2011, 2012 Atria movie-tie-in edition
Isaac Marion
Warm Bodies: A Novel
Bought newish for $15.00
Slightly worn paperback
C+
I'm not a zombie fan, as you might've guessed from my book collection. Yet I found the trailer for the movie adaptation of this book hilarious, and the zom-com itself is one of the best films I saw last year. (Third, after American Hustle and World's End.) So I rushed right out and got the novel, only to be disappointed. It may be a case of "you shouldn't see the book first," but that never dampened my love for The Wizard of Oz, book or movie. I still laughed out loud and was moved the fourth or fifth time I saw Warm Bodies as a movie. This second time reading the novel, I mostly tried to enjoy it as reliving a pale "imitation" of the film.
Actually though, it's more like Romeo & Juliet, where he's "dead" until the end. His love for her brings him, and a lot of other zombies, back to life. The movie gets away with this cheesiness because it's a very sweet movie. The book is not sweet, primarily due to the zombie "society" and to the character of Julie. In the movie, there is no zombie marriage, adoption, church, or school. The zombies at most grunt at each other. They do not attempt to have sex with each other! Early in the beginning of the film, this isolation is playfully contrasted with the pre-Apocalypse world of "connection" (where even the little kids are focused on their cell phones).
As for Julie, she has a much darker background in the movie (including having sex for money at thirteen), which might be OK, but R also sees her as angelic, as if he can't take in even that she drinks, smokes pot, and swears. Damn, does she swear! And her favorite thing is to call R's best friend M "a fat fuck." Now admittedly, he, too, is less likable in the book than in the movie, but that has nothing to do with his weight. She even mocks the dead fat people whose house she and R shelter in one night. She's much nicer, more accepting, all round in the movie.
Not that there aren't problems with R's character, particularly his selective amnesia. Marion may well be the youngest writer in my collection, having been born in 1981, but he's given R (who can't remember anything of his life beyond his first initial) and Julie a frame of references that seem rooted in the 1950s and 1960s, not just the Sinatra and Lennon music they listen to, but things like R comparing zombies "on the road" to Kerouac. And R would have to be born sometime after Marion himself.
One of the many wise decisions in the movie was to make it more the YA story it should've been, to make R's awkwardness around Julie a funny and charming symbol of adolescence, to take him out of his suit and put him a hoodie. This novel got a glowing recommendation from Stephenie Meyer, who apparently missed the little swipe about vampires' eyes changing color when they feed, but it's got much more potential than Twilight. As it turns out, director/screenwriter Jonathan Levine (born in 1976) understood that potential better than Marion did.
Showing posts with label dystopias. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dystopias. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
The Handmaid's Tale
1985, 1987 Fawcett Crest edition
Margaret Atwood
The Handmaid's Tale
Original price unknown, purchase price $1.50
Fallen apart but taped together paperback
B-
This story seems to be set around "now," since the sort-of-nameless heroine is 33, and her feminist mother had her at 37. Also, all the changes in society-- from a right-wing coup to nuclear disasters-- seem to have happened in the later 1980s. And there are some other clues. But mostly it's set in a dystopic near-future that Atwood hopes won't happen. Like Native Tongue, it's a feminist product of the mid-Reagan era, but in a more complex way, since Atwood criticizes the Andrea Dworkin wing of feminism, particularly its uneasy alliance with conservative Christians on the subject of pornography. Also, Atwood's relationship with "femininity" is as ambiguous as Brownmiller's. Her heroine is drawn to it, in a world that has banished make-up and frills, but she sees how shabby it can be when the powerful men break the rules and have their whores and mistresses dress as Playboy bunnies and similar.
Actually, the protagonist does have a name, but she never reveals it to us. She is called "Offred," because the Handmaid's (sort of concubines, but only for child-bearing) are called "Of [name of man assigned to]." Her name can be read as not only "Of Fred," but also as "Off Red" (red is the color the Handmaids wear), or maybe even "Off Read." Atwood's wordplay in the book encourages alternate interpretations.
Why do I like this book less than Edible and Oracle? Well, it's partly that it's bleaker. I like the whimsy of those early Atwood novels. I also think that they're stronger feminist statements because they're set in the (admittedly exaggerated) real world. Despite the cliffhanger, I'm not all that interested in what happens to Offred, although I'd love to pay a visit to Marian and Joan, even if things haven't worked out for them. I don't entirely think that Atwood has lost her touch for humour or characterisation, since there's some good stuff in, for instance, Cat's Eye, coming up in 1988. And I can see why this got the prizes and attention. But I doubt I'll be replacing this copy any time soon.
