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Trigger warnings
Positive tags
Hero archetypes
Protagonist archetypes
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Synopsis
This is a novel of the future, profoundly sinister in its vision of a drab terror. Ironic and detached, the author shows us the totalitarian World-state through the eyes of a product of that state, scientist Leo Kall. Kall has invented a drug, kallocain, which denies the privacy of thought and is the final step towards the transmutation of the individual human being into a "happy, healthy cell in the state organism." For, says Leo, "from thoughts and feelings, words and actions are born. How then could these thoughts and feelings belong to the individual? Doesn't the whole fellow-soldier belong to the state? To whom should his thoughts and feelings belong then, if not to the state?" As the first-person record of Leo Kall, scientist, fellow-soldier too late disillusioned to undo his previous actions, Kallocain achieves a chilling power and veracity that place it among the finest novels to emerge from the strife-torn Europe of the twentieth century.
Tags
Is Kallocain appropriate for my child?
Suitable for most readers 16 and up.
A chilling dystopian novel exploring totalitarianism and loss of privacy through a truth serum that reveals all thoughts. Dark themes of state control and psychological manipulation, but violence is conceptual rather than graphic.
What to know going in
This book has mild violence, no sexual content, and mild language. Content notes include mental manipulation, loss of autonomy, and state surveillance (see the full list above).
Who'll love this
Mature teens interested in philosophical dystopias like 1984 will find this a thought-provoking exploration of privacy and individual freedom.