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Dystopijny majstersztyk Kay Dick wzbudził zachwyt w momencie wydania, po czym został zapomniany na ponad cztery dekady. Odkryty na nowo w Anglii przeżywa dziś drugą młodość: ukazuje się po raz pierwszy we Francji, w Stanach Zjednoczonych, Niemczech oraz w Polsce.
Powieść strukturalnie niejednoznaczna: bo – czy mamy tu do czynienia z jedną narratorką lub jednym narratorem, czy może wieloma mówiącymi osobami – nie jest ani razu jasne. Wiadomo natomiast na pewno, że ukazane nam historie mają miejsce w koszmarnym świecie, w którym oddanie się jakiejkolwiek formie twórczości jest bezwzględnie piętnowane i grozi jej autorowi nieodwracalnymi konsekwencjami.
Proza Dick skłania do swobodnej interpretacji – jedni czytają ją jako orwellowską wizję przyszłości, inni chcą widzieć w niej szereg fenomenalnie zarysowanych sennych koszmarów, jeszcze inni – metaforę twórczych zmagań samej autorki.
Powieść strukturalnie niejednoznaczna: bo – czy mamy tu do czynienia z jedną narratorką lub jednym narratorem, czy może wieloma mówiącymi osobami – nie jest ani razu jasne. Wiadomo natomiast na pewno, że ukazane nam historie mają miejsce w koszmarnym świecie, w którym oddanie się jakiejkolwiek formie twórczości jest bezwzględnie piętnowane i grozi jej autorowi nieodwracalnymi konsekwencjami.
Proza Dick skłania do swobodnej interpretacji – jedni czytają ją jako orwellowską wizję przyszłości, inni chcą widzieć w niej szereg fenomenalnie zarysowanych sennych koszmarów, jeszcze inni – metaforę twórczych zmagań samej autorki.
116 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1977
About the author
Kay Dick
13 books39 followersDick was born Kathleen Elsie Dick at Queen Charlotte's Hospital, London, England, UK, but was but raised in Switzerland by her mother, Kate Frances Dick, being educated in Geneva, as well as at the Lycée Français in London. In early life, Kay Dick worked at Foyle's bookshop in London's Charing Cross Road and, at 26, became the first woman director in English publishing at P.S. King & Son. She later became a journalist, working at the New Statesman. For many years, she edited the literary magazine The Windmill, under the nom de plume Edward Lane.
Dick wrote five novels between 1949 and 1962, including the famous An Affair of Love (1953) and Solitaire (1958). She also wrote literary biography, researching the lives of Colette and Carlyle. In 1960 she published Pierrot, about the commedia dell'arte.
Dick was a regular reviewer for The Times, The Spectator and Punch. Dick also edited several anthologies of stories and interviews with writers, including Ivy and Stevie (1971) and Friends and Friendship (1974). She was known for campaigning tirelessly and successfully for the introduction of the Public Lending Right, which pays royalties to authors when their books are borrowed from public libraries.
In 1977, Dick published They, a series of dream sequences that won the South-East Arts literature prize, and was described in The Paris Review in 2020 as "a lost dystopian masterpiece". It had remained out of print due to poor sales and Kay experiencing harsh and sexist reviews in the press at the time of the award win. "They" was re-discovered by chance in a Oxfam charity bookshop in Bath, UK in the summer of 2020 by a literary agent. It was then acquired by Faber and Faber for re-release on February 3rd 2022 in the UK. In 1984 she followed the publication of "They" with an acclaimed autobiographical novel, The Shelf, in which she examined a lesbian affair.
Dick lived for some two decades with the novelist Kathleen Farrell, from 1940 to 1962.
Dick wrote five novels between 1949 and 1962, including the famous An Affair of Love (1953) and Solitaire (1958). She also wrote literary biography, researching the lives of Colette and Carlyle. In 1960 she published Pierrot, about the commedia dell'arte.
Dick was a regular reviewer for The Times, The Spectator and Punch. Dick also edited several anthologies of stories and interviews with writers, including Ivy and Stevie (1971) and Friends and Friendship (1974). She was known for campaigning tirelessly and successfully for the introduction of the Public Lending Right, which pays royalties to authors when their books are borrowed from public libraries.
In 1977, Dick published They, a series of dream sequences that won the South-East Arts literature prize, and was described in The Paris Review in 2020 as "a lost dystopian masterpiece". It had remained out of print due to poor sales and Kay experiencing harsh and sexist reviews in the press at the time of the award win. "They" was re-discovered by chance in a Oxfam charity bookshop in Bath, UK in the summer of 2020 by a literary agent. It was then acquired by Faber and Faber for re-release on February 3rd 2022 in the UK. In 1984 she followed the publication of "They" with an acclaimed autobiographical novel, The Shelf, in which she examined a lesbian affair.
Dick lived for some two decades with the novelist Kathleen Farrell, from 1940 to 1962.
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November 23, 2021
I've picked this one up because of this edition's introduction by Carmen Maria Machado, an author I really enjoy reading and whom I recently had the pleasure to interview. Her foreword is just as good as anticipated, especially her thoughts on dystopias, a genre that, as we currently see, can easily be instrumentalized (no, the state telling you you should get vaccinated is not an Orwellian nightmare, Karen, now go get that f*** shot, I want my life back, you idiot!!! - sorry, I'm digressing). Unfortunately, I was a little disappointed by the novella itself, the rather stiff language and the multitude of characters that mostly aren't portrayed with a sufficient degree of detail or specificity, so that they remain stock characters - that might have been intended on Dick's part, but it didn't help the reading experience.
The plot is rather enigmatic: We meet a group of people working in the arts, but their world is threatened by "them", creatures who hate art, the open display of emtions, people who live alone, well, non-conformity or strong independent personalities in general. "They" set out to confiscate and destroy the expression of human creativity in the form of novels, paintings, music etc., they brutally discipline or kill offenders and terrorize people into conforming to their ideas. You guessed it: The central questions here are about the meaning of art, the functions of its creation and reception, the relationship between artist and recipient.
This could all make for a fascinating read, especially as the story dips its feet into horror, but I have to admit that I wasn't intrigued - the text is partly brutal, but bloodless in the metaphorical sense. The nine chapters could also be read as nine interlinked short stories, which, together with the roughly outlined characters, pulls the text apart. While "they", as the point of the novella demands, are no more than an anonymous mass that keeps on growing in numbers, the characters that we should get to know also aren't that defined. Even the narrator remains mysterious: They are apparently a writer (or does the narrative voice sometimes shift? hmmm...), we know nothing more about their topics, or gender (this aspect can clearly be seen as daring for the time), or age, or backstory, etc.
Beware though: I think this is a case of "it's not you, it's me". Apparently, Kay Dick was a bisexual intellectual socialite in the mid-20th century who stirred things up, and this is her lost masterpiece. The story wasn't for me though.
The plot is rather enigmatic: We meet a group of people working in the arts, but their world is threatened by "them", creatures who hate art, the open display of emtions, people who live alone, well, non-conformity or strong independent personalities in general. "They" set out to confiscate and destroy the expression of human creativity in the form of novels, paintings, music etc., they brutally discipline or kill offenders and terrorize people into conforming to their ideas. You guessed it: The central questions here are about the meaning of art, the functions of its creation and reception, the relationship between artist and recipient.
This could all make for a fascinating read, especially as the story dips its feet into horror, but I have to admit that I wasn't intrigued - the text is partly brutal, but bloodless in the metaphorical sense. The nine chapters could also be read as nine interlinked short stories, which, together with the roughly outlined characters, pulls the text apart. While "they", as the point of the novella demands, are no more than an anonymous mass that keeps on growing in numbers, the characters that we should get to know also aren't that defined. Even the narrator remains mysterious: They are apparently a writer (or does the narrative voice sometimes shift? hmmm...), we know nothing more about their topics, or gender (this aspect can clearly be seen as daring for the time), or age, or backstory, etc.
Beware though: I think this is a case of "it's not you, it's me". Apparently, Kay Dick was a bisexual intellectual socialite in the mid-20th century who stirred things up, and this is her lost masterpiece. The story wasn't for me though.
September 20, 2023
A brilliant dystopia, in gorgeous surroundings. The writing is profound, poetic, subtle, and sinister.
Art for art’s sake?
“Can we go on creating for ourselves? Without any contact with the outside world?”
For years, I posted photos on social media: mostly scenery, architecture, and nature. I enjoyed the interaction, and my photography improved. I still take photos, but now, almost no one sees them. The purpose is diluted. I’d probably feel the same if I wrote reviews but never shared them. But it’s my choice, and I don’t claim to be an artist.
What if a shadowy authoritarian group banned art? All of it. Gradually and arbitrarily, because uncertainty increases people’s fear and the authority’s power. You come home, and just one book has gone from your shelves. Until the next one.
“It was no good listening for footsteps; they wore no shoes.”
If you’ve ever been burgled, you know something of the feeling.
Image: A Banksy of a man using a pressure-washer to remove prehistoric art from a wall (Source)
A sequence of unease
The subtitle and nine section titles summarise the ebb and flow of mood, perfectly:
Some danger ahead. The visitants. Pocket of quietude. Pebble of unease. The fine valley. A light-hearted day. The Fairing. The garden. Hallo love.