Margaret Atwood
The Handmaid's Tale
Original price unknown, purchase price $1.50
Fallen apart but taped together paperback
B-
This story seems to be set around "now," since the sort-of-nameless heroine is 33, and her feminist mother had her at 37. Also, all the changes in society-- from a right-wing coup to nuclear disasters-- seem to have happened in the later 1980s. And there are some other clues. But mostly it's set in a dystopic near-future that Atwood hopes won't happen. Like Native Tongue, it's a feminist product of the mid-Reagan era, but in a more complex way, since Atwood criticizes the Andrea Dworkin wing of feminism, particularly its uneasy alliance with conservative Christians on the subject of pornography. Also, Atwood's relationship with "femininity" is as ambiguous as Brownmiller's. Her heroine is drawn to it, in a world that has banished make-up and frills, but she sees how shabby it can be when the powerful men break the rules and have their whores and mistresses dress as Playboy bunnies and similar.
Actually, the protagonist does have a name, but she never reveals it to us. She is called "Offred," because the Handmaid's (sort of concubines, but only for child-bearing) are called "Of [name of man assigned to]." Her name can be read as not only "Of Fred," but also as "Off Red" (red is the color the Handmaids wear), or maybe even "Off Read." Atwood's wordplay in the book encourages alternate interpretations.
Why do I like this book less than Edible and Oracle? Well, it's partly that it's bleaker. I like the whimsy of those early Atwood novels. I also think that they're stronger feminist statements because they're set in the (admittedly exaggerated) real world. Despite the cliffhanger, I'm not all that interested in what happens to Offred, although I'd love to pay a visit to Marian and Joan, even if things haven't worked out for them. I don't entirely think that Atwood has lost her touch for humour or characterisation, since there's some good stuff in, for instance, Cat's Eye, coming up in 1988. And I can see why this got the prizes and attention. But I doubt I'll be replacing this copy any time soon.
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Native Tongue
1984, first edition, from DAW
Suzette Haden Elgin
Native Tongue
Original price $3.95, purchase price 25 cents
Very worn paperback
C+
This is very much a product of its time, and not just with the little jokes against Reagan. Set roughly 200 to 250 years in the future, and taking one of the main characters from childhood to early old age, it presents a dystopia in which women's rights have been revoked, 13 families of linguists are both the elite and the underclass, communication with humanoid aliens is widespread but dangerous, and the government conducts secret experiments with infant humans, nonhumanoid aliens, and LSD! I'll definitely be comparing it to 1985's The Handmaid's Tale, but for the moment I can say that while it has an interesting set of concepts, I don't think it quite works. The biggest issue I have with it is actually a comparison to the real 1980s, or now for that matter. Those were and these are less repressive times than Elgin's 22nd and 23rd centuries, yet the last 30 (arguably 50 or more) years have contained men who are feminist and women who are anti-feminist. Yet, none of Elgin's women agree that it was good to take away their rights to their own votes, money, and bodies (although most of them offer a surface docility when the men are around), and only one man seems to have even slight concerns about the way women are oppressed. Is Elgin saying that even such women as Phyllis Schafly secretly are rebellious against sexism under the surface, or is she saying that if women got oppressed enough, we'd all turn into rebels? Or is it just that she can't be bothered to show any men or women that think in a different way than the majority of their respective sexes?
Also, while I am noticing a larger number of typos lately, the ones in this book stand out because, well, it is about language. I will say that Elgin does have a flair for parody; many of the excerpts of "modern" male writers that begin each chapter are not far off from some of the Victorian "thinkers" in The Experts Speak and other nonfiction works I've read. Whenever she writes from a male perspective, she gets the right tone of smugness for that type of man. But it is all too one-note.
As for the communication-with-aliens thread, I actually wanted more of this, and I'm not particularly a sci-fi reader. It did bug me that ten of the thirteen of the linguist Lines are in the U.S., without any good reason, because it's not as if English is more analogous to the alien languages than any other Terran tongue. The title by the way refers to the language that the linguist women are secretly developing to express concepts they can't in the "men's" language. This is elitist, because they're going to (eventually) share it with nonlinguist women, rather than creating it in common with other women. (Yes, the "Lingoe" women have the academic knowledge, but sometimes the unsayable is said by women without higher education, like Sojourner Truth.)
