It is rare indeed that a novel, particularly one of dystopian fiction, becomes more relevant with time. But I would argue that with This Perfect Day, Ira Levin came closer than any of his contemporaries to predicting the true nature of the future’s dark side.
It is set in an unspecified future (approximately 2150 A.D.) where anger, violence and other ‘undesirable’ human traits have all but been eradicated through selective breeding and regular ‘treatments’ – a cocktail of drugs that suppress hormones and emotions. Human lives are directed by Uni, a colossal computer system whose electronic tentacles span the earth. How they look, what job they will have, where they will live, whether they will have children: Uni decides it all.
On the surface, it appears to be utopia – no crime, no poverty, beautiful parklands and museums to explore, total security. But through the mismatched eyes of the main character, Chip, we begin to see cracks in the perfect facade. It begins with Chip’s grandfather, Papa Jan, who helped to build Uni but in his later years has begun to resent its homogenisation of humanity. While taking a tour of Uni’s colourful memory banks, Papa Jan sneaks the young Chip through a door and shows him the real Uni: an enormous series of grey machines kept in conditions that are close to freezing.
It is an experience that will echo through the rest of Chip’s life as he meets others like him, avoids his treatments, and begins to wake up from the drug-induced stupor to experience the full intensity of human feeling. But could ‘Wei’ – the brains behind Uni – have been right? Are repression and obedience a small price to pay for almost uninterrupted peace?
This Perfect Day skewers nearly any political philosophy you care to name. Early on it appears to take aim at socialism, but as its plot becomes more complex its political allegory gets broader and broader. Seen through a 2015 lens, it works best as a satire and denunciation of political correctness, which aims to erase perceived negative behaviour through public shaming. The ‘good’ citizens police the ‘bad’ ones to ensure they do not get out of line and see that they are ‘treated’ if they do. And in the world of This Perfect Day, ‘fight’ is a swear word and ‘fuck’ has become a regular part of conversation.
As such, it is much more accurate than the paranoid nightmare of Orwell's 1984 (which has been further diminished through overuse in lazy political argument), the more fanciful drug-addled society of Brave New World, or the similarly themed but far less approachable A Clockwork Orange.
In its crude 1970 way, A Perfect Day also predicted the internet (Uni) and the concept of ‘unplugging from the grid’, which was was an obvious inspiration for the Matrix trilogy of movies.
But prescience is not this novel’s only asset. Levin’s plot is textured and far reaching but never dull; on the contrary it is, in many sections, a page-turner. He also manages to make the word ‘fuck’ shocking again through a deft manipulation of the reader – an achievement thrice as impressive now as it would have been when the novel was first published. The characters are well drawn and his futuristic world, save for a few inevitable antiquities, is beautifully visualised (even if Levin’s overuse of hyphens and rather dry way of describing actions mean he will never be my favourite writer).
This novel’s central thesis is that humanity’s flaws and choices – the bad ones as well as the good ones – are what make us human. And that is what Levin has that puts him and his novel above the others mentioned: a deep understanding of human nature. He understood that technological progress would lead us closer to utopia rather than dystopia... but that utopia might, in its own way, be dystopian.
In a world where well-meaning propaganda is rife and ‘bad’ decisions (as defined by the media) are berated to the point of lunacy on Twitter and Facebook, This Perfect Day stands as a salutary reminder that inhumane actions need not involve violence or aggression. As the old saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.