Most sections start by describing the beauty of nature, before slipping into doubt, dark, and paranoia. Sea, sky, flowers, and trees: art that They cannot control.
“The garden is beauty, is sensuality, is mystery, is imagination. They sense a trap.”
Always the contrasts. It’s insidious and increasingly unsettling.
Image: Seeing art in nature: a leaf, held up in a field of sunflowers, painted by Katie Books to match the backdrop. (Source)
They versus we, I, her
I’m happy using singular “they”, even for known individuals, but this book presents a challenge. The narrator(s) is/are unnamed and ungendered, but I don’t want to use a neutral pronoun because the “They” of the title refers to sinister forces. For clarity, I’ve used an initial capital for Them and refer to the narrator as she/her because her interactions suggest she is female, and I assume she narrates all sections because she seems to live in the same place.
Manifesting one’s artistic vision is inherently solitary. Displaying or publishing it does not change the genesis.
“Non-conformity is an illness. We’re possible sources of contagion.”
Anything individualistic is suspect:
“They fear solitary living, therefore envy it.”
Perhaps, most chillingly, communication of any kind is discouraged, and most people don’t mind - or even notice.
Image: “Fears” by Mariusz Lewandowsk: a staircase seems to have figures watching from the shadows in the walls (Source)
Outline
The nameless narrator is a writer who lives with a nameless dog in a cottage by the sea. She visits small groups of creative friends: some determined to continue regardless, some cautiously, and a few are permanently damaged by brutal punishment already meted out. The relationships, even parents and children, are as vague as everything else, but there’s usually a man who knows about Them and advises his fellow artists how to be ever alert to being watched.
Mostly, They are unseen, or in small groups, but huge numbers are seen on manoeuvres in the countryside, moving as if they are one entity:
“Their precision was monstrously accurate.”
As art disappears, TVs are given to every household, always on, dulling minds. Gardens are maintained by machines, for uniformity. Children are mindlessly cruel to animals, encouraged by adults.
Cure?
Artists who won’t stop are maimed or killed, but there are treatments, too, in windowless retreats and “grief towers”. In a few cases, it’s voluntary. Allegedly.
“Can’t have griefers around. Upsets the tone of the neighbourhood.”
Forced conformity and dulled emotions for (almost) everyone. No pain, but no joy or love either (antidepressants can have a similar effect), and without empathy, cruelty and hate remain. No identity, no ID, no id.
Image: “The Everlasting” by Aniela Sobieski: a woman’s face with a landscape painted on it (Source)
Quotes
Beauty then fear:
✅ “A thin mist, a sea fret, casting a web over the sun.”
❌ “There was nothing to say; one asked no questions.”
✅ “The sun was roughing the skyline over the sea with burnt siena.”
❌ “You are not welcome.”
✅ “The January day had the pellucidity of crystal… I looked at the cerulean blue of the sky framing curves and inclines.”
❌ “They instil fear… quick acclimatization to loss of identity guaranteed.”
✅ “Gusts of ground-mist spun rapidly towards and past me.”
❌ “They’ll be busy tonight - looking for folk outside their area.”
✅ “The colour range of the roses created a luscious sensual profligacy.”
❌ “I’m the miller… symbolically, of course. I harbour the life-force - the grain.”
✅ “I… watered my collection of beach pebbles set out on the window-sills, almost to fortune. Impregnated, they glistened in a galaxy of subdued colour.”
See also
This was published in 1977 and is apparently very different from her other writings. However, the final section was published as a standalone piece a couple of years earlier.
• Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, written a generation before this (1953). Books are burned, a few try to memorise them first, and most are zoned out from soporific soap operas. See my review HERE.
• Kafka’s The Hunger Artist: an artist without an audience. See my review HERE.
• Julio Cortázar's short story, House Taken Over, also has a sequence of unease arising from unnamed entities. See my review HERE.
• Orwell’s 1984 for obvious reasons. See my review HERE.
• Wyndham’s The Midwich Cuckoos: the growing menace of a cruel and destructive hive mind. See my review HERE.
• The 2015 film Equals, where the ability to feel is removed to stop hate and war, but a disease means some people develop feelings. See imdb. Formulaic and predictable, but nicely done.
• The 2002 film Equilibrium, where the ability to feel is removed to stop hate and war, so books are burned and there is no artistic expression. See imdb. Formulaic and predictable, but nicely done.
• The far better 2004 film, Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, where people voluntary undergo a procedure to forget. See imdb.
Art for art’s sake?
“Can we go on creating for ourselves? Without any contact with the outside world?”
For years, I posted photos on social media: mostly scenery, architecture, and nature. I enjoyed the interaction, and my photography improved. I still take photos, but now, almost no one sees them. The purpose is diluted. I’d probably feel the same if I wrote reviews but never shared them. But it’s my choice, and I don’t claim to be an artist.
What if a shadowy authoritarian group banned art? All of it. Gradually and arbitrarily, because uncertainty increases people’s fear and the authority’s power. You come home, and just one book has gone from your shelves. Until the next one.
“It was no good listening for footsteps; they wore no shoes.”
If you’ve ever been burgled, you know something of the feeling.
Image: A Banksy of a man using a pressure-washer to remove prehistoric art from a wall (Source)
A sequence of unease
The subtitle and nine section titles summarise the ebb and flow of mood, perfectly:
Some danger ahead. The visitants. Pocket of quietude. Pebble of unease. The fine valley. A light-hearted day. The Fairing. The garden. Hallo love.
Most sections start by describing the beauty of nature, before slipping into doubt, dark, and paranoia. Sea, sky, flowers, and trees: art that They cannot control.
“The garden is beauty, is sensuality, is mystery, is imagination. They sense a trap.”
Always the contrasts. It’s insidious and increasingly unsettling.
Image: Seeing art in nature: a leaf, held up in a field of sunflowers, painted by Katie Books to match the backdrop. (Source)
They versus we, I, her
I’m happy using singular “they”, even for known individuals, but this book presents a challenge. The narrator(s) is/are unnamed and ungendered, but I don’t want to use a neutral pronoun because the “They” of the title refers to sinister forces. For clarity, I’ve used an initial capital for Them and refer to the narrator as she/her because her interactions suggest she is female, and I assume she narrates all sections because she seems to live in the same place.
Manifesting one’s artistic vision is inherently solitary. Displaying or publishing it does not change the genesis.
“Non-conformity is an illness. We’re possible sources of contagion.”
Anything individualistic is suspect:
“They fear solitary living, therefore envy it.”
Perhaps, most chillingly, communication of any kind is discouraged, and most people don’t mind - or even notice.
Image: “Fears” by Mariusz Lewandowsk: a staircase seems to have figures watching from the shadows in the walls (Source)
Outline
The nameless narrator is a writer who lives with a nameless dog in a cottage by the sea. She visits small groups of creative friends: some determined to continue regardless, some cautiously, and a few are permanently damaged by brutal punishment already meted out. The relationships, even parents and children, are as vague as everything else, but there’s usually a man who knows about Them and advises his fellow artists how to be ever alert to being watched.
Mostly, They are unseen, or in small groups, but huge numbers are seen on manoeuvres in the countryside, moving as if they are one entity:
“Their precision was monstrously accurate.”
As art disappears, TVs are given to every household, always on, dulling minds. Gardens are maintained by machines, for uniformity. Children are mindlessly cruel to animals, encouraged by adults.
Cure?
Artists who won’t stop are maimed or killed, but there are treatments, too, in windowless retreats and “grief towers”. In a few cases, it’s voluntary. Allegedly.
“Can’t have griefers around. Upsets the tone of the neighbourhood.”
Forced conformity and dulled emotions for (almost) everyone. No pain, but no joy or love either (antidepressants can have a similar effect), and without empathy, cruelty and hate remain. No identity, no ID, no id.
Image: “The Everlasting” by Aniela Sobieski: a woman’s face with a landscape painted on it (Source)
Quotes
Beauty then fear:
✅ “A thin mist, a sea fret, casting a web over the sun.”
❌ “There was nothing to say; one asked no questions.”
✅ “The sun was roughing the skyline over the sea with burnt siena.”
❌ “You are not welcome.”
✅ “The January day had the pellucidity of crystal… I looked at the cerulean blue of the sky framing curves and inclines.”
❌ “They instil fear… quick acclimatization to loss of identity guaranteed.”
✅ “Gusts of ground-mist spun rapidly towards and past me.”
❌ “They’ll be busy tonight - looking for folk outside their area.”
✅ “The colour range of the roses created a luscious sensual profligacy.”
❌ “I’m the miller… symbolically, of course. I harbour the life-force - the grain.”
✅ “I… watered my collection of beach pebbles set out on the window-sills, almost to fortune. Impregnated, they glistened in a galaxy of subdued colour.”
See also
This was published in 1977 and is apparently very different from her other writings. However, the final section was published as a standalone piece a couple of years earlier.
• Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, written a generation before this (1953). Books are burned, a few try to memorise them first, and most are zoned out from soporific soap operas. See my review HERE.
• Kafka’s The Hunger Artist: an artist without an audience. See my review HERE.
• Julio Cortázar's short story, House Taken Over, also has a sequence of unease arising from unnamed entities. See my review HERE.
• Orwell’s 1984 for obvious reasons. See my review HERE.
