| ||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
A State of Denmark is carried out with surgical precision ... a fascinating and important novel by one of our best writers in or outside of any genre --Time Out
Alternative science fiction on the scale of Orwell's Nineteen Eighty Four --Q Magazine
A powerful, bleak and alarmingly Orwellian vision of a totalitarian Britain --Publishing News
Alternative science fiction on the scale of Orwell's Nineteen Eighty Four --Q Magazine
A powerful, bleak and alarmingly Orwellian vision of a totalitarian Britain --Publishing News
Product Description
It is the 1960s. England has become a dictatorship, governed by a sly, ruthless politician called Jobling. All non-whites have been deported, The English Times is the only newspaper, and ordinary people live in dread of nightly curfews and secret police. Richard Watt used all his journalistic talents to expose Jobling before he came to power. Now in exile in a farmhouse amid the cruel heat of the Italian countryside, Watt cultivates his vineyards. His remote rural idyll is shattered by the arrival of an emissary from London. Derek Raymond?s skill is to make all too plausible the transition from complacent democracy to dictatorship in a country preoccupied by consumerism and susceptible to media spin. First published in 1970, Raymond?s brilliant satire is as dark and frightening as ever.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
First Sentence
My waking thought is a stream of figures that I have been adding and subtracting all night in my sleep. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
My waking thought is a stream of figures that I have been adding and subtracting all night in my sleep. Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
If you have read any of Mr. Raymond's Factory Series, you'll be surprised at the language and geographic shift this text differs from the classics "The Devil's Home on Leave" and "How the Dead Live." Unlike the bleak descriptions of the urban blanket known as London, "A State of Denmark" begins with a severe storm across the colorful landscape of Italy, where the coffee's warm and humidity thick. It sounds utopic and the storm is not to serve as a congregate-the-animals-into-the-boat kinda event but as a reminder that all good farmers need the rain--or so it seems. Richard has moved to Italy with his flame into a small village and have very well established themselves as active members of the community and know the language fair enough. Though they are not citizens or of Italian blood, they are for the most part respected and known as dependable neighbors that are always good for a drink and laugh. The locals casually mention that England's been making some sound with a new government--under the dictatorship of Jobling--and now Wales, Scotland and Ireland have seperated themselves from the United Kingdom. Richard just shakes his head and tells everyone that he knows Jobling (he had attempted numerous times to give the politician the expose during his stint as a journalist--but in turn failed through government and media influence (respectively) so now a new life has begun abroad, and et al. Then unfortunately, company from England starts coming around ... A very poignant piece about democracy vs. fascism, freedom vs. control; a real philosphical exploration of character that's influenced by Ezekiel and European history. At times complex, "A State of Denmark" is a great piece of literature that should be a footnote in modern English fiction.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4 reviews
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Well-written, but relentlessly and implausibly bleak
27 April 2005
Format:Paperback
Derek Raymond, the nom de plume of Robert William Arthur Cook (a/k/a Robin Cook), died in 1994 a master of the grisly. His Factory series of crime novels is not for the squeamish. "A State of Denmark," originally published in 1970, predates the Factory series and has a different theme that at the time must have resonated in England, with its strong economic regulation and, in many quarters, embrace of socialism, disdain for capitalism, and belief that individual liberty was a dubious idea, quaint, outdated, and inefficient, and at best to be tolerated as long as it did not interfere with collective goals.
In brief, England is ruled by a leftist dictator named Jobling who has turned the country into a vicious totalitarian state. Jobling governs through a melange of fascism, socialism, and brutal oppression, all made possible by a cult of personality that surrounds him following a coup d'état that England's bourgeoisie have spinelessly accepted and the working class have welcomed.
So far, so good. And it's very well-written, with wonderful imagery throughout. The problem is the implausibility of the plot. The main character, Richard Watt, and his companion, Magda Carson, have fled England and developed a vineyard in rural Italy. He is a hardy character who, as a journalist in England, battled Jobling and after Jobling's coup found himself unemployed and unemployable. Yet for implausible reasons he and Magda accept Italian orders to quit their voluntary exile and return to the bleakness of England, where they meet a fate that the reader will discover. It's impossible to accept that such a resolute and stalwart character would put his life and liberty in jeopardy by doing so. Rather, he'd be arranging passage to Brazil or Australia. The other implausibility is that the Italian government would be so afraid of Jobling that it would issue the deportation orders. The England of "A State of Denmark" is hardly the Germany of "The Garden of the Finzi-Contini," able to persuade the Italian authorities to round people up and ship them to concentration camps. It is an economic basket case that is unable to feed and clothe its own people and is surrounded by enemies. Watt's and Italy's capitulations to Jobling require too much suspension of disbelief.
