This is a short Dystopian novel from Sweden, released in 1940. It begins with the protagonist, Leo Kall, explaining how he is in a prison and separated from his wife and family. He begins to detail his life leading up to this moment, and in particular his discovery of a drug which acts as an effective truth serum. The drug is named after him, and is the title of the book: Kallocain.
In this world no one has any spare time, every moment of their life is planned out by a totalitarian state. Leo works in Chemical City No. 4, and is either occupied with military duties or with gatherings with speeches and films. All of the buildings appear to be underground, and you require permission to go anywhere or do anything. The family meals are prepared by home help, and even they must report back on what happens each night.
Leo is a true believer of the state. He is determined in his work and hopes the truth serum will root out the bad members of society who do not think in the correct way. He has a vision of himself always running up flights of stairs in a building, never stopping, and always on to the next flight. I think this is showing him as someone who never particularly thinks about consequences or really stops to consider the world around him.
There are drugs trials to test how Kallocain performs, and Leo runs these with his wife’s ex-supervisor, Rissen. The participants are members of the “Voluntary Sacrifice Service”, though it turns out to be anything but voluntary. The people speak out about their fears, their pain and hesitation about society. Leo begins to distrust Rissen as he shows empathy for these people, and suggests not reporting many of the things that are said. In fact Leo already had fears that his wife is secretly in love with Rissen from when he worked with her.
During the trials they begin to find members of a secret society, a group of people who meet up to do not much more than fall asleep together. It appears to be a chance to relax in other people’s company, to share moments of vulnerability. Leo begins to trust Rissen so poorly that he denounces him to the state.
During these trials Leo also begins to distrust his wife so much that he sneaks some of the serum home and drugs her. Whilst she is under the effects of the drug, she says that she is absolutely faithful to him. She does not love Rissen. She dreams of murdering Leo though, and is heartbroken about losing her children as they go off to be raised by the state. Leo ends up resting his head in her lap, and in a tender moment they wonder if anyone else has ever experienced what they had.
Despite the drug being planned to be used to protect the state, and to find out non-believers it actually has the opposite effect on Leo. He starts to realise that no one truly believes. He sees how alone he is. He regrets his renouncement of Rissen and tries to rescind it, but it is too late.
In the final chapters of the book Leo is abducted by a military group. It turns out that despite the amount of control the state has, and the amount of effort put into finding espionage and treachery, a rival state has been planning operations to attack for years. This is how he ends up in the position he started the book.
I found the book pretty interesting. It is a very early dystopian novel, eight years before Nineteen-Eighty-Four, and it has many of the same ideas. I thought it was still quite unusual for the protagonist of the story to be a true believer as well.