• Wyndham’s The Midwich Cuckoos: the growing menace of a cruel and destructive hive mind. See my review HERE.
• The 2015 film Equals, where the ability to feel is removed to stop hate and war, but a disease means some people develop feelings. See imdb. Formulaic and predictable, but nicely done.
• The 2002 film Equilibrium, where the ability to feel is removed to stop hate and war, so books are burned and there is no artistic expression. See imdb. Formulaic and predictable, but nicely done.
• The far better 2004 film, Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, where people voluntary undergo a procedure to forget. See imdb.
February 1, 2022
First published in 1977, Kay Dick’s previously neglected classic of British sci-fi is to be reissued in 2022, by Faber in the UK and McNally Editions in the US. Faber describe it as a ‘rediscovered dystopian masterpiece of art under attack’; I’d agree with the ‘masterpiece’ part, but the book’s own subtitle – ‘a sequence of unease’ – is a far better way to sum it up. It’s true, pure slipstream: Anna Kavan’s
Ice
as set in M. John Harrison’s Autotelia or Christopher Priest’s Dream Archipelago.
They is a cryptic novel-in-stories. It appears to be narrated by the same person throughout, but this is far from definite, and their name and gender remain unknown. In the world they describe, people live under the threat of a group known only as ‘they’. They are human, as far as we know; they move in packs. They appear not to be officially sanctioned, but there’s power in numbers, and one character suggests there might be as many as two million of them. Their methods van be insidious – in the first story, they confiscate the narrator’s books one by one – but they also imprison, maim, kill. They target artists and intellectuals; they disdain (disallow?) love and grief.
I knew I was going to love it when I read this passage:
Such immensity contained within a few lines – the sudden shift from matter-of-fact description to startling emotional depth – is typical of the writing in They. Dick’s prose covers much ground in a few sentences, especially in the first story, ‘Some Danger Ahead’, which is a sort of palate cleanser, divesting you of whatever expectations you may have had.
My favourite chapter in They, ‘The Fairing’, is an extraordinary sequence in which the narrator tries to reach her friend Tom’s house by following his coded instructions (they intercept letters, of course). This story has a fierce tension that nothing else in the book possesses: my heart was in my mouth as the narrator repeatedly got lost, became disorientated, or seemed to be under threat. Yet the most terrifying moment is saved for last, with an ambiguous conclusion that creates an overwhelming sense of dread.
‘A Light-Hearted Day’ is another of the most memorable pieces, partly for its horribly ironic title. The narrator and her friend Sebastian set out to enjoy a beautiful day, but what they encounter is horrific: mutilated animals, violent children, a man taken and killed. When Sebastian is reunited with Fiona, to whom he had hoped to propose, she is ‘cured’ after a spell at one of their retreats, where ‘quick acclimatisation to loss of identity [is] guaranteed’. The characters try to strike positive notes (the beauty of nature, the persistence of hope), but the final scene, a cruel parody, sticks in the mind.
While there are some clear points being made about artistic freedom, the importance of nonconformity and the significance of friendship, I enjoyed They most for its mysteries. It’s most powerful when little is explained. The part of me that loved They is the same part that loves Kavan, Aickman, Nina Allan, Joel Lane, and so on. This is exactly the kind of book I love to see reissued, as I now see the influence, or at least an echo, of They in the work of so many of my favourite writers of speculative fiction.
I received an advance review copy of They from the publisher through NetGalley.
They is a cryptic novel-in-stories. It appears to be narrated by the same person throughout, but this is far from definite, and their name and gender remain unknown. In the world they describe, people live under the threat of a group known only as ‘they’. They are human, as far as we know; they move in packs. They appear not to be officially sanctioned, but there’s power in numbers, and one character suggests there might be as many as two million of them. Their methods van be insidious – in the first story, they confiscate the narrator’s books one by one – but they also imprison, maim, kill. They target artists and intellectuals; they disdain (disallow?) love and grief.
I knew I was going to love it when I read this passage:
The fresh canvas was green, all green, every variation and depth of green. Garth turned his face to the wall. Karr’s servant left. Claire laughed. I was ready to die for her.
Such immensity contained within a few lines – the sudden shift from matter-of-fact description to startling emotional depth – is typical of the writing in They. Dick’s prose covers much ground in a few sentences, especially in the first story, ‘Some Danger Ahead’, which is a sort of palate cleanser, divesting you of whatever expectations you may have had.
My favourite chapter in They, ‘The Fairing’, is an extraordinary sequence in which the narrator tries to reach her friend Tom’s house by following his coded instructions (they intercept letters, of course). This story has a fierce tension that nothing else in the book possesses: my heart was in my mouth as the narrator repeatedly got lost, became disorientated, or seemed to be under threat. Yet the most terrifying moment is saved for last, with an ambiguous conclusion that creates an overwhelming sense of dread.
‘A Light-Hearted Day’ is another of the most memorable pieces, partly for its horribly ironic title. The narrator and her friend Sebastian set out to enjoy a beautiful day, but what they encounter is horrific: mutilated animals, violent children, a man taken and killed. When Sebastian is reunited with Fiona, to whom he had hoped to propose, she is ‘cured’ after a spell at one of their retreats, where ‘quick acclimatisation to loss of identity [is] guaranteed’. The characters try to strike positive notes (the beauty of nature, the persistence of hope), but the final scene, a cruel parody, sticks in the mind.
While there are some clear points being made about artistic freedom, the importance of nonconformity and the significance of friendship, I enjoyed They most for its mysteries. It’s most powerful when little is explained. The part of me that loved They is the same part that loves Kavan, Aickman, Nina Allan, Joel Lane, and so on. This is exactly the kind of book I love to see reissued, as I now see the influence, or at least an echo, of They in the work of so many of my favourite writers of speculative fiction.
I received an advance review copy of They from the publisher through NetGalley.
November 28, 2021
Switching as a metronome from cosy nature English countryside depictions to the most cruel things people can do to each other. The sense of unease and constant threat is very well done but the components of the book don't necessarily add up to a complete novel
Destruction doesn’t count. One can always create again.
The foreword by Carmen Maria Machado gives a lot away, but is also essential, since They is not very accessible with its unnamed narrator and the vagueness of an Kazuo Ishiguro novel like The Buried Giant (with the sadness of Never Let Me Go pervading the book).
The Memory Police also definitely comes to mind, with the arts slowly retreating from Britain.
Society is pervaded by unnamed crowds who hunt on artists, not only destroying their work but also mutilating them when there is resistance. This brings interesting questions of wether one is still an artist without the ability to work (If we lack choice we lack everything), and if destruction can actually undo an act of creativity (It can’t all be destroyed. Some of it will remain for those we come after us.)
What it means to be living with a sword of Damocles, with tranquility and sunbathing hiding occasional near inconceivable cruelty and violence against art, is also definitely something investigated in this book. The reasons for this crusade on art are unclear, as is the society at large. Some semblance of explanation is provided when the artists muse among themselves: We represent danger. Non-conformity is an illness. We’re possible sources of contagion.
There are undefined centers were especially egregious individuals are sent of to, in towers without any windows. People are also sometimes returned, brainwashed:
They let her out. Cured - of identity
TV's are in every home instead of books, broadcasting the majority view; travel permits are required and no privacy is to be found, with things disappearing at seemingly random from homes. It's a scary world Kay Dick paints in this book. Despite the sometimes shocking scenes of cruelty there is a crystalline sense of nature as a answer to what humans can do, of small kindness that bind people together despite everything. In the end it doesn't make the book hopeful, but it's definitely a classic in the vein of 1984 while also being completely different. Hence 3.5 stars rounded down, due to the rather fragmented nature and lack of details on the world, counterbalanced by beautiful imagery, and at times, sentences, like:
Like a sparrow deprived of a mate who continues his courting song, thereby attracting the bird of prey, I became insensitive to danger.
Destruction doesn’t count. One can always create again.
The foreword by Carmen Maria Machado gives a lot away, but is also essential, since They is not very accessible with its unnamed narrator and the vagueness of an Kazuo Ishiguro novel like The Buried Giant (with the sadness of Never Let Me Go pervading the book).
The Memory Police also definitely comes to mind, with the arts slowly retreating from Britain.
Society is pervaded by unnamed crowds who hunt on artists, not only destroying their work but also mutilating them when there is resistance. This brings interesting questions of wether one is still an artist without the ability to work (If we lack choice we lack everything), and if destruction can actually undo an act of creativity (It can’t all be destroyed. Some of it will remain for those we come after us.)
What it means to be living with a sword of Damocles, with tranquility and sunbathing hiding occasional near inconceivable cruelty and violence against art, is also definitely something investigated in this book. The reasons for this crusade on art are unclear, as is the society at large. Some semblance of explanation is provided when the artists muse among themselves: We represent danger. Non-conformity is an illness. We’re possible sources of contagion.
There are undefined centers were especially egregious individuals are sent of to, in towers without any windows. People are also sometimes returned, brainwashed:
They let her out. Cured - of identity
TV's are in every home instead of books, broadcasting the majority view; travel permits are required and no privacy is to be found, with things disappearing at seemingly random from homes. It's a scary world Kay Dick paints in this book. Despite the sometimes shocking scenes of cruelty there is a crystalline sense of nature as a answer to what humans can do, of small kindness that bind people together despite everything. In the end it doesn't make the book hopeful, but it's definitely a classic in the vein of 1984 while also being completely different. Hence 3.5 stars rounded down, due to the rather fragmented nature and lack of details on the world, counterbalanced by beautiful imagery, and at times, sentences, like:
Like a sparrow deprived of a mate who continues his courting song, thereby attracting the bird of prey, I became insensitive to danger.
