This Perfect Day is one of the many novels inspired by Zamyatin’s early specfic novel We, and Ira Levin is a great author, so I wanted to read it.

In this specfic future world, a computer called Uni runs everything optimally. Jobs, relationships, families, and free time activities are all assigned by computer. People, who consider themselves members of the Family, are not quite numbers, as in We, but names are assigned from a list of 4 approved male names and 4 approved female names, with an ID code attached. Nutrition is cakes and cokes, optimized for health and available everywhere. Money doesn’t exist, members just swipe a welded-on ID bracelet for whatever they want, although technically Uni can reject their desire if it’s not optimal.

All the members of the Family also go in for monthly maintenance medical appointments. I know this is meant to show dark controle in retro scifi, and it’s very clear that everyone’s on mood stabilizing drugs, but this part is where the society seems aspiration. Seeing a doctor regularly, the same doctor many times, and that doctor actually has your records and has read them, and the goal is to treat patients to live their Uni-optimized life, and you don’t get a surprise bill later, and you don’t have to fight with insurance to get an appointment… I don’t know, that’s probably the most appealing part of the Uni world.

You can really see how We influenced the writing of This Perfect Day, at least the beginning third feels almost like We fanfic. Like in We, our protag in This Perfect Day begins to hear rumors of antisocial people outside the Family, and he begins to question if maybe there’s another way of living. Chip, our protag, doesn’t get this from a mysterious and sexy lady, though, he first hears doubts about the perfection of Uni from his grandfather, who helped work on Uni and drops heavy hints to young Chip.

There are rumors of a society of outcasts, people who couldn’t or wouldn’t confirm to the optimized society. The second part of the book follows Chip as he escapes to the world of incurables. Without too much of a spoiler, I liked how certain things that seem too convenient actually  were part of a set-up. This community is chaotic and harsh, as people struggle to survive. Without a lot of skills, Chip and Lilac work incredibly hard for almost no money, and almost no luxuries. They experience inequality and drinking for the first time. Chip believes that at least he’s free fron Uni, and he’s in charge of his own life now, but — spoiler alert — that may not be the case.

This is actually the genius part of This Perfect Day for me, how Chip believes he’s escaped the Family by using his own brilliance and strength, like basically every hero in this kind of book, but really, that’s just one layer in the social manipulation. Yes, he found a map, he found a ship, but it wasn’t being a special protagonist in an adventure story, it really was all laid out as a test, for people like him. Of course, Chip joins the battle against Uni, that was a test, too. It’s a wild ride, and it plays with the reader’s expectations too. We accept that our hero is the one smart and brave guy who can take down the system. Maybe we roll our eyes at his protagonist bonus to all combat rolls, but still, we accept that the novel is about a guy with special abilities.

This Perfect Day is a fascinating specfic world, and it plays with the expectations for brave hero in a scifi world so well… and it’s also so gross about women that I can barely recommend it. One of the grossest scenes is a rape. Before you think that this is an older novel and maybe consent was more ambiguous, or maybe I’m a modern reader is putting a feminist perspective on a nuanced situation, I should explain. After taking Lilac captive, Chip gets turned on, so he holds Lilac down and has sex with her, while she begs him to stop and tries to get away. There is no other read on that situation. It’s ok, though, she forgives him the next day and it’s never mentioned again. Then later they get married and have a baby.

Lilac has breasts, which is basically her character backstory. A lot of dramatic things happen to Lilac, but having breasts is her main attribute. It’s the first thing Chip notices about her, and basically every time she’s mentioned, her breasts are also mentioned. I know this is common in old scifi, but I was still surprised by all the breasting boobily from the author of Rosemary’s Baby and The Stepford Wives. He’s written women characters who have thoughts and who react to their experiences, just not in This Perfect Day.