The novel “The Santaroga Barrier” by Frank Herbert was published for the first time in the magazine “Amazing Stories” between October 1967 and February 1968. It was published as a book for the first time in 1968.
Santaroga is a very independent city in California where people seem to reject outside influences. Many companies including large ones tried to enter the Santaroga economy but without being able to sell anything. Some marketing experts tried to investigate the citizens attitudes but had several fatal accidents.
Gilbert Dasein is a psychologist who was sent to Santaroga for a new market research. In college he had an affair with Jenny, a girl from the city, and contacting her again could help him gain acceptance by the inhabitants. Their love story finished because Jenny wanted to go back to Santaroga after graduation and Gilbert didn’t understand her obsession with her hometown. He still has feelings for the girl so his personal reasons for going to Santaroga are combined with his professional ones.
Gilbert Dasein soon realizes that the food produced in Santaroga contains a particular ingredient called Jaspers which seems to be some kind of drug with strange effects on the minds of local people. Jenny wants to resume their love story and asks him to become a citizen of Santaroga but what does that mean exactly?
The more Gilbert studies the effects of the Jaspers the more he finds himself embroiled in Santaroga’s life. In town in fact it’s impossible to have a meal that doesn’t contain that ingredient some way and the effects on him are taking their toll. What’s more, a part of Santaroga continues to consider him an outsider and he must be very careful to avoid deadly accidents.
In “The Santaroga Barrier” Frank Herbert creates one of his explorations of the human mind. The ideas of the novel are loosely based on those of philosopher Martin Heidegger, in particular his book “Being and Time”, and of psychologist Karl Jaspers. The surname of the protagonist, Dasein, is a concept by Heidegger and the Jaspers drug is obviously named after the psychologist.
Frank Herbert elaborates these ideas in his own way creating a community where people take a drug that has a profound influence on their minds. As the Jaspers also has positive effects on health there’s an inevitable comparison with the famous spice of the Dune saga. In this case however the drug causes the Santaroga’s inhabitants, while retaining a certain individuality, to form a quasi-gestalt at unconscious level.
Santaroga is divided from the rest of the world by a barrier that’s not physical but mental because the assumption of Jaspers leads the local population to reject the incentives and pressures that come from outside. Companies seeking to invest in Santaroga fail because their advertising doesn’t work on the city’s inhabitants, who are happy of what they produce for themselves and don’t feel the artificial needs driven by consumerism.
Put in these terms that seems a happy oasis but it hides a dark side because external threats can be removed by force. People who come from outside with an agenda on Santaroga tend to have accidents but people show no individual hostility: it’s a collective unconscious impulse that pushes individuals to commit hostile acts or otherwise produce elements to create traps for foreigners deemed dangerous.
Frank Herbert doesn’t just set up a trivial story in which some heroes seek to end a threat that can come from Santaroga. In fact Gilbert Dasein receives his assignment from a group of companies that are hostile to Santaroga not for a good cause but because they see a virgin market that could bring them a lot of money from which however they don’t get a dime.
During his investigation Gilbert Dasein discovers that the local newspaper reports the news from outside in a very non-patriotic way and that only a few people at a time watch TV channels broadcasting from the outside to see what happens in the world. Santaroga’s inhabitants in fact don’t want to be contaminated by what they consider pure propaganda with which economic and political forces manipulate people.
In essence “The Santaroga Barrier” shows a contrast between two types of societies each with its own strengths and weaknesses. We can’t see many opportunities for collaboration between them to find some way to complement each other because they both seem to want to assimilate their members. Frank Herbert isn’t an author who provides easy solutions to big problems and in this novel he offers an ambiguous ending.
In 1985 the film “The stuff” partially inspired to “The Santaroga Barrier” was produced where an FBI agent named Frank Herbert is mentioned.
“The Santaroga Barrier” isn’t perfect: for example not all the main characters are well developed and in particular Jenny is very one-dimensional. The plot flows well as typical for the limited length novels of that time with a good mix between action and introspection however the end is an inner journey of the protagonist which can’t please everyone. Frank Herbert’s imperfect novels however are well above average and worth reading, especially if you like mind explorations.
