''Camp Concentration'' is a 1968 science fiction novel by American author Thomas M. Disch. After being serialized in '' New Worlds'' in 1967, it was published by Hart-Davis in the UK in 1968 and by Doubleday in the US in 1969. Translations have been published in Dutch, French, German, Spanish, Italian,Serbianand Polish. The book is set during a war, projected from the Vietnam War, in which the United States is apparently criminally involved (it is noted at one point that the US is waging germ warfare in "the so-called neutral countries"). The President of the United States during this fictional war is Robert McNamara.

Plot summary

In Part I, poet, lapsed Catholic and

conscientious objector A conscientious objector (often shortened to conchie) is an "individual who has claimed the right to refuse to perform military service" on the grounds of freedom of thought, conscience, or religion. The term has also been extended to object ...

Louis Sacchetti is sent to a secret military installation called Camp

Archimedes Archimedes of Syracuse (;; ) was a Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, astronomer, and inventor from the ancient city of Syracuse in Sicily. Although few details of his life are known, he is regarded as one of the leading scientists ...

, where military prisoners are injected with a form of

syphilis Syphilis () is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the bacterium ''Treponema pallidum'' subspecies ''pallidum''. The signs and symptoms of syphilis vary depending in which of the four stages it presents (primary, secondary, latent, an ...

intended to make them geniuses (hence the punning reference to "concentration" in the novel's title). By breaking down rigid categories in the mind (according to a definition of genius put forward by Arthur Koestler), the disease makes the thought process both faster and more flexible; it also causes physical breakdown and, within nine months, death. The book is told in the form of Sacchetti's diary, and includes literary references to the story of Faust (at one point the prisoners stage

Christopher Marlowe Christopher Marlowe, also known as Kit Marlowe (; baptised 26 February 156430 May 1593), was an English playwright, poet and translator of the Elizabethan era. Marlowe is among the most famous of the Elizabethan playwrights. Based upon the ...

's '' Doctor Faustus'' and Sacchetti's friendship with ringleader Mordecai Washington parallels Faust's with Mephistopheles). It only becomes clear that Sacchetti himself has syphilis as his diary entries refer to his increasingly poor health, and become progressively more florid, until almost descending into insanity. In Part II, after a test run on the prisoners, a megalomaniac

nuclear physicist Nuclear physics is the field of physics that studies atomic nuclei and their constituents and interactions, in addition to the study of other forms of nuclear matter. Nuclear physics should not be confused with atomic physics, which studies the ...

has himself injected with the disease, joins Camp Archimedes with his team of student helpers, and sets about trying to end the human race. The prisoners in the book appear to be fascinated by alchemy, which they used as an elaborate cover for their escape plans. Sacchetti, who is obese, has a number of ironic visions involving other obese historical and intellectual figures, such as Thomas Aquinas.

Allusions and sources

The book is seen as an example of New Wave modernism. In addition to the staging of Marlowe's play, the book alludes to Thomas Mann's novel '' Doctor Faustus'', which is about a composer named Adrian Leverkühn who intentionally contracts syphilis. Disch's book mentions a female composer named Adrienne Leverkuhn.

References

External links

* {{isfdb title, id=2285 1967 American novels Dystopian novels 1967 science fiction novels Novels by Thomas M. Disch Rupert Hart-Davis books