This Perfect Day - The Perfect Book

If you have, then you probably own it and have read it many times before. The book is now out of print and has been for quite some time. Fortunately for the world, we have the internet and there are a few copies floating around out there for grabs!

I want this hubpage to convince you that you need to read This Perfect Day. I want you to know how big this book really is in it's message. I want other people to see what I saw when I read this book eight times at the age of 12. I don't know how I'm going to do it, but I'm going to convince you. I have to. I need to share this. I need someone else to know about it and to understand.

The book was written in 1970 by the author Ira Levin. Levin also wrote Rosemary's Baby and the Stepford Wives (now a popular movie). These works are great too, but it escapes me how This Perfect Day goes unnoticed while his other works are widely recognizable. It probably has to do with the content.

The storyline presents what is supposed to be a utopian society. One citizen stands out and starts to see things outside of the drugged haze he's been kept in. He gains the strength to stand out against societal and individual control throughout an agonizing and challenging experience. He meets others like himself. He finds literature that has been banned for hundreds of years. He's free now, but it's not enough. He wants more for himself than the poor existence he has created for his new family, fleeing and hiding from the authorities. He wants more for the world. He doesn't want to be trapped anymore, and decides that he is going to attempt to achieve more than his own freedom. He's going to free the world.

The levels in this story are deep. There is the personal level where you pray for the main character, Chip, to be able to see what is going on around him, and not to lose that knowledge. There is the political level. There is a clear level on societal complications. There is the level of massive consequences for an entire peoples' passiveness. Levin's stance towards governmental control is clear, and perhaps that is why the book is no longer in print.

I love this story because it worries me, challenges me, soothes me, and entertains me, all simultaneously. Reading it once will not do. The story is so captivating, you don't care if Chip has won or not, you just want it to keep going! The heavy pull between conflict and relief of that conflict works masterfully, leaving me constantly unsatisfied. However, the end is like a musical cadence. You know there could still be beauty after it, but are content that it ended where it did. That doesn't mean you're never going to listen to the song again!

Well, book-lovers. I guess there always has to be a place where the writer trusts that their audience has understood their point. And I hope that I have reached the place where you as readers start to take my word for it. This Perfect Day is a masterpiece! I don't think there's anything else I can say at this point except, get it! The pages will turn so fast you won't even miss a step, and I think you'll see things a little differently for it. Give it a chance. Give me a chance. Fill the ears and active bookshelves of America with the words of Ira Levin:

A Children's Rhyme

Christ, Marx, Wood and Wei,

Led us to this perfect day.

Marx, Wood, Wei and Christ,

All but Wei were sacrificed.

Wood, Wei, Christ and Marx,

Gave us lovely schools and parks.

Wei, Christ, Marx and Wood,

Made us humble, made us good.

-The beginning of the Perfect Book.

If you like This Perfect Day, you're more than likely to enjoy these as well. I know I did.

Rosemary's Baby

This was a best seller and was made into a film directed by Roman Polanski. It's a very reputable horror book among authors and readers everywhere. It's about a young couple starting their lives as they move into a strange apartment building. They decide to have their first child then mysterious things start happening. Rosemary finds out about witchcraft going on in the building and gets the suspicion that the folks want to sacrifice her baby to the devil. The story takes a dark and unexpected twist at the end, and is completely worth the read! (Son of Rosemaryis the sequel)

The Stepford Wives

This story has a completely different feel, and, while it does have some dark themes and sharp surprises, the satire present in this novel creates a unique and humorous tone. The basis for this story is the question, "What if all the housewives in your neighborhood were robots?" This novel takes a look at the entire idea of a proper "housewife" and what it means to be one, and what exactly is crossing the line in doing exactly what the husbands want? A driving thriller, I thought, and with a lot of depth to it.

Ones I haven't yet read:

A Kiss Before Dying

The Boys from Brazil

Sliver

... and multiple plays and musicals!

Hope you check some of these out!