I like this book enough that I've read it a few times, but I was never intrigued enough to go on to the rest of the trilogy.
Suzette Haden Elgin
Native Tongue
Original price $3.95, purchase price 25 cents
Very worn paperback
C+
This is very much a product of its time, and not just with the little jokes against Reagan. Set roughly 200 to 250 years in the future, and taking one of the main characters from childhood to early old age, it presents a dystopia in which women's rights have been revoked, 13 families of linguists are both the elite and the underclass, communication with humanoid aliens is widespread but dangerous, and the government conducts secret experiments with infant humans, nonhumanoid aliens, and LSD! I'll definitely be comparing it to 1985's The Handmaid's Tale, but for the moment I can say that while it has an interesting set of concepts, I don't think it quite works. The biggest issue I have with it is actually a comparison to the real 1980s, or now for that matter. Those were and these are less repressive times than Elgin's 22nd and 23rd centuries, yet the last 30 (arguably 50 or more) years have contained men who are feminist and women who are anti-feminist. Yet, none of Elgin's women agree that it was good to take away their rights to their own votes, money, and bodies (although most of them offer a surface docility when the men are around), and only one man seems to have even slight concerns about the way women are oppressed. Is Elgin saying that even such women as Phyllis Schafly secretly are rebellious against sexism under the surface, or is she saying that if women got oppressed enough, we'd all turn into rebels? Or is it just that she can't be bothered to show any men or women that think in a different way than the majority of their respective sexes?
Also, while I am noticing a larger number of typos lately, the ones in this book stand out because, well, it is about language. I will say that Elgin does have a flair for parody; many of the excerpts of "modern" male writers that begin each chapter are not far off from some of the Victorian "thinkers" in The Experts Speak and other nonfiction works I've read. Whenever she writes from a male perspective, she gets the right tone of smugness for that type of man. But it is all too one-note.
As for the communication-with-aliens thread, I actually wanted more of this, and I'm not particularly a sci-fi reader. It did bug me that ten of the thirteen of the linguist Lines are in the U.S., without any good reason, because it's not as if English is more analogous to the alien languages than any other Terran tongue. The title by the way refers to the language that the linguist women are secretly developing to express concepts they can't in the "men's" language. This is elitist, because they're going to (eventually) share it with nonlinguist women, rather than creating it in common with other women. (Yes, the "Lingoe" women have the academic knowledge, but sometimes the unsayable is said by women without higher education, like Sojourner Truth.)
I like this book enough that I've read it a few times, but I was never intrigued enough to go on to the rest of the trilogy.
Friday, June 1, 2012
1984
1949, "Commemorative 1984 Edition" from Signet Classic
George Orwell
1984
Possibly bought new for $2.95
Worn paperback
B-
I'm not sure if this is the copy I had in high school, when it was a big deal to read the book in 1984, comparing it to reality. Certainly, there were repressive elements in the world then, including, as Walter Cronkite's Preface points out, in Khomeini's Iran. Eric Fromm's 1961 Afterword observes examples of "doublespeak" in the U.S. I think the Newspeak aspect of the novel is the most interesting, and in some ways the least dated, as language has continued to be abused by various figures of authority, including the makers of bumper stickers. ("Freedom Is Slavery" isn't terribly different from "Freedom Isn't Free," and six decades after Orwell, three decades after Reagan, waging war to create peace is still a common idea.)
If I recall correctly, left-wing writer Alexander Cockburn had two main objections to this novel in 1984. (I can't go check, because I've got his book coming up much later, and I'd rather be wrong than jump ahead.) One was what he called the "silly prole business," the idea that the uneducated, unwashed, but good-hearted proletarians were going to rise up and rebel. Not that Cockburn was being classist, but that the way that Orwell presents the proles was silly. The "hero" Winston Smith thinks that the proles are happy in their simplicity, and there's not much in the novel to indicate otherwise.
