interesting thought experiment, it expands your vocabulary, and the end is pretty good if you can muster the patience to get there.
I felt that the plot and big reveal for "Camp Concentration" might be worth the slog, but it was not always an enjoyable experience. Several times I put the book down when I got sick of the pretentiousness and didn't feel bad about not picking it up for a few days. I skimmed more of the monologues than I care to admit and really didn't miss much.
One thing I found problematic was the fact that unlike he somewhat similar book "flowers for algernon", you can't see the progress of the disease in anyone. You know the main character is infected only because he writes a play he thinks is his best work and gets a dream about it, but there's nothing in his actual writing to indicate the progress of the disease and his burgeoning intellect. While you might not expect such a dramatic change as in Algernon's Charlie, you should expect some subtle change in writing, or in the behavior of those around him who were in different phases of the disease. Instead we mostly saw end products.
Additionally as in many other works of the genre and time, "Camp Concentration" has a mild dose of racism tempered only by its heavy sexism. There is only one black character ( Mordecai) and one female character (Dr. Busk) and neither is either flattering or spoken of well between characters. Mordecai manages to prove himself to be a powerful, insightful, and multifaceted character by the end, but as usual, the female character is defined strictly by her sexual activity - lack or excess. Her academic credentials only serve to put her in the position to exercise her sexual power. Her only real function in the plot is her vagina, and the main character and another high ranking official, Haast, constantly make disparaging remarks about her apparent sexual conservatism.
But what is good about the book? It's a refreshing break from the Hero's Journey, its not fluff, its an interesting thought experiment, it expands your vocabulary, and the end is pretty good if you can muster the patience to get there.
September 19, 2015
-Más exitosa como concepto que desde el punto de vista puramente narrativo, sin que este sea un fracaso en realidad.-
Género. Ciencia-Ficción.
Lo que nos cuenta. En una realidad distinta a la nuestra, en la que Robert McNamara llegó a la presidencia de los USA, Louis Sacchetti es un culto escritor, algo pomposo y bastante carente de modestia, que está encarcelado por negarse a servir en el ejército y al que trasladan a una instalación secreta conocida como Campo Arquímedes, al mando del general Haast, en la que los prisioneros son objeto de un experimento de dudosa legalidad y a los que Sachetti debe observar, anotando todas sus impresiones y experiencias. Sachetti no tardará demasiado en darse cuenta de que también él es un sujeto de experimentación, mientras comparte con el lector todas sus sensaciones y opiniones sobre lo que le rodea mediante las entradas de su diario. Primero publicada por entregas en una revista inglesa de género, la novela terminó viendo la luz como texto completo al año siguiente, en 1968.
¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:
http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com....
Género. Ciencia-Ficción.
Lo que nos cuenta. En una realidad distinta a la nuestra, en la que Robert McNamara llegó a la presidencia de los USA, Louis Sacchetti es un culto escritor, algo pomposo y bastante carente de modestia, que está encarcelado por negarse a servir en el ejército y al que trasladan a una instalación secreta conocida como Campo Arquímedes, al mando del general Haast, en la que los prisioneros son objeto de un experimento de dudosa legalidad y a los que Sachetti debe observar, anotando todas sus impresiones y experiencias. Sachetti no tardará demasiado en darse cuenta de que también él es un sujeto de experimentación, mientras comparte con el lector todas sus sensaciones y opiniones sobre lo que le rodea mediante las entradas de su diario. Primero publicada por entregas en una revista inglesa de género, la novela terminó viendo la luz como texto completo al año siguiente, en 1968.
¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:
http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com....
August 30, 2010
“Beauty,” he said solemnly, “is nothing but the beginning of a terror that we are able barely to endure.” And with those words George Wagner heaved the entirety of a considerable breakfast into that pure, Euclidean space.
It’s hard to put into words why these two sentences filled me with despair reading this book, but let me try. First, Disch has a mentally ill man quoting Rilke. If that wasn’t a cliche then, it certainly is now. Second, I really can’t believe that Louis, the narrator and through whose eyes we see this arrogant and at times pretentious mess, looks at a man puking and immediately thinks of the clean, geometric lines into which the man is horking. Louis is a writer though, and as a result, he thinks very writerly things. He can’t just speak or write. He expounds. He is a hammy stage actor on paper and it hurts reading his thoughts and then thinking about the implications of those thoughts. Read my entire review here.
It’s hard to put into words why these two sentences filled me with despair reading this book, but let me try. First, Disch has a mentally ill man quoting Rilke. If that wasn’t a cliche then, it certainly is now. Second, I really can’t believe that Louis, the narrator and through whose eyes we see this arrogant and at times pretentious mess, looks at a man puking and immediately thinks of the clean, geometric lines into which the man is horking. Louis is a writer though, and as a result, he thinks very writerly things. He can’t just speak or write. He expounds. He is a hammy stage actor on paper and it hurts reading his thoughts and then thinking about the implications of those thoughts. Read my entire review here.
December 28, 2008
“In summary: I like this book, and I think anybody who likes books about painters and devils would like it too.”(pg.83). Some of the sixties new wave leaves me cold (Sorry Chip Delaney this means you), but when it’s on, some of the best literature of the era came out of it. This starts out like Kafka rewriting Flowers of Algernon with hints of the Prisoner (which Disch wrote a novel for) before becoming a surreal dreamscape and then winding into an ,I thought, satisfying twist. Wonderfully macabre and strangely funny. A rich text filled with allusions to Dostoevsky’s and Genet’s prison novels and especially Mann’s Dr. Faustus (my favorite of his books for some reason.). Very weird and out there speculation about expanded intelligence that foreshadows work by Chiang and Egan and some of the apocalyptic verve of Tiptree jr.’s work. A more focused novel than 334, if less ambitious as that novel reads like a soap opera written by Ballard with all the good and bad that that implies.
July 12, 2008
I am, perhaps, prejudiced (and maybe still in shock). Tom was a friend. I am glad I didn't read his SF, though, while he was still around: I would have proved a blathering fanboy and an unworthwhile conversationalist.
I have encountered many writers who possess the twisted, wild skills of imagination germane to speculative fiction, but I have rarely seen them execute their visions with such facility. Tom's prose is knife sharp, and allusions to Dante, Marlowe, Rilke, Goethe, et al. abound (they hang like ripe fruit on the low branches—they don't slow the narrative down a bit).
In summary, I liked this book. If you like books about devils and poets and alchemy, you would probably like it too.
I have encountered many writers who possess the twisted, wild skills of imagination germane to speculative fiction, but I have rarely seen them execute their visions with such facility. Tom's prose is knife sharp, and allusions to Dante, Marlowe, Rilke, Goethe, et al. abound (they hang like ripe fruit on the low branches—they don't slow the narrative down a bit).
In summary, I liked this book. If you like books about devils and poets and alchemy, you would probably like it too.
November 12, 2017
This was not one of my favorite reads. Well written, but did not work for me. The novel felt very stilted in the writing and never really made sense to me. The easiest way for me to describe the book is slog. It was a very short novel that felt much longer in reading. Part of the problem for me is that this is a very old novel and it did not age particularity well. Horrible things happen to the inmates and the reader does not care. This is a thinking novel and with dialogue carrying on the weight to get across the points. Yet, I did not follow the thinking all them much. This is a plain miss for me. Once again, it is well written and you may like it. Good luck.
January 2, 2023
Tragična, komična, filozofska, pretenciozna, šekspirijanska igra riječi u kojoj sam se povremeno pogubio, ali s guštom.
4.5 / 5
4.5 / 5
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