D.G. Compton's THE CONTINUOUS KATHERINE MORTENHOE, aka THE UNSLEEPING EYE

If there was one thing she hated, it was people who thought and talked of morning but their health.

We are reminded of this fact about the heroine of D.G. Compton's The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe (originally published in the U.K. as The Unsleeping Eye, which I think is a better title for reasons I'll get to in a bit) many, many times as circumstances slowly and inexorably force her to become just such a person as she considers herself to hate. Plagued by vague symptoms for a few years -- while living in a world that has conquered illness and injury to such an extent that old age is the only thing that kills most people -- Katherine learns in the very first chapter that she, aged a mere 44 years, is that great rarity, someone who will die young. In four weeks, in fact. 

But The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe (I really do prefer the other title, but this is how it's more generally known, especially since NYRB published the edition that I read, with the above cover and an insightful-as-always introduction by Weird Fiction Connoisseur Jeff Vandermeer) is not merely about a dying woman and how she chooses to spend the time she has left. That would be a fine read on its own, but it's probably not something I would choose, even with the added angle that this novel has, that Katherine is, in our modern parlance, a generator of A.I. Slop -- she cranks out romance novels to order at terrific speed by entering numerically coded prompts into a computer, which then spits out the text. The result is then published under several different pen names based on sub-genre rubrics, market trends and existing fan base expectations. Cough.*

This novel was originally published in 1974.

But no, it is neither our heroine's terminal status nor her so-of-the-moment-it-hurts profession that drew me in to this work. For in addition to experiencing her sudden and unexpected twilight with a loving and compassionate husband, Harry, by her side, Katherine Mortinhoe is, basically, The Truman Show. Except instead of living in a giant domed TV studio populated with actors in on the secret, Katherine's intimate agonies and kinder moments are being documented by a single camera. Well, two cameras. 

Implanted in the eyes of a journalist who is stalking her and her husband.

Without their consent. 

Yeah.

Beautiful Katherine Mortenhoe and her beautiful husband make a beautiful couple doing beautiful things in a beautiful world, while she prepares beautifully to die. It's also beautiful..

The story of a dying woman navigating her last days in a society unused to death being anything but a dramatic accident that kills too soon for medical intervention (as we get to see, a bit graphically, at one point) or what discreetly awaits the end of a long life, that would be a fine novel to read, but that really isn't this novel. And this is why the original title, The Unsleeping Eye, is better. Because this book is as much about Roddie, the "Man with the TV Eyes" as it is about Katherine, and it is also, to a lesser degree, about the hungry attention of that "pain-starved public," though not as much so as I'd expected. 

See, since Roddie just had the cameras implanted in his head (it's left ambiguous whether they have fully replaced his eyes as cybernetic prostheses or have just been grafted onto and into them) his body and the "TV Eyes" are still integrating, and for the time being he cannot spend any time with them closed, nor in darkness. He literally is the unsleeping eye. "Weren't the latest sleep deprivation drugs amazing?"

But Katherine, too, has unsleeping eyes of a kind, except when her condition makes her lose consciousness for a while. But, very aware that she's only been given a month to live, she's very, very conscious of time passing and lying in bed at home is both a waste and, due to her society's sense of entitlement to her as a spectacle, not really an option. Other unsleeping eyes want to witness.

I was expecting a lot more from this perspective, that of the television audience, but apart from the way a few people react on meeting Katherine, either with her husband or with Roddie, in person is pretty much the sum of what we get. We are just meant to understand that the public is always watching, always waiting, tapping their feet impatiently and glancing at the clock, eager for their daily dose of vicarious misery. No, D.G. Compton did not anticipate the demise of appointment television. But we all know how I feel about evaluating science fiction based on the accuracy of its predictions, don't we?

The thing is, beauty isn't in the eye of the beholder. Neither is compassion, or love, or even common human decency. They're not of the eye, but of the Mind behind the eye. I had seen, my mind had seen, Katherine Mortenhoe with love. Had seen beauty. But my eyes had simply seen Katherine Mortinhoe. Had seen Katherine Mortinhoe. period.

Well, of course Roddie develops a certain affection for his subject, which she almost seems to return -- platonically, platonically; she is married and Roddie is still very emotionally, if not domestically, involved with his ex-wife and their child. But friendship, respect, appreciation and, yes, compassion. His TV eyes are still what is actually seeing Katherine, but it's his mind, still very much his own no matter into how much hock he has gone to his employees for his body, who is observing her. And starting to feel a certain kind of a way about what he is in the process, simply by being around her, of doing to her.

Two other really fascinating aspects of this terrific little novel are worth touching on here. One is the seriousness with which personal privacy is taken in its world; upon realizing just how much her experience is in danger of becoming public property, Katherine goes to the authorities and gets a "three day personal grief" certification, which takes the form of a badge she can wear and a sticker she can put on the threshold of her apartment. Universally, this badge and sticker are respected by members of the public and the press, even as the latter scheme to get around the letter of the law behind the emblems. But for the three days its in effect, Katherine and her husband can invoke "PG" and everybody back off, even the most intrepid of paparazzi. To read about this in our own year 2025, in which we cheerfully and thoughtlessly violate our own privacy dozens, if not hundreds of times a day, for no reward but clout and maybe a hint of fellow feeling, is quite an experience. One might almost envy Katherine and her co-nationals.

The other notable thing is the disease which is curtailing Katherine's life. It's given a fancy syndrome name I can't recall any longer (or look up because it was a library book for which others were waiting), but what it boils down to is a severe and fast-acting neuro-degenerative condition caused by the overwhelming input of too much information by too many means into a simple human brain that evolved to work with good old Dunbar's Number of people and information sources and experiences and means of communication. As a person whose entire career has been spent manipulating information with computers to a degree unusual for her society, she's one of only a handful of people who have ever manifested with the full-blown syndrome, making her a profound medical curiosity as well as a social one. Suddenly, her situation doesn't seem so enviable, does it?

Or as improbable? Except, of course, we still live in a world where health care is only sometimes successful in staving off death, unfairly rationed, etc., etc.

But so, a question: would it be a worthwhile trade off to have people wandering around with TV Eyes who can record and broadcast our every move and utterance to the world without our knowledge or consent, in exchange for universal healthcare and longevity for most?

Oops, I see what I did there. Ha.

*Because this novel was written back when the basic assumption about our culture was that we would always have standards for our art, even our machine-assisted art, she spends more time editing and proofreading the computer's output than she does on the prompts. Ah, me...