In brief, England is ruled by a leftist dictator named Jobling who has turned the country into a vicious totalitarian state. Jobling governs through a melange of fascism, socialism, and brutal oppression, all made possible by a cult of personality that surrounds him following a coup d'état that England's bourgeoisie have spinelessly accepted and the working class have welcomed.
So far, so good. And it's very well-written, with wonderful imagery throughout. The problem is the implausibility of the plot. The main character, Richard Watt, and his companion, Magda Carson, have fled England and developed a vineyard in rural Italy. He is a hardy character who, as a journalist in England, battled Jobling and after Jobling's coup found himself unemployed and unemployable. Yet for implausible reasons he and Magda accept Italian orders to quit their voluntary exile and return to the bleakness of England, where they meet a fate that the reader will discover. It's impossible to accept that such a resolute and stalwart character would put his life and liberty in jeopardy by doing so. Rather, he'd be arranging passage to Brazil or Australia. The other implausibility is that the Italian government would be so afraid of Jobling that it would issue the deportation orders. The England of "A State of Denmark" is hardly the Germany of "The Garden of the Finzi-Contini," able to persuade the Italian authorities to round people up and ship them to concentration camps. It is an economic basket case that is unable to feed and clothe its own people and is surrounded by enemies. Watt's and Italy's capitulations to Jobling require too much suspension of disbelief.
A 1970s Bleak Look at the Future
7 Feb 2009
Format:Paperback
Taken in the context of 'Thatcher England' in the late 1960s, this novel is an extrapolation of 'What might have been'. People forget that in the 'Interwar Years' England flirted with Fascism and that Sir Oswald Mosley and his 'British Union of Fascists' very much mirrored Mussolini and his fascists. The whole idea of 'alternate history' is to take an idea to the extreme and 'Jobling England' is that extreme.
When British Mining and Industrial capacity tanked in the 1970s, many parts of England resembled a old war zone. Buildings deteriorated and people were on the 'dole', the only businesses making any money were the betting parlours and the pubs. Great Britain does not have a written constitution nor an equivalent bill of rights. If you look closely, a dictatorship of the right is not that far below the surface and a rubber-stamp Parliament could easily approve any amount of infringement on civil rights that it wanted.
Anyone who has read stories about England just after the second world war (or seen the films produced) would see this landscape. The country was broke and rationing was still in place, the nation was dark and drab and little good seemed to have come from winning the war. It would have take very little to have turned England into a dictatorship at that time.
The only part of the book that I find slightly incredulous is how after only a short period of time Richard Watt becomes so compliant. I would have thought that he would have tried to start an underground movement or a break-out or a riot. Anything would have been better than this easy acquiescence to his situation and his total collapse as an adjutator. But maybe that was the point, you can only fight so many battles for so long and then give up.
Zeb Kantrowitz
When British Mining and Industrial capacity tanked in the 1970s, many parts of England resembled a old war zone. Buildings deteriorated and people were on the 'dole', the only businesses making any money were the betting parlours and the pubs. Great Britain does not have a written constitution nor an equivalent bill of rights. If you look closely, a dictatorship of the right is not that far below the surface and a rubber-stamp Parliament could easily approve any amount of infringement on civil rights that it wanted.
Anyone who has read stories about England just after the second world war (or seen the films produced) would see this landscape. The country was broke and rationing was still in place, the nation was dark and drab and little good seemed to have come from winning the war. It would have take very little to have turned England into a dictatorship at that time.
The only part of the book that I find slightly incredulous is how after only a short period of time Richard Watt becomes so compliant. I would have thought that he would have tried to start an underground movement or a break-out or a riot. Anything would have been better than this easy acquiescence to his situation and his total collapse as an adjutator. But maybe that was the point, you can only fight so many battles for so long and then give up.
Zeb Kantrowitz
Mediocre.
8 Aug 2008
Format:Paperback
Not a good novel. Even beyond the relentlessly implausible plot and Cook's attempt to ramrod home his philosophy (change is bad) the writing is terrible.
Frankly Cook should have stuck to selling lingerie.
Frankly Cook should have stuck to selling lingerie.
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
