Salient. Official Newspaper of the Victoria University Students' Association. Vol 41 No. 9. April 24 1978
Books — They Kay Dick Penguin
Books
They Kay Dick Penguin
If all the most frightening aspects of 20th century mass society and atomised man were developed into their most extreme metaphors, we would become They' — except for those of us who, like rabid salmon swimming the wrong way in spawning season, pursue a seemingly self-destructive path of apparent madness in the name of "free choice" and the preservation of the integrity of the individual.
They, a short novel from England by Kay Dicks, presents a science fiction world where literature, art, and the pursuit and practice thereof is officially forbidden, and its practitioners ruthlessly pursued, punished and terrorised. In quiet isolation a few artists persist, although most succumb to one or another aspect of the terror — retreating to a private world of insanity, resisting the authorities openly only to ensure their own destruction, or worse — surrendering themselves to join the faceless masses.
The book is a moving and well written complaint against the destructive capacity of consumerism and insensitive bureaucracy in its ruthless pursuit of the greatest good for the greatest number. Dick describes a situation different from the contemporary scene only in degree, not in kind.
Anyone who has ever attempted to pursue Art in any of its forms — to eschew television, slavery to the clock and "conventional" normalcy in order to follow the creative urge wherever it might lead will instantly relate to the frame of mind and emotional content of this book. From the agony of watching kindred spirits slowly collapse under social disapproval to the creeping anxiety that maybe it is "them" that have it right and "me" that has it wrong instead of the other way around, Kay Dick strikes a note of authenticity.
In fact the book is almost too obvious, the metaphors too transparent. One slowly gets the feeling that she is trying to convince herself that the existence of an artist is worthwhile.
They shows promise but falls well short of profundity.
Doug Thompson