Kallocain is a 1940 dystopia by Swedish author Karin Boye. It is up there with 1984 by George Orwell and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. I read it over Christmas and liked it a lot.
The book is in public domain since 2012 and is available online in Swedish and English. I picked it up from my local library — I like reading on paper.
The story
Our main character, Leo Kall invents a drug that makes people speak their innermost thoughts freely. He names it Kallocain after himself.
Leo lives in an underground complex in the World State with his wife whom he suspects has an affair with his supervisor. The society is totalitarian, the state comes before the citizens. Their three kids no longer lives with them, they are being raised by the state. Every home has a Police Ear and a Police Eye, predating Orwell's Big Brother screens with eight years.
Leo tells us that life in the World State is the best but he does it in a way where we clearly see that it is not. He is a loyal and ambitious citizen that understands that everyone must make sacrifices to further the higher goals of the state.
The irony is that when the people Leo administers Kallocain to speak their innermost thoughts, Leo doesn’t listen. He hear what they say, but he doesn’t understand. Leo doesn’t understand that another society is possible. One where people can speak their innermost thoughts freely without being injected with a drug. A society where people trust strangers. Where friends and family aren't someone you fear will turn you in.
Kallocain would make an excellent story game. The theme of estranged people and a lens of a drug that make you speak your innermost thoughts freely to expose how far apart they are from each other. With a promise — or just a hope — of reconciliation. Someone should create it.
Karin Boye
After finishing the book, I read up on the author and the context in which the book was written. Karin Boye was homosexual which was illegal in Sweden at the time. She also lived in Berlin 1932-1933 and visited the Soviet Union before writing the book. Sadly she committed suicide the year after publication and Kallocain was her last publication.
The book was published at the beginning of WWII. It must have been dark times then — even in Sweden — for anyone dreaming of a better world.
For a while Karin Boye lived in Huddinge, the neighbouring municipality from me. There is a memorial room at a local museum and a statue in a public park. I wanted to get a picture for this post so we went to find the statue.
"Just a girl?" my wife said when we finally found it. She heard my Danish pronunciation of ‘Karin Boye’ as ‘kind boy’ in her Ukrainian ears and thought we were looking for a statue of a boy. Communication is hard. Listen generously and be kind to each other.