January 12, 2022
Kay Dick’s newly-resurrected novella They depicts a sinister society governed by pervasive, malign forces. First published in 1977, it's reissued here with an introduction by Carmen Maria Machado and endorsements from a host of writers including Claire-Louise Bennett, Eimear McBride, Emily St. John Mandel and Lauren Groff. It’s billed as dystopian fiction but I thought it often had the flavour of folk horror with its monstrous, roaming tribes, forcing their targets into compliance, first by stealth and then through acts of appalling, ritualistic cruelty. The date’s unspecified but the landscapes are recognisably English, the descriptions of sea and countryside inhabited by Dick’s nameless narrator recall the Downs and the Sussex coast where Dick lived out her final years. There’s no overarching explanation for the world trapping the narrator, its features can only be pieced together through their experiences. It’s ruled over by groups known only as “they”, these have uncertain status, at first, "they" seem like a mass movement defined only by what it hates, but as the narrative unfolds there are suggestions of a more ordered, bureaucratic system. “They” single out people living alone as well as artists, writers, craftspeople, anyone who stands out from the ordinary, hell-bent on destroying books, paintings, love letters, any/all expressions of creativity or deep personal bonds.
At times Dick’s depiction of the terrifying “they” made me think of the philistine masses so feared by intellectuals from Virginia Woolf onwards. Their insistence on installing television in every house, building vast concrete estates, blasting the streets with loud music might be viewed as an expression of Dick’s resistance to a changing world, mass media, mass consumption – in their infancy in the 1970s but increasingly influential. But there’s also a sense of despair at other systems focused on ensuring conformity: excess of emotion’s discouraged, the grieving are taken to grief towers out of sight, the eccentric locked away to be cured, returned muted and zombie-like, the vulnerable from pets to people are easy prey. Perhaps the greatest menace is the total absence of empathy. These elements made me wonder how far Dick was drawing from her own life. Dick a lesbian who grew up in a deeply repressive era, and also had a history of suicide attempts and crises, was undoubtedly hyperaware of how rigidly a society’s institutions can police and damage anyone whose behaviour’s labelled undesirable or outside narrow definitions of normality.
But Dick’s story’s not easily unpicked, it’s eerily ambiguous, written in a direct, realist style that highlights the horrors lurking behind every corner - as if George Orwell had been re-edited by Anna Kavan. It’s also oddly graceful at times, filled with moments of quiet beauty, evocative scenes of nature and surrounding countryside. It’s open to multiple interpretations, and curiously suited to now, with its emphasis on environmental destruction, violent culture wars, and fractured societies - it echoes aspects of post-Brexit Britain, even Trump’s America. But whatever meanings may or may not be gleaned from this, I found it impossible to put down, it’s not perfect but at its best it’s a chilling, thought-provoking, fascinating read.
Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Faber Editions, imprint of Faber & Faber for an arc
At times Dick’s depiction of the terrifying “they” made me think of the philistine masses so feared by intellectuals from Virginia Woolf onwards. Their insistence on installing television in every house, building vast concrete estates, blasting the streets with loud music might be viewed as an expression of Dick’s resistance to a changing world, mass media, mass consumption – in their infancy in the 1970s but increasingly influential. But there’s also a sense of despair at other systems focused on ensuring conformity: excess of emotion’s discouraged, the grieving are taken to grief towers out of sight, the eccentric locked away to be cured, returned muted and zombie-like, the vulnerable from pets to people are easy prey. Perhaps the greatest menace is the total absence of empathy. These elements made me wonder how far Dick was drawing from her own life. Dick a lesbian who grew up in a deeply repressive era, and also had a history of suicide attempts and crises, was undoubtedly hyperaware of how rigidly a society’s institutions can police and damage anyone whose behaviour’s labelled undesirable or outside narrow definitions of normality.
But Dick’s story’s not easily unpicked, it’s eerily ambiguous, written in a direct, realist style that highlights the horrors lurking behind every corner - as if George Orwell had been re-edited by Anna Kavan. It’s also oddly graceful at times, filled with moments of quiet beauty, evocative scenes of nature and surrounding countryside. It’s open to multiple interpretations, and curiously suited to now, with its emphasis on environmental destruction, violent culture wars, and fractured societies - it echoes aspects of post-Brexit Britain, even Trump’s America. But whatever meanings may or may not be gleaned from this, I found it impossible to put down, it’s not perfect but at its best it’s a chilling, thought-provoking, fascinating read.
Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Faber Editions, imprint of Faber & Faber for an arc
January 6, 2023
"Loro" è uno pseudo romanzo - invero la giustapposizione di racconti con la stessa ambientazione e qualche personaggio ricorrente - che indaga la paura, quel senso di minaccia sotterranea e violenza mascherata, ravvisabili nella società contemporanea. A fare da sfondo a queste storie del terrore quotidiano è l'Inghilterra lussureggiante della costa, apparentemente innocua e idilliaca ma in realtà teatro di atti feroci.
Con una prosa criptica e secca, Dick dipinge una distopia i cui contorni sono appena tracciati: un gruppo terroristico decide - non sono indagati i motivi - di eliminare ogni traccia di arte, letteratura, musica e qualsiasi prova di sentimento umano, minacciando e punendo con torture e mutilazioni chiunque decida di opporre resistenza alla loro silenziosa operazione di devastazione e distruzione di opere e manufatti pubblici e privati.
Il senso di inquietudine provato dagli artisti, spiati nelle proprie abitazioni, minacciati e privati della loro professione, è reso in maniera distintiva con la creazione di un microuniverso senza tempo dove tutti i racconti sono inseriti, come a formare delle tessere di un mosaico.
Purtroppo ci sono dei limiti evidenti sia nell'esposizione sia nello stile. I racconti hanno tutti la stessa struttura, gli stessi elementi narrativi, lo stesso sfondo, i personaggi sono diversi ma in sostanza uguali, fanno sempre le stesse cose e subiscono sempre le stesse conseguenze in uno schema che, in sole 100 pagine, risulta stancante, oltre che povero d'immaginazione. Dal punto di vista espositivo, il fatto che per ogni racconto ci sia sempre un gruppo nutrito di personaggi di cui ci viene fornito solo il nome, senza nessuna descrizione, oltre a causare lo spiacevolissimo fenomeno noto come name dropping, genera anche molta confusione.
Non aiuta uno stile asciutto fino a risultare arido, molto visivo, con rari sprazzi di introspezione. Apprezzo un certo distacco nel raccontare la paura e l'inquietudine - DeLillo insegna - ma in questi termini risulta davvero desertico.
Con una prosa criptica e secca, Dick dipinge una distopia i cui contorni sono appena tracciati: un gruppo terroristico decide - non sono indagati i motivi - di eliminare ogni traccia di arte, letteratura, musica e qualsiasi prova di sentimento umano, minacciando e punendo con torture e mutilazioni chiunque decida di opporre resistenza alla loro silenziosa operazione di devastazione e distruzione di opere e manufatti pubblici e privati.
Il senso di inquietudine provato dagli artisti, spiati nelle proprie abitazioni, minacciati e privati della loro professione, è reso in maniera distintiva con la creazione di un microuniverso senza tempo dove tutti i racconti sono inseriti, come a formare delle tessere di un mosaico.
Purtroppo ci sono dei limiti evidenti sia nell'esposizione sia nello stile. I racconti hanno tutti la stessa struttura, gli stessi elementi narrativi, lo stesso sfondo, i personaggi sono diversi ma in sostanza uguali, fanno sempre le stesse cose e subiscono sempre le stesse conseguenze in uno schema che, in sole 100 pagine, risulta stancante, oltre che povero d'immaginazione. Dal punto di vista espositivo, il fatto che per ogni racconto ci sia sempre un gruppo nutrito di personaggi di cui ci viene fornito solo il nome, senza nessuna descrizione, oltre a causare lo spiacevolissimo fenomeno noto come name dropping, genera anche molta confusione.
Non aiuta uno stile asciutto fino a risultare arido, molto visivo, con rari sprazzi di introspezione. Apprezzo un certo distacco nel raccontare la paura e l'inquietudine - DeLillo insegna - ma in questi termini risulta davvero desertico.
March 20, 2022
This is a really interesting novella that requires a lot from the Reader. We are presented with a dystopic world but given next to no information about it. It is almost like a rough sketch in which we have to visualise and fill in details making assumptions about what we might already know about the classic elements of a dystopian novel. We wonder who They are and what Their motivations are (beyond the obvious: destroy art and artists, remove creativity and emotion and that old classic chestnut of demanding conformity). What happened to Them to make Them want this world? What is Their power structure? Why cruelty to animals? (yes there are some awful incidents in the novel). There is no big uprising. Instead we just see things from an unknown person (or persons) point of view. It feels like it is one character but on a second read I realised it is likely more than one character but with so many similarities to make it unclear and confusing. I suspect this was part of the author's intent. To have us confused and unsure and as the title says, uneasy. I don't know if I liked it but if the aim was to make me feel unsettled then job well done.
