Sykaos Papers [Hardcover]

E.P. Thompson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 12, 1988

When he came to Earth (or Sykaos as it was known to the Oitarians), the poet/space traveller/gardener Oi Paz declaimed its attractions. It seemed to him that if it should prove to be inhabited by intellectual beings that they could not fail to be harmonious within such harmonious surroundings. The truth shocked him. How could such noisome, graceless beasts so closely resemble the humans of Oitar and carry on in this higgledy fashion? Decoding the nuances of their crudity, language, myths and lawgivers became essential when the primitives dismantled his space craft. However, as Oi Paz grows accustomed to life on Earth, he also experiences an unforeseen breakdown of his Oitarian taboos, while at the same time his presence seems to trigger off a perilous tendency among his captors to fulfil their dreadful Sykotic destiny. The epic sojourn of Oi Paz presents a vision of earth not only as it is to the extraordinary outsider, but very much from within. E.P.Thompson is the author of many works of non-fiction, including "The Making of the English Working Class". This is his first novel.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This first novel from historian Thompson ( The Making of the English Working Class ) is a lengthy attempt at a Swiftian satire taking the form of an alien critique of Earthly customs. While searching for an inhabitable planet, poet Oi Paz of the dying world Oitar crashes in England. Branded a fraud and a lunatic, he becomes an alcoholic, a television celebrity (as "Sapio the Spaceman") and, when finally believed, is locked up as a British Official Secret. Amid a farcical military bureaucracy, sympathetic anthropologist Helena Sage gains his trust and records the logical alien's puzzlement over humans, whom he calls Sykotics for their chaotic, egoistic and self-destructive behavior. Thompson's comic assault is coherent and intelligent but its long-winded liberal polemics will likely preach to the converted.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 482 pages
• Publisher: Pantheon; First American Edition edition (August 12, 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0394568281
• ISBN-13: 978-0394568287
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.2 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,441,828 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars IN A FORGOTTEN CAUSE, September 6, 2002

By 

DAVID BRYSON (Glossop Derbyshire England) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sykaos Papers (Hardcover)

This book is a political tract. E.P.Thompson was a Marxist historian but most famous in Britain as a leading campaigner against nuclear weapons. The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament dated back to the 50's and ran out of steam gradually until the strategy of stationing nuclear-armed cruise missiles in England as a response to the Soviet SS20 abruptly revived it. Everything in the story is a mere lead-up to the heroine's account, viewed from the moon, of the nuclear big bang. The tone of the writing here is like nothing else in the book and made my blood run cold when I read it while sunning myself on a rooftop in Malta.

The rest of the book is -- well, what exactly? Thompson was no novelist, although the book is very enjoyable and in places very funny. Oi Paz must be the least intimidating alien invader there ever was. He gets stuck in a tree when he first tries to land, he speaks in a contralto voice until his testicles finally descend helped by the prosperous terrestrial conditions, he disapproves of the boozy ways of the academics until he discovers whisky, and a certain amount more of this sort of thing. I suppose you can find some social satire in it, but not a lot and not consistently. There is probably a bit of Gulliver in it all, but it reads more to me like a flight of fancy rather than anything with a consistent thread through it other than the growing menace of the nukes.

With the cold war and the Soviet Union now behind us Sykaos is worth reading 'lest we forget'. The filthy things are still with us, as we get periodic reminders supposing we need them. In his politics Thompson was neither pro-Soviet nor anti-American: the man who was both of those was England's most famous right-winger of the time, Brigadier Enoch Powell, another opponent of nuclear weapons in or for Britain but all from a different standpoint. The whole issue has rather dropped below the horizon in recent years. Now when there is little or no mileage in trying to pin communism on opponents of nuclear arms and when the status of NATO is getting increasingly problematical we might be collectively capable of some rational thinking about how we extricate ourselves from the mess we have got ourselves into. To say the least, we have been lucky so far and our luck can do without being pushed.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This story will change your mood - you'll live in it, September 13, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Sykaos Papers (Hardcover)

Despite the appearances this isn't a science fiction story. You'll find in it many question about our way of living, about what is considered rational, what is freedom and what is love. This story will change your mood, you'll feel dropped in it. You'll also learn how our world could be doomed.

5.0 out of 5 stars Thanks, December 2, 2009

By 

Norma O. Perez "N Perez" (South Padre Island, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Sykaos Papers (Paperback)

Thank you very much, I was looking for this item and you were my last chance to get it, I'll enjoy it until last page, Norma.