Status
Available
Call number
Publication
Avon (1972), Edition: 2nd Paperback Edition, 175 pages
Description
In this chillingly plausible work of speculative fiction, Thomas M. Disch imagines an alternate 1970s in which America has declared war on the rest of the world and much of its own citizenry and is willing to use any weapon to assure victory. Louis Sacchetti, a poet imprisoned for draft resistance, is delivered to a secret facility called Camp Archimedes, where he is the unwilling witness to the army's conscienceless experiments in "intelligence maximization." In the experiment, Prisoners are given Pallidine, a drug derived from the syphilis spirochete, and their mental abilities quickly rise to the level of genius. Unfortunately, a side effect of Pallidine is death.
User reviews
LibraryThing member laamish
Since I first read this book 30-some years ago, it has been one of my favorites. I often wish it had somehow been adapted to a movie. The exploration of what creates creativity and the idea of an AIDS-like(and not so like) virus a dozen years before the epidemic still hold true. It is a dystopian
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world where the Vietnam war did not die. (President McNamara, indeed-- Too much Rumsfeld in that vision) In some ways, Disch's best, prescient work. Show Less
LibraryThing member CBJames
Camp Concentration by Thomas M. Disch makes for two dystopian science fiction novels in a row. I seem to be reading quite a bit of this stuff lately. I'm not really writing a review of this one--I didn't really like it and I only review books I like. So please don't consider what follows a
Written in 1968, Camp Concentration is full of Big Brother type anti-government paranoia. The narrator/hero is serving a five year prison sentence as a conscientious objector for refusing to join the U.S. army. The U.S. is fighting a war against an unnamed opponent but that's just a narrative device to get the narrator in prison--this book is not about the war. Shortly into his sentence, the narrator is taken to a secret laboratory where he is forced to participate in a government experiment to develop a drug that will make people smarter. The drug works but at a price--while those who take it become geniuses, they also slowly die from the side effects. This may sound very familiar to fans of Daniel Keyes book Flowers for Alegernon which was a much better in my view. I've not read it since high school, but all of my friends were very moved by it. In Flowers for Algernon an uneducated, mentally disabled janitor is given a drug that over time makes him a genius. It's written as a first person narrative so the writing itself mirrors this process. The effects of the drug eventually begin to wear off, which we can see in the writing as the narrator returns to his natural state. All of the cool kids at Foothill High School, class of 1982, loved it.
Camp Concentration is an entertaining read, for the most part. It becomes a bit bogged down towards the end when the narrator starts debating politics with the other characters. (I found myself mercilessly skimming--another reason why this is not a review.) Dystopian science fiction is supposed to reveal truths about contemporary society, but it's not supposed to preach it. Make Room! Make Room! by Harry Harrison, which I reviewed yesterday, got a little preachy towards the end too, but the overall novel was a much better read that Camp Concentration. If you happen to be looking for this sort of novel, I'd go with Mr. Harrison's book or with Mr. Keyes's.
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review.Written in 1968, Camp Concentration is full of Big Brother type anti-government paranoia. The narrator/hero is serving a five year prison sentence as a conscientious objector for refusing to join the U.S. army. The U.S. is fighting a war against an unnamed opponent but that's just a narrative device to get the narrator in prison--this book is not about the war. Shortly into his sentence, the narrator is taken to a secret laboratory where he is forced to participate in a government experiment to develop a drug that will make people smarter. The drug works but at a price--while those who take it become geniuses, they also slowly die from the side effects. This may sound very familiar to fans of Daniel Keyes book Flowers for Alegernon which was a much better in my view. I've not read it since high school, but all of my friends were very moved by it. In Flowers for Algernon an uneducated, mentally disabled janitor is given a drug that over time makes him a genius. It's written as a first person narrative so the writing itself mirrors this process. The effects of the drug eventually begin to wear off, which we can see in the writing as the narrator returns to his natural state. All of the cool kids at Foothill High School, class of 1982, loved it.
Camp Concentration is an entertaining read, for the most part. It becomes a bit bogged down towards the end when the narrator starts debating politics with the other characters. (I found myself mercilessly skimming--another reason why this is not a review.) Dystopian science fiction is supposed to reveal truths about contemporary society, but it's not supposed to preach it. Make Room! Make Room! by Harry Harrison, which I reviewed yesterday, got a little preachy towards the end too, but the overall novel was a much better read that Camp Concentration. If you happen to be looking for this sort of novel, I'd go with Mr. Harrison's book or with Mr. Keyes's.