CW: Animal killing/cruelty, suicide, torture
CW: Animal killing/cruelty, suicide, torture
August 16, 2024
"The sky a Prussian blue, the sea awash with sunlight, the beach a cinnamon stretch of sand. From where we stood the garden, high on the cliff, was an undulation of variegated green splashed here and there with the yellows, mauves, pinks of flowering shrubs. Clumps of rosemary and lavender grew like weeds. The profusion of scents intoxicated."
They is a strange, disquieting novel, full of bucolic imagery of an English summer, steadfastly but slowly being encroached on by the haunting, frightening "they" of the title.
"Sebastian gave me his hand. Suddenly, he pulled me to a stop. In front of us a young man ran, panting. He crashed into the bracken. Following him, more steadily, four men. Each man carried a thick coil of rope. They did not glance at us as they passed. My dog barked at them and ran after them . Sebastian whistled him back. We walked on, increasing our speed. As we came to the clearing, within sight of the estuary, we heard the screams. Then silence."
The book is basically a collection of short stories about a group of UK citizens who have moved to the country, as "they" are most numerous in the cities. These people are writers, painters, other artists (the book is very 1970s dystopia), and "they" do not approve of art. Art is regularly destroyed, artists are brutally killed, or are taken away as '"incurables" to what sound like closed institutions.
"An elderly man took over the empty cottage next to mine. He ignored all my greetings and sat in his garden sleeping most of the day. ‘Harmless now.’The shopkeeper mentioned my new neighbour. ‘They emptied him,’she whispered, then gloating, ‘Not a memory left!’I paid my bill and left. "
The book has a dreamy tone, the characters' lives keep going, and "they" only appear in in short, sharp flashes, which only makes them more frightening. It's quite beautifully written.
It's a disconcerting book, and I couldn't stop thinking about it for weeks after finishing it. Recommended if you like your dystopias strange and woozy, the colour of a 70s vintage photograph.
(Thanks to Faber and Faber for providing me with a review copy through NetGalley)
They is a strange, disquieting novel, full of bucolic imagery of an English summer, steadfastly but slowly being encroached on by the haunting, frightening "they" of the title.
"Sebastian gave me his hand. Suddenly, he pulled me to a stop. In front of us a young man ran, panting. He crashed into the bracken. Following him, more steadily, four men. Each man carried a thick coil of rope. They did not glance at us as they passed. My dog barked at them and ran after them . Sebastian whistled him back. We walked on, increasing our speed. As we came to the clearing, within sight of the estuary, we heard the screams. Then silence."
The book is basically a collection of short stories about a group of UK citizens who have moved to the country, as "they" are most numerous in the cities. These people are writers, painters, other artists (the book is very 1970s dystopia), and "they" do not approve of art. Art is regularly destroyed, artists are brutally killed, or are taken away as '"incurables" to what sound like closed institutions.
"An elderly man took over the empty cottage next to mine. He ignored all my greetings and sat in his garden sleeping most of the day. ‘Harmless now.’The shopkeeper mentioned my new neighbour. ‘They emptied him,’she whispered, then gloating, ‘Not a memory left!’I paid my bill and left. "
The book has a dreamy tone, the characters' lives keep going, and "they" only appear in in short, sharp flashes, which only makes them more frightening. It's quite beautifully written.
It's a disconcerting book, and I couldn't stop thinking about it for weeks after finishing it. Recommended if you like your dystopias strange and woozy, the colour of a 70s vintage photograph.
(Thanks to Faber and Faber for providing me with a review copy through NetGalley)
February 27, 2022
I’m not sure how to describe this book. It’s not really a novel, more like a collection of short stories set in the same world. A dystopia where it’s not exactly clear what’s happening except that artists, writers, even gardeners if they’re into beauty, anything individual or emotional are not acceptable. There’s a menacing tone, ‘They’ are watching, removing books, taking people away or worse, returning them empty, memory-less. The intimidating atmosphere is quite powerful and as, I assume a criticism of conformity and the sterility of city living, it works well but as it doesn’t go into any depth about who ‘they’ are, there’s a feeling of incompleteness. Still an interesting short read.
June 23, 2023
Though dystopian in its genetic make-up, They does not carry much of the weight of that genre in its spare narrative. The book comprises nine chapters—each a mostly discrete story of a visit between the unnamed, ungendered narrator and a series of friends who are artists, writers, and other creative free spirits. In some chapters, the narrator travels often at great risk to visit friends at their homes, while in others the friends come to the narrator’s cottage on the seacoast. The titular 'they' are a growing mass of seemingly omnipresent persons who are concerned with stifling individuality and enforcing conformity. The source of their authority is never revealed, but they are empowered to, among other actions, enter any dwelling at will and remove and destroy objects representative of what they oppose, including creativity, emotion, reflection, and free thought.
Dick’s compelling prose is quiet and measured, but in its hints and omissions it radiates ominous waves that ripple through the book (the fitting subtitle is 'a sequence of unease'). One particularly haunting element is how many of the children act like semi-feral monsters—torturing animals and lashing out at any adults who admonish them for their casual cruelty. Dick does employ a few familiar dystopian tropes as the narrative progresses: people who step out of line are taken to 'retreats' where their minds are essentially wiped, thus 'freeing' them from the burden of their identities; television sets are given to households as a way to lull people into complacency; and surveillance teams move from one area to another, staking out possible targets for 'gleaning.' During these surveillance missions, groups of 'sightseers' gather to watch and feed off the negative energy of suppression. These mobs of subhumans trash the surrounding areas, committing acts of violence and vandalism and encouraging their children to do the same.
In her afterword, Lucy Scholes likens the novel’s style and tone to that of experimental British writers Ann Quin, Christine Brooke-Rose, and Anna Kavan. Of these, I saw the closest kinship in style and tone to Quin and Kavan (though admittedly I’ve read them both more extensively than Brooke-Rose). There is a similar controlled tautness to these writers’ prose—a palpable restraint often saturated in dread. All told, They is a rather horrifying read that maintains an exquisite balance of mystery and exposition. The novel’s timeless qualities also further its continued relevance well beyond its original 1977 publication date; this reissue could easily pass for a new contemporary release.
Dick’s compelling prose is quiet and measured, but in its hints and omissions it radiates ominous waves that ripple through the book (the fitting subtitle is 'a sequence of unease'). One particularly haunting element is how many of the children act like semi-feral monsters—torturing animals and lashing out at any adults who admonish them for their casual cruelty. Dick does employ a few familiar dystopian tropes as the narrative progresses: people who step out of line are taken to 'retreats' where their minds are essentially wiped, thus 'freeing' them from the burden of their identities; television sets are given to households as a way to lull people into complacency; and surveillance teams move from one area to another, staking out possible targets for 'gleaning.' During these surveillance missions, groups of 'sightseers' gather to watch and feed off the negative energy of suppression. These mobs of subhumans trash the surrounding areas, committing acts of violence and vandalism and encouraging their children to do the same.
In her afterword, Lucy Scholes likens the novel’s style and tone to that of experimental British writers Ann Quin, Christine Brooke-Rose, and Anna Kavan. Of these, I saw the closest kinship in style and tone to Quin and Kavan (though admittedly I’ve read them both more extensively than Brooke-Rose). There is a similar controlled tautness to these writers’ prose—a palpable restraint often saturated in dread. All told, They is a rather horrifying read that maintains an exquisite balance of mystery and exposition. The novel’s timeless qualities also further its continued relevance well beyond its original 1977 publication date; this reissue could easily pass for a new contemporary release.
October 20, 2022
A short novella made up of a series of what seem to be dream sequences. The ‘they’ in the title is a group that appears to wander the country removing art works, musical instruments, and books. It’s an interesting enough as a critique of those that would limit or destroy ones artistic of intellectual freedoms, but it isn’t that great a read. I found it a little boring.
June 23, 2022
full post here
http://www.oddlyweirdfiction.com/2022...
I'd never even heard of this book nor its author, and I stumbled onto both accidentally when an email came to me from McNally Editions, advertising their book bundle that included They. (By the way, it's also available from Faber, published in March of this year with an introduction by Carmen Maria Machado.) I bought said bundle and put the books aside for later, but then I got another email from a reader friend who was blown away by They and highly recommended it. I took that as a sign that maybe I should read it sooner rather than later.
I suppose for some people it may be a stretch to call this book a novel; it is a series of nine short stories which are linked by the recurrence of an unnamed, ungendered narrator, the "I" who travels around the "rolling hills and sandy shingle beaches of coastal Sussex" with a dog visiting pockets of artist/intellectual friends during a time when mobs are roaming throughout England bent on the destruction of the arts (including literature), working to stifle creative freedom and to impose their own version of conformity. "They" are "over a million, nearer two," but how this situation developed is not explained; the author, I think, is less interested in the hows and whys than the idea of what it may be like to live in a world (to quote the book blurb) "hostile to beauty, emotion, and the individual." At the same time, perhaps the not knowing makes it all the more horrific, heightening the sense of menace and paranoia that grows with each chapter.
