Perhaps it was down to the fact that, by 1970, readers felt that the dystopian novel had already been perfected. Certainly, This Perfect Day veers dangerously close to the likes of Brave New World, with its society of genetically faultless drones, and 1984, with its all-seeing surveillance state. But these comparisons do it a disservice, as Levin manages to create a world just as prophetic as the cornerstones of the genre, and almost as inventive.
This Perfect Day pulls the classic trick of setting up a world that appears utopian, before gradually revealing details that help you realise it's actually the exact opposite. The world's society - or "family" as they call themselves - have been united for generations, increasingly genetically homogeneous and provided with regular "treatments" of drugs that keep them free of any disease, but also passive and satisfied with their existence. "Hate" and "fight" have become the dirtiest words imaginable, jobs are guaranteed and assigned to everyone, and the likes of homelessness and famine have been eradicated. All of this thanks to Unicomp - a vast supercomputer beneath a mountain in Switzerland that keeps track of each individual and decides the turns their lives will take on their behalf. But our hero, Li RM35M4419 - Unicomp assigns names too, from a choice of four per gender, but Li prefers to go by the nickname Chip - is a bit different. With one green and one brown eye, he's marked out as physically different from everyone else at birth, and it's not long before his behaviour starts to cause concern too. Chip shows a tendency for creativity; despite being pushed down the career path of a geneticist, his real passion lies in designing buildings, and he's interested in art as well - both pursuits rendered irrelevant by Unicomp.
This earns him the attention of a group of fellow subversives, who meet in secret to partake in activities usually banned - by tricking medical workers into reducing the dosage of his treatments, Chip is able to better appreciate the pleasures of smoking, drinking and reading for enjoyment. He also begins to see the problems with some of Unicomp's decisions - the fact that despite the lack of disease, everyone dies aged 62, and how, free of his chemical suppressants, he is capable of feeling aroused more than once a week. He also starts to wonder if there are groups completely outside society, living as people did in the days before Unicomp. In fact, there are - living on a few remote islands dotted around the world. Chip eventually escapes to one of these colonies, based on Mallorca, and starts to put together a team to destroy Unicomp once and for all. But it's once Chip and his gang make it to Switzerland and into the heart of the mountain that the book's real twist is revealed - the true nature of the islands and the real reason Chip was marked out as different, leading to a satisfying conclusion with plenty of explosions, subterfuge, and a surprisingly happy ending that neatly ties up an overall very well-developed plot.
And it's this plot that helps elevate This Perfect Day to the level of its predecessors; it's a plot-driven book, with Levin's socio-political commentary merely bubbling away in the background. The way he manages this is quite brilliant, dropping in hints and fleshing out the world where necessary, leaving the reader with a full picture by the end. It's a believable one too, a world where all possible data on everyone is stored by a faceless computer, and freedoms are gradually limited for the greater good - without people having been asked whether they actually want that. As Chip comes to learn, being free from all suffering is not the same as being free, and it's the two sides of that complex debate that This Perfect Day nudges us to consider.
This Perfect Day deserves to be mentioned in the same sentence as the greats of 20th-Century dystopian fiction, not least because it does a much better job of being actual fiction than so many comparable works.
4.5/5
Couldn't think of anything beyond this.
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