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LibraryThing member bragan
A short SF novel from 1972, in which a poet is jailed for refusing the draft and then sent off to document a secret government program in which prisoners are experimented on to raise their intelligence. The prisoners spend a lot of time talking about religion and philosophy (and, oddly,
There are individual moments here I really liked: a clever and insightful line of dialog, or a very dry, sly, intellectual bit of humor here and there. And the novel as a whole does capture something of the troubled spirit of its times. But for the most part, the only word I can use to describe it is "pretentious." Very, very pretentious. It also goes in for a trope that really bugs me: the use of an eidetic memory and a taste for high culture as signifiers of soaring intelligence. Admittedly, it's not quite as simplistic as that, but that doesn't stop it from annoying me. I did think, briefly, that it was at least going to pull off a very bold, very bleak sort of ending, but ultimately it cheated its way out.
A while back, I read Disch's The Prisoner, a novel based on the classic TV show which had some similar elements to this one: prisoners, psychological experiments, weirdness, philosophical commentary, and all. I must say, I liked that one a lot better. (And it may be as unusual among TV tie-in novels as its source material was among TV shows.)
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alchemy).There are individual moments here I really liked: a clever and insightful line of dialog, or a very dry, sly, intellectual bit of humor here and there. And the novel as a whole does capture something of the troubled spirit of its times. But for the most part, the only word I can use to describe it is "pretentious." Very, very pretentious. It also goes in for a trope that really bugs me: the use of an eidetic memory and a taste for high culture as signifiers of soaring intelligence. Admittedly, it's not quite as simplistic as that, but that doesn't stop it from annoying me. I did think, briefly, that it was at least going to pull off a very bold, very bleak sort of ending, but ultimately it cheated its way out.
A while back, I read Disch's The Prisoner, a novel based on the classic TV show which had some similar elements to this one: prisoners, psychological experiments, weirdness, philosophical commentary, and all. I must say, I liked that one a lot better. (And it may be as unusual among TV tie-in novels as its source material was among TV shows.)
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LibraryThing member mrgan
Wow, wow, wow.
LibraryThing member jonfaith
What should be shocking instead arouses a curiosity. Camp Concentration details a government experiment where prisoners are injected with a compound which makes them progressively hyper intelligent before the syphilis component in the injection leads them to madness and death. A poet who had been
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imprisoned as a conscientious objector to the forever war is asked to chronicle the process. The inmates stage a play Faustus (by Kit Marlow) and the poet pens a play Auschwitz: a comedy. The whole enterprise feels like it is staged, people speak in speeches, think Marat/Sade meets Punishment Park. The Peter Watkins reference is telling, both Camp Concentration and Punishment Park can't escape feeling dated. our concepts of dissent have evolved, been altered. My initial high hopes melted to bemusement. Show Less
LibraryThing member dominus
I've owned this book for fiteen years and tried to read it three times. There isn't anything obviously wrong with it, and it's quite short, and yet I've never finished it.
So what can I conclude from this? Three times it wasn't compelling enough for me to want to finish it. Even now, I can remember
So what can I conclude from this? Three times it wasn't compelling enough for me to want to finish it. Even now, I can remember
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enough of the plot and the characters to wonder what might happen to them---but I don't. Show Less
LibraryThing member cleverusername2
I bought this book without any expectations, I just liked the cover, but it turned out to be a nicely barbed little American dystopia yarn. While the Vietnam War is raging the lead character (a draft dodger poet) is forced into an Army research program/prison experimenting on methods to boost human
Even more relevant in this post-Abu Ghraib world of ours, I recommended Camp Concentration particularly if you like V for Vendetta.
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intelligence. The results are surprising and disturbing. Even more relevant in this post-Abu Ghraib world of ours, I recommended Camp Concentration particularly if you like V for Vendetta.
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LibraryThing member sbszine
A silly plot, but well written and strangely compelling.
LibraryThing member M.Campanella
It is not about intelligence at all. It is not 'Flowers for Algernon' and does not try to be.
But it is a wonderful retelling of that very old story we all already know.
I actually wanted to know how to retell it in a sci-fi way.
Someone beat me to it, in the 60's.
Damn.
But it is a wonderful retelling of that very old story we all already know.
I actually wanted to know how to retell it in a sci-fi way.
Someone beat me to it, in the 60's.
Damn.
LibraryThing member betula.alba
Exceptional writer, beautiful and hard-hitting prose. Takes place in a society fueled by fear, which makes the novel more important today than ever. Very edgy. Surprising plot twists and a terrific ending.
LibraryThing member MusicalGlass
Written in the form of a prison memoir by a poet incarcerated as a conscientious objector, Camp Concentration gives Disch the opportunity to ruminate on the nature of authority in both its punitive and intellectual forms. The prose—rich with literary & religious allusions and rants against the
From the book:
"But doesn't that just beg the question? Education, memory itself, is but the recapitulation of all the moments of genius in that culture. Education is always breaking down old categories and recombining them in better ways. And who has a better memory, strictly speaking, than the catatonic who resurrects some part of the past in all its completeness, annihilating the present moment utterly? I might go so far as to say that thought itself is a disease of the brain, a degenerative condition of matter."