After looking around online for any info about this novel and its author, I've discovered that there are different ways of looking at it, one of them a straight-up look at the encroachment of fascism, and I have to say that I'm absolutely floored by how the author managed to convey such menace, paranoia and unease in such a short amount of space, but more importantly, by how what she wrote still resonates nearly fifty years later. The lack of backstory in this book didn't bother me as it did some readers, nor did the fact that the chapters were so brief so that the characters were never really explored; for me it's more about the bigger picture here -- quite honestly, when I think about the last administration's lack of respect for the arts, labeling funding for institutions like PBS, the NEA, the NEH and the Institute of Museum and Library Services a waste of money, the current wave of book bannings, it makes me angry and afraid. And of course, considering the concept of "the mob" in our own contemporary context, well, it's pretty damn scary. Definitely a book that should not be missed, and this is coming from someone who rarely reads dystopian novels.
http://www.oddlyweirdfiction.com/2022...
I'd never even heard of this book nor its author, and I stumbled onto both accidentally when an email came to me from McNally Editions, advertising their book bundle that included They. (By the way, it's also available from Faber, published in March of this year with an introduction by Carmen Maria Machado.) I bought said bundle and put the books aside for later, but then I got another email from a reader friend who was blown away by They and highly recommended it. I took that as a sign that maybe I should read it sooner rather than later.
I suppose for some people it may be a stretch to call this book a novel; it is a series of nine short stories which are linked by the recurrence of an unnamed, ungendered narrator, the "I" who travels around the "rolling hills and sandy shingle beaches of coastal Sussex" with a dog visiting pockets of artist/intellectual friends during a time when mobs are roaming throughout England bent on the destruction of the arts (including literature), working to stifle creative freedom and to impose their own version of conformity. "They" are "over a million, nearer two," but how this situation developed is not explained; the author, I think, is less interested in the hows and whys than the idea of what it may be like to live in a world (to quote the book blurb) "hostile to beauty, emotion, and the individual." At the same time, perhaps the not knowing makes it all the more horrific, heightening the sense of menace and paranoia that grows with each chapter.
After looking around online for any info about this novel and its author, I've discovered that there are different ways of looking at it, one of them a straight-up look at the encroachment of fascism, and I have to say that I'm absolutely floored by how the author managed to convey such menace, paranoia and unease in such a short amount of space, but more importantly, by how what she wrote still resonates nearly fifty years later. The lack of backstory in this book didn't bother me as it did some readers, nor did the fact that the chapters were so brief so that the characters were never really explored; for me it's more about the bigger picture here -- quite honestly, when I think about the last administration's lack of respect for the arts, labeling funding for institutions like PBS, the NEA, the NEH and the Institute of Museum and Library Services a waste of money, the current wave of book bannings, it makes me angry and afraid. And of course, considering the concept of "the mob" in our own contemporary context, well, it's pretty damn scary. Definitely a book that should not be missed, and this is coming from someone who rarely reads dystopian novels.
December 24, 2022
They, subtitled A Sequence of Unease, is a strange little novella first published in 1977 and now reissued by Faber Books. Its author, Kay Dick, was a bisexual intellectual who wrote fiction as well as literary biographies, reviews and journalistic pieces. Her background must surely have shaped the concerns raised in this novella.
They is set during an unspecified time period (although, likely meant to be a contemporary one) in which England is slowly but surely being taken over by a class of loutish anti-intellectuals who use violent bullying tactics to eradicate the arts. They go around the country burning books, destroying sculptures and paintings and generally stifling all attempts at creativity through acts of torture. But the agenda of this philistine group is not limited to attacking the arts. They also engage in wanton vandalism, encourage their children to be cruel to animals and urinate against public buildings, and look askance at persons who prefer to live alone (and who might therefore be tempted to think individually).
The novella’s narrative approach is a strange and potentially confusing one. Although written in the first person, we are told very little about the (unnamed) narrator except that the narrator (He? She? They?) appears to be a writer and moves in artistic circles. The story is split into a number of vignettes which do not clearly follow one another. Indeed, at times I even wondered whether the narrator was changing from one chapter/section to another although repeated references to the narrator’s dog suggest otherwise. Although on the one hand this detached style makes it difficult to feel empathy with the characters, it does contribute very effectively to the strong sense of increasing danger and impending dread. Dick taps into genre fiction to achieve her results. Thus, They is a clear example of dystopian fiction, but it also has echoes of the horror genre in its description of the bucolic landscapes of England in the grips of an oppressive, suffocating threat.
They reminded me somewhat of Jacqueline Harpman’s I Who Have Never Known Men (referenced by Carmen Maria Machado in her brief but insightful introduction to this Faber edition) as well as some of the more “political” of J.B. Priestley’s weird fiction. But it is also very much its own thing, a disturbing little book which was (unsurprisingly) misunderstood on its first publication and now making a deserved return to print.
https://endsoftheword.blogspot.com/20...
They is set during an unspecified time period (although, likely meant to be a contemporary one) in which England is slowly but surely being taken over by a class of loutish anti-intellectuals who use violent bullying tactics to eradicate the arts. They go around the country burning books, destroying sculptures and paintings and generally stifling all attempts at creativity through acts of torture. But the agenda of this philistine group is not limited to attacking the arts. They also engage in wanton vandalism, encourage their children to be cruel to animals and urinate against public buildings, and look askance at persons who prefer to live alone (and who might therefore be tempted to think individually).
The novella’s narrative approach is a strange and potentially confusing one. Although written in the first person, we are told very little about the (unnamed) narrator except that the narrator (He? She? They?) appears to be a writer and moves in artistic circles. The story is split into a number of vignettes which do not clearly follow one another. Indeed, at times I even wondered whether the narrator was changing from one chapter/section to another although repeated references to the narrator’s dog suggest otherwise. Although on the one hand this detached style makes it difficult to feel empathy with the characters, it does contribute very effectively to the strong sense of increasing danger and impending dread. Dick taps into genre fiction to achieve her results. Thus, They is a clear example of dystopian fiction, but it also has echoes of the horror genre in its description of the bucolic landscapes of England in the grips of an oppressive, suffocating threat.
They reminded me somewhat of Jacqueline Harpman’s I Who Have Never Known Men (referenced by Carmen Maria Machado in her brief but insightful introduction to this Faber edition) as well as some of the more “political” of J.B. Priestley’s weird fiction. But it is also very much its own thing, a disturbing little book which was (unsurprisingly) misunderstood on its first publication and now making a deserved return to print.
https://endsoftheword.blogspot.com/20...
December 1, 2021
2.5 rounded down
One of the series of "Faber Editions", a series they describe as "dedicated to radical literary voices from across the world". Having read and enjoyed the first of this series (Mrs Caliban) I was curious to check out They, which is touted as a dystopian classic.
The novella is structured as a series of short chapters featuring different characters (often creatives) whose lives are impacted upon by the eponymous "they", a group of individuals who have a sinister but vague background presence and impact on the lives of the protagonists of these individual stories/scenes.
I enjoyed a couple of the stories later in the book but found this just too slight and with too little world-building to fully engage with it. This was probably very ahead of its time when it was first published but unfortunately it only served to remind me of examples of this type of fiction (I Who Have Never Known Men) which worked better.
Thank you Netgalley and Faber & Faber for the advance copy, which was provided in exchange for an honest review.
One of the series of "Faber Editions", a series they describe as "dedicated to radical literary voices from across the world". Having read and enjoyed the first of this series (Mrs Caliban) I was curious to check out They, which is touted as a dystopian classic.
The novella is structured as a series of short chapters featuring different characters (often creatives) whose lives are impacted upon by the eponymous "they", a group of individuals who have a sinister but vague background presence and impact on the lives of the protagonists of these individual stories/scenes.
I enjoyed a couple of the stories later in the book but found this just too slight and with too little world-building to fully engage with it. This was probably very ahead of its time when it was first published but unfortunately it only served to remind me of examples of this type of fiction (I Who Have Never Known Men) which worked better.
Thank you Netgalley and Faber & Faber for the advance copy, which was provided in exchange for an honest review.
February 12, 2022
Not exactly sure what I just read.
August 27, 2023
This is a very strange book on one hand and fascinating on the other. Characters are introduced in almost every chapter but they're never described, in fact the main character is never identified as either male or female but I suspect she's female. 'She' has lots of friends and moves around the country in every chapter finding strength from her friends.
The 'they' of the title are never identified and the reason they're doing what's described in the book is never given. Books have pages torn from them in people's homes, then individual books are taken, before whole libraries are confiscated and destroyed. Art is taken, glassware smashed, and art galleries are emptied.
Artists are persecuted: weavers, writers, painters, sculptors are all taken away either to be cleansed or killed depending on the severity of their crime. Single people and those couples without children suffer the same fate. Children are taught to hate animals.
There's no happy ending and I like the book for this reason.
The 'they' of the title are never identified and the reason they're doing what's described in the book is never given. Books have pages torn from them in people's homes, then individual books are taken, before whole libraries are confiscated and destroyed. Art is taken, glassware smashed, and art galleries are emptied.
Artists are persecuted: weavers, writers, painters, sculptors are all taken away either to be cleansed or killed depending on the severity of their crime. Single people and those couples without children suffer the same fate. Children are taught to hate animals.
There's no happy ending and I like the book for this reason.
