Friday 13 January 2017

The Country of the Kind by Damon Knight

This was a quick and odd little one.

In a society where violence and cruelty have been eliminated (genetically, I suppose) what does a community do with a person who has crossed a line that is incomprehensible and thought to have been left generations behind?

Our narrator committed an act of violence as a result of passionate youthful emotion.  But because cruelty has been eliminated from society they could not imprison him and instead set him free.

He as genetically altered so as not to be able to commit the same kind of crime again but in crafting their sentence they inflicted a subtler kind of cruelty.

In the story we get to see how our narrator has adapted and learned to cope with his unique situation.

It was not one of my favourites but writing this post has helped me to understand it better.

It was certainly thought-provoking.

Damon Knight



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