Mendocino Red Tail Ale
Magic Hat #9
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capricious exercise of power—effectively tracks the writer’s adjustment to confinement, his response to experimental chemistries, and his inevitable decline. Despite the dark tone of the story, Disch leaves room for hope in his denouement, and the bits of news that reach our prisoner from the outside world reveal a cranky, absurdist sense of humor. In one instance, Andy Warhol is appointed Parks Commissioner by the City Council of Kansas City. From the book:
"But doesn't that just beg the question? Education, memory itself, is but the recapitulation of all the moments of genius in that culture. Education is always breaking down old categories and recombining them in better ways. And who has a better memory, strictly speaking, than the catatonic who resurrects some part of the past in all its completeness, annihilating the present moment utterly? I might go so far as to say that thought itself is a disease of the brain, a degenerative condition of matter."
Mendocino Red Tail Ale
Magic Hat #9
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LibraryThing member jwhenderson
The most notable thing about the dystopic view of an alternative America in Thomas Disch's novel is the status of the narrator. This topic is important to me in part because I am currently reading Vladimir Nabokov's Pale Fire for which the issue is paramount, but while thinking about that book my
Adding to the complexities of the narrative are many literary references, most important of which are references to the fictional poetry of Sacchetti himself and those to the Faust legend as told by Goethe and Marlowe. There is the character of Mordecai Washington who plays Mephistofeles to Sacchetti's Faust. As another inmate undergoing the drug treatment that enhances intelligence, Mordecai has become obsessed with alchemy to the bewilderment of Sacchetti. Unfortunately, the drug is based on a bug that is related to syphilis and results in death of the test subject. The parallels in this book abound, but with the notion of poisoned minds, whether by the State which is engaged in perpetual war) or through the experiments in Camp Archimedes, where Sacchetti has been sent to participate in tests of a new mind-expanding drug, one is reminded that this book was written during the middle of the Viet Nam War era.
Sachetti's journal tells a horrific story, but how much can we believe when it (apparently) has been through the prison censors. Is Sacchetti like one of Plato's banished artists? Is he a revolutionary, in spite of his claims to the contrary? Or is his story a figment of his imagination? The reader will have to decide for himself and this book has more depth than most I have read leading me to recommend it to all. The reviewer who called it "exciting, allegorical, suspenseful, disturbing. Superb prose and [a} novelist's integrity." (Amazing) was close to describing the feelings I had while reading Camp Concentration. Reading it was a journey into an alternative world that, unfortunately, was all too believable.
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view of the status of other narratives was called into question. I mention this because Camp Concentration is told in the first person as the journal of Louis Sacchetti, poet and draft resistor (this is the 1970s), and the question of its reliability is just as important as in Nabokov's meta-fictional work. The story is somewhat reminiscent of Daniel Keyes' Flowers for Algernon, but with a Dostoevskian twist. Adding to the complexities of the narrative are many literary references, most important of which are references to the fictional poetry of Sacchetti himself and those to the Faust legend as told by Goethe and Marlowe. There is the character of Mordecai Washington who plays Mephistofeles to Sacchetti's Faust. As another inmate undergoing the drug treatment that enhances intelligence, Mordecai has become obsessed with alchemy to the bewilderment of Sacchetti. Unfortunately, the drug is based on a bug that is related to syphilis and results in death of the test subject. The parallels in this book abound, but with the notion of poisoned minds, whether by the State which is engaged in perpetual war) or through the experiments in Camp Archimedes, where Sacchetti has been sent to participate in tests of a new mind-expanding drug, one is reminded that this book was written during the middle of the Viet Nam War era.
Sachetti's journal tells a horrific story, but how much can we believe when it (apparently) has been through the prison censors. Is Sacchetti like one of Plato's banished artists? Is he a revolutionary, in spite of his claims to the contrary? Or is his story a figment of his imagination? The reader will have to decide for himself and this book has more depth than most I have read leading me to recommend it to all. The reviewer who called it "exciting, allegorical, suspenseful, disturbing. Superb prose and [a} novelist's integrity." (Amazing) was close to describing the feelings I had while reading Camp Concentration. Reading it was a journey into an alternative world that, unfortunately, was all too believable.
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LibraryThing member DinadansFriend
Would you accept a chronic disease, probably fatal ,if you would be smarter? This is an interesting question, and Disch, always thoughtful gives us a good look at the idea.
LibraryThing member burritapal
It's difficult to decide if I liked this book. The idea of infecting prisoners with a virus is not horrible to me because of what they do to lab Animals. If you're writing a book about characters who are supposedly becoming geniuses, how are you going to portray that? Unless you think you're a
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genius yourself, I guess. But I wasn't much convinced. The ending was a surprise, but hopeful for the ones infected. I did enjoy the main character's solution to overpopulation. Show Less
Subjects
Awards
Ditmar Award (Winner — 1969)
The Guardian 1000 Novels Everyone Must Read (Science Fiction and Fantasy)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1968