September 6, 2022
This is a confusing and vague story. I didn’t like the writing style, with its endless short sentences, that make you feel like your reading a story written in bullet points. We never get a handle on who ‘They’ actually are, or how They operate almost unseen like phantoms, or what the wider picture is for what is happening.
The whole thing feels like an experimental piece written by an author early in their career, but like many experimental works, it’s not very readable. If the book wasn’t so short, I’d have DNF-ed. The most interesting bit was the introduction by Carmen Maria Machado. Overall though, you can safely give this one a miss.
The whole thing feels like an experimental piece written by an author early in their career, but like many experimental works, it’s not very readable. If the book wasn’t so short, I’d have DNF-ed. The most interesting bit was the introduction by Carmen Maria Machado. Overall though, you can safely give this one a miss.
March 8, 2022
Who can resist a story about a literary editor chancing upon a copy of a novel that's been out of print for over three decades and hails it as a lost dystopian classic? That's the seductive tale which accompanies the recent republication of “They”, a 1977 novel by a notorious figure from the 20th century literary scene. Though Kay Dick is barely remembered now, an obituary written for The Guardian in 2001 by Michael De-la-Noy makes her sound infamously unreliable, cash-strapped and vindictive. It's an ignominious end for a woman who was once George Orwell's editor and is called by Carmen Maria Machado “a trailblazing queer author.” This new edition of the novel is also covered with a string of endorsements from Margaret Atwood, Eimear Mcbride and Claire-Louise Bennett. If I'm focusing more on the author's reputation it's because I found myself more interested in the author herself than the content of her novel.
By Machado's account, “They” is an unusual volume amongst Dicks' slender oeuvre as its cryptic stories describe a series of artistic individuals being intimidated by an unnamed group who are watchful, destructive and intensely creepy. The painters, sculptors, musicians and writers who populate this novel revel in nature, thrive in having intellectual exchanges and delight in friendship. However, their individuality and desire to express themselves makes them a target for the menacing figures who hover in the distance. These figures don't seem to belong to any one organization, but represent a homogenized bullying group. The artists realise that “We represent danger. Non-conformity is an illness.” They endeavour to find ways to cultivate their individual expression and exist on the margins of this repressive society even if some of them are punished, pillaged and have their memories wiped.
Read my full review of They by Kay Dick at LonesomeReader
By Machado's account, “They” is an unusual volume amongst Dicks' slender oeuvre as its cryptic stories describe a series of artistic individuals being intimidated by an unnamed group who are watchful, destructive and intensely creepy. The painters, sculptors, musicians and writers who populate this novel revel in nature, thrive in having intellectual exchanges and delight in friendship. However, their individuality and desire to express themselves makes them a target for the menacing figures who hover in the distance. These figures don't seem to belong to any one organization, but represent a homogenized bullying group. The artists realise that “We represent danger. Non-conformity is an illness.” They endeavour to find ways to cultivate their individual expression and exist on the margins of this repressive society even if some of them are punished, pillaged and have their memories wiped.
Read my full review of They by Kay Dick at LonesomeReader
October 6, 2022
It's great to read something that feels utterly unique and has it's own view of the world. This short novel consists of a series of linked episodes narrated by the same woman as she visits or is visited by friends. This is against an ominous backdrop of the actions of a group trying to suppress artists or in fact anyone attempting real communication between people.
The subtitle "A Sequence of Unease" is spot on as the deliberately sketchy allusions to this other group of people just magnify the terror they are causing despite the main characters constantly downplaying their influence.
The narrative cleverly skips over significant events leaving the reader to fill in the gaps which also adds to the air of menace.
The subtitle "A Sequence of Unease" is spot on as the deliberately sketchy allusions to this other group of people just magnify the terror they are causing despite the main characters constantly downplaying their influence.
The narrative cleverly skips over significant events leaving the reader to fill in the gaps which also adds to the air of menace.
February 3, 2022
They, Kay Dick’s 1977 novella, is a quick and easy read. It’s also a disturbing story which was pretty much ignored when it was first published. A literary agent came across a copy in a charity shop and that’s ultimately how it came to be republished in 2022.
They dislike any form of individuality, for example artists, musicians, writers, the unmarried, the childless, and consequently they destroy paintings, books, poetry etc. They also engage in vandalism, encourage their children to be cruel to animals, urinate in public, and are suspicious of anyone who lives alone.
The novella’s unnamed narrator, and their companions, are trying to retain their identities and creative impulses against this oppressive backdrop of unrelenting threat.
They is a little confusing and incoherent. The story is told via a number of episodes which are not always obviously related to each other. This technique, perhaps intentionally, makes the action feel at a remove. There are a lot of unanswered questions. Why are the children so cruel? Why are the artists so indistinguishable? Why is art and creativity such a threat? That said, the pervasive sense of increasing dread and danger is palpable.
This unsettling vibe of creeping dread, and the many provocative questions the story raises, would make this novella an interesting choice for a book group discussion.
3/5
They (1977) by Kay Dick
They dislike any form of individuality, for example artists, musicians, writers, the unmarried, the childless, and consequently they destroy paintings, books, poetry etc. They also engage in vandalism, encourage their children to be cruel to animals, urinate in public, and are suspicious of anyone who lives alone.
The novella’s unnamed narrator, and their companions, are trying to retain their identities and creative impulses against this oppressive backdrop of unrelenting threat.
They is a little confusing and incoherent. The story is told via a number of episodes which are not always obviously related to each other. This technique, perhaps intentionally, makes the action feel at a remove. There are a lot of unanswered questions. Why are the children so cruel? Why are the artists so indistinguishable? Why is art and creativity such a threat? That said, the pervasive sense of increasing dread and danger is palpable.
This unsettling vibe of creeping dread, and the many provocative questions the story raises, would make this novella an interesting choice for a book group discussion.
3/5
They (1977) by Kay Dick
December 26, 2021
Intrygujące i niepokojące, pozostawiające duże pole dla wyobraźni czytelnika, ponieważ wiele rzeczy w tych historiach pozostaje niedopowiedzianych, niewyjaśnionych. Sposób prowadzenia narracji i prosty język przytrzymuje uwagę i nie pozwala na odpływanie myślami. Dobra odskocznia od rzeczywistości na jeden dłuższy wieczór (albo dwa).
January 9, 2023
Nie ma ekspozycji, eksplikacji, szczegółów, chronologii. Są subtelne wskazówki, groza, zawrotne tempo i piękne, pospieszne obrazy. Przemilczane znaczy więcej niż wypowiedziane. Nagły skok na głęboką wodę i równie nagłe wynurzenie.
March 27, 2022
Think Fahrenheit 451 crossed with, say, The Wicker Man or The Midwich Cuckoos, add a splash of Orwell and a touch of McGooghan's The Prisoner, and that might get you close to They.
The overt brutality used by Them is relatively rare, but extreme when used. The menacing feeling of presence, surveillance and consequences results in a society which brutalises itself, through suspicion of difference and non-conformity. The random violence and sadism perpetrated by children is a chilling indication of the moral perversion caused by intolerance and authoritarianism. Artists are most despised for their personal vision, and are increasingly persecuted and 'disappeared'.
The novella takes the form of discrete chapters, a series of vignettes centred on unnamed narrators (who, given certain events, must be more than one person) linked by the slowly developing socio-political setting. Little is explained, but it all feels sadly too comprehensible. The contrast between the idyllic rural settings (cities are mentioned but not entered) and the brooding atmosphere of oppression is marvellously handled.
As Machado states in her introduction, there is no political bias in Dick's story, the oppressive force could be of any persuasion, with one hint that, perhaps, there is a religious element to it. Machado cautions that if you see in Them your political or social opposite, you would be wise to turn that critical gaze also upon yourself.
The overt brutality used by Them is relatively rare, but extreme when used. The menacing feeling of presence, surveillance and consequences results in a society which brutalises itself, through suspicion of difference and non-conformity. The random violence and sadism perpetrated by children is a chilling indication of the moral perversion caused by intolerance and authoritarianism. Artists are most despised for their personal vision, and are increasingly persecuted and 'disappeared'.
The novella takes the form of discrete chapters, a series of vignettes centred on unnamed narrators (who, given certain events, must be more than one person) linked by the slowly developing socio-political setting. Little is explained, but it all feels sadly too comprehensible. The contrast between the idyllic rural settings (cities are mentioned but not entered) and the brooding atmosphere of oppression is marvellously handled.
As Machado states in her introduction, there is no political bias in Dick's story, the oppressive force could be of any persuasion, with one hint that, perhaps, there is a religious element to it. Machado cautions that if you see in Them your political or social opposite, you would be wise to turn that critical gaze also upon yourself.
March 28, 2022
3.5 stars.
I have quite a unique tie to this book. I actually work at the charity/thrift store in which They was discovered after nearly 50 years out of print. I held the original penguin copy in my hand in August of 2020 and placed it out on the shopfloor for just 50p. There was nothing that screamed out wait stop, you need to search this one up! I recently met Becky, the agent who found They in our shop. It's a major discovery and especially bringing back a voice that was denied by the previous publisher due to poor sales and homophobic practices. We've been featured in the New Yorker, The Guardian and Financial Times just to name a few places that have shared this story with the world.
They is a simple novella except it doesn't come across as simple. It is dark and gothic, sometimes frightful and makes the gut turn a little bit inside. A dystopian split into short stories that intertwine rather than chapters makes for an eye-opening read. The author Kay herself was connected to the Orwell Society (George Orwell) and was a huge fan of his writing. You can definitely pick up on the similarities between the two writing styles and atmospheric storylines the more you read of They. If you enjoyed 1984, you will like this a lot.
There were times when I wasn't really sure exactly which direction the main story was heading in, but that suspense did want to keep me reading till the final page. I would have loved a little more connection with the characters as events chopped and changed and new faces came in with old ones leaving.
Please consider picking They up because of the discovery. I am always researching old gems that need to be back into the public interest since after this, I'm convinced that many more exist and tracking them down would be the best thing to do.
I have quite a unique tie to this book. I actually work at the charity/thrift store in which They was discovered after nearly 50 years out of print. I held the original penguin copy in my hand in August of 2020 and placed it out on the shopfloor for just 50p. There was nothing that screamed out wait stop, you need to search this one up! I recently met Becky, the agent who found They in our shop. It's a major discovery and especially bringing back a voice that was denied by the previous publisher due to poor sales and homophobic practices. We've been featured in the New Yorker, The Guardian and Financial Times just to name a few places that have shared this story with the world.
They is a simple novella except it doesn't come across as simple. It is dark and gothic, sometimes frightful and makes the gut turn a little bit inside. A dystopian split into short stories that intertwine rather than chapters makes for an eye-opening read. The author Kay herself was connected to the Orwell Society (George Orwell) and was a huge fan of his writing. You can definitely pick up on the similarities between the two writing styles and atmospheric storylines the more you read of They. If you enjoyed 1984, you will like this a lot.
There were times when I wasn't really sure exactly which direction the main story was heading in, but that suspense did want to keep me reading till the final page. I would have loved a little more connection with the characters as events chopped and changed and new faces came in with old ones leaving.
Please consider picking They up because of the discovery. I am always researching old gems that need to be back into the public interest since after this, I'm convinced that many more exist and tracking them down would be the best thing to do.
November 11, 2022
Niesamowity dystopijny klimat, ale niestety, jak dla mnie za dużo jest tu niedopowiedzeń, a za mało wyjaśnień, żebym mógł faktycznie zanurzyć się w tym świecie. Wolałbym chyba przeczytać bardziej klasyczną powieść osadzoną w opisywanej rzeczywistości, bo jednak przedstawienie kilku narracji mnie rozpraszało. Doceniam, choć tytuł nie dla mnie.
January 12, 2024
Published in 1977 and rediscovered in Bath in 2022, a weird little Dystopian book of short stories written by a lesbian author was not appreciated during it's time, but today feels more important than ever. They isn't a story that flows from chapter to chapter, but truly is just an overall feeling of unease.
I'm fascinated by the rise of British Dystopia novels from the 60s and 70s, and what caused the rise of them. This fits in perfectly with the likes of 1984 and A Clockwork Orange, but while these books are set in cities, They travels across the English countryside, in search of peace.
The mysterious They appear in every chapter, their origins unknown. They appear in houses, they target artists, free thinkers, anyone outside the norm. From a Queer perspective, I can see a lot of parallels with the Queer movement over the last few decades, and I really connected with this story.
I'm fascinated by the rise of British Dystopia novels from the 60s and 70s, and what caused the rise of them. This fits in perfectly with the likes of 1984 and A Clockwork Orange, but while these books are set in cities, They travels across the English countryside, in search of peace.
The mysterious They appear in every chapter, their origins unknown. They appear in houses, they target artists, free thinkers, anyone outside the norm. From a Queer perspective, I can see a lot of parallels with the Queer movement over the last few decades, and I really connected with this story.
November 30, 2019
Reminded me of Anna Kavan (Ice), J.G. Ballard (The Atrocity Exhibition) and Richard Matheson (I Am Legend). Not sure it's Sci Fi. Maybe Fantasy? Maybe Horror? Weird? Speculative?
January 26, 2023
Di cosa si ha paura?
C’è chi teme la morte, la solitudine, le persone…
Ma più spesso ciò che fa accapponare la pelle dalla paura è ciò che non si conosce: l’ignoto. Qualcosa o qualcuno che impone la propria violenza senza mostrarsi. E la minaccia sottesa è talmente violenta da non lasciare altra possibilità se non quella di piegarsi.
𝐋𝐨𝐫𝐨 è una distopia in cui a essere minacciata è qualsiasi forma d’arte e di cultura, e per questo motivo la si cerca di reprimere.
Il motivo è semplice: la cultura crea spirito critico, indipendenza, capacità di reagire… e in un mondo in cui pochi vogliono imporsi su molti, queste caratteristiche sono intollerabili. Perciò, a poco a poco dipinti, opere letterarie o musicali vengono bruciate, eliminate, rubate.
Tutto avviene quasi all’oscuro, quasi come se si trattasse di ricordi da cancellare, di individualità da annullare; e chi si ribella viene punito.
Per questo, 𝐋𝐨𝐫𝐨 non è un vero e proprio romanzo, ma una sequenza di atti separati (ma chiaramente collegati) in cui si entra in medias res, affinché il lettore si trovi pienamente immerso nella vicenda e venga contagiato dall’inquietudine che essa sprigiona.
E ognuna di esse fa parte di un puzzle più grande, quasi come la tela di un pittore: il quadro è chiaro solo alla fine, ma ogni pennellata è sintomo di ciò che sta per essere dato alla luce.
Personalmente, ho apprezzato sia la scrittura di Dick che l’idea alla base del racconto, che ho letto in una mattinata e che ho trovato possa essere una specie di allegoria della società contemporanea. Avrei preferito però che fosse spiegato più nel dettaglio e reso in più pagine, perché in questo modo non sono riuscita a empatizzare con alcun personaggio né con la vicenda, che ho trovato dimenticabile.
C’è chi teme la morte, la solitudine, le persone…
Ma più spesso ciò che fa accapponare la pelle dalla paura è ciò che non si conosce: l’ignoto. Qualcosa o qualcuno che impone la propria violenza senza mostrarsi. E la minaccia sottesa è talmente violenta da non lasciare altra possibilità se non quella di piegarsi.
𝐋𝐨𝐫𝐨 è una distopia in cui a essere minacciata è qualsiasi forma d’arte e di cultura, e per questo motivo la si cerca di reprimere.
Il motivo è semplice: la cultura crea spirito critico, indipendenza, capacità di reagire… e in un mondo in cui pochi vogliono imporsi su molti, queste caratteristiche sono intollerabili. Perciò, a poco a poco dipinti, opere letterarie o musicali vengono bruciate, eliminate, rubate.
Tutto avviene quasi all’oscuro, quasi come se si trattasse di ricordi da cancellare, di individualità da annullare; e chi si ribella viene punito.
Per questo, 𝐋𝐨𝐫𝐨 non è un vero e proprio romanzo, ma una sequenza di atti separati (ma chiaramente collegati) in cui si entra in medias res, affinché il lettore si trovi pienamente immerso nella vicenda e venga contagiato dall’inquietudine che essa sprigiona.
E ognuna di esse fa parte di un puzzle più grande, quasi come la tela di un pittore: il quadro è chiaro solo alla fine, ma ogni pennellata è sintomo di ciò che sta per essere dato alla luce.
Personalmente, ho apprezzato sia la scrittura di Dick che l’idea alla base del racconto, che ho letto in una mattinata e che ho trovato possa essere una specie di allegoria della società contemporanea. Avrei preferito però che fosse spiegato più nel dettaglio e reso in più pagine, perché in questo modo non sono riuscita a empatizzare con alcun personaggio né con la vicenda, che ho trovato dimenticabile.
March 19, 2022
Ainda não foi desta… Que livrinho desinteressante, confuso, contado através da descrição do que as personagens estão a fazer: vai para a cadeira, senta-se, levanta-se, vira a cara, olha em frente, vê os campos…
“Histórias” curtas que procuram mostrar a permanência da arte após decretarem o seu fim e o esforço de alguns para a manter viva.
Mas fá-lo de forma tão hermética, tão maçuda, que simplesmente não me importei nunca em saber o que quer que fosse sobre as personagens ou a situação. Consegue a proeza de tornar uma distopia enfadonha.
É o típico caso em que as considerações e divagações em torno da obra ultrapassam em muito o que ela contém.
“Histórias” curtas que procuram mostrar a permanência da arte após decretarem o seu fim e o esforço de alguns para a manter viva.
Mas fá-lo de forma tão hermética, tão maçuda, que simplesmente não me importei nunca em saber o que quer que fosse sobre as personagens ou a situação. Consegue a proeza de tornar uma distopia enfadonha.
É o típico caso em que as considerações e divagações em torno da obra ultrapassam em muito o que ela contém.
March 21, 2022
A nice sense of menace pervades this novella. An unnamed narrator relates how "they" destroy all instances of art and communication, and when someone persists at that activity, "they" harm them or kill them.
It's a scary concept, and the book had good atmosphere, as I never knew when the next murder would happen. But. I also found my attention kept sliding away as I listened to this.
It's a scary concept, and the book had good atmosphere, as I never knew when the next murder would happen. But. I also found my attention kept sliding away as I listened to this.
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