Cockburn's other gripe was with how Orwell handles sex. As I noted with Brave New World, the view of sex is very different, not Huxley's treatment of it as a form of control but as a form of rebellion. Smith's girlfriend Julia is a "rebel below the waist." While sex and/or love can be expressions of freedom, they can also be chains that tie people to society. Both Huxley and Orwell are too simplistic, as well as sexist about how they present women, and women's sexuality. This was not Cockburn's complaint, but rather that Orwell was, again, silly in how he wrote, and indeed the romance is a bit far-fetched.
I remember what most terrified me about this book when I read it as a teenager was the idea that you could rebel and then find that the rebellion was being controlled by society. In particular, it was scary that nice old Mr. Charrington and sympathetic O'Brien were agents of the state. Even "Goldstein's" book was written by committee.
As an adult, even in an age when technology and privacy have impacted each other in ways that were unimaginable in the past, even fifteen years ago when I first got into the Internet, I find that freedom is still possible. Yes, your employer (or potential employer) may be snooping into your Facebook. Yes, your bags (or your body) may be searched at the airport. But many people do manage to lead lives of freedom and integrity (in both senses), and we don't have to worry that we will, although it may take years, end up shot in the head for being ourselves. Or even if we are, we'll go ahead and express ourselves anyway.
And then there are the people who think that the computer is watching them like a telescreen.
George Orwell
1984
Possibly bought new for $2.95
Worn paperback
B-
I'm not sure if this is the copy I had in high school, when it was a big deal to read the book in 1984, comparing it to reality. Certainly, there were repressive elements in the world then, including, as Walter Cronkite's Preface points out, in Khomeini's Iran. Eric Fromm's 1961 Afterword observes examples of "doublespeak" in the U.S. I think the Newspeak aspect of the novel is the most interesting, and in some ways the least dated, as language has continued to be abused by various figures of authority, including the makers of bumper stickers. ("Freedom Is Slavery" isn't terribly different from "Freedom Isn't Free," and six decades after Orwell, three decades after Reagan, waging war to create peace is still a common idea.)
If I recall correctly, left-wing writer Alexander Cockburn had two main objections to this novel in 1984. (I can't go check, because I've got his book coming up much later, and I'd rather be wrong than jump ahead.) One was what he called the "silly prole business," the idea that the uneducated, unwashed, but good-hearted proletarians were going to rise up and rebel. Not that Cockburn was being classist, but that the way that Orwell presents the proles was silly. The "hero" Winston Smith thinks that the proles are happy in their simplicity, and there's not much in the novel to indicate otherwise.
Cockburn's other gripe was with how Orwell handles sex. As I noted with Brave New World, the view of sex is very different, not Huxley's treatment of it as a form of control but as a form of rebellion. Smith's girlfriend Julia is a "rebel below the waist." While sex and/or love can be expressions of freedom, they can also be chains that tie people to society. Both Huxley and Orwell are too simplistic, as well as sexist about how they present women, and women's sexuality. This was not Cockburn's complaint, but rather that Orwell was, again, silly in how he wrote, and indeed the romance is a bit far-fetched.
I remember what most terrified me about this book when I read it as a teenager was the idea that you could rebel and then find that the rebellion was being controlled by society. In particular, it was scary that nice old Mr. Charrington and sympathetic O'Brien were agents of the state. Even "Goldstein's" book was written by committee.
As an adult, even in an age when technology and privacy have impacted each other in ways that were unimaginable in the past, even fifteen years ago when I first got into the Internet, I find that freedom is still possible. Yes, your employer (or potential employer) may be snooping into your Facebook. Yes, your bags (or your body) may be searched at the airport. But many people do manage to lead lives of freedom and integrity (in both senses), and we don't have to worry that we will, although it may take years, end up shot in the head for being ourselves. Or even if we are, we'll go ahead and express ourselves anyway.
And then there are the people who think that the computer is watching them like a telescreen.
Monday, May 7, 2012
Brave New World
1932, 1963 Time Incorporated edition
Aldous Huxley
Brave New World
Original price unknown, bought used for $3.95
Worn paperback
B-
As Huxley himself admits in his 1946 Foreword, this is a flawed novel, with faults of characterisation, setting, and plotting. It does differ from other dystopias that I own in that here sex and even promiscuity is encouraged, as part of the destruction of individuality. (Huxley points out that in '46 there are American cities in which the number of divorces equals the number of marriages, gasp!) In a way, the mass production of "twins," sometimes nearly 100 identical beings in one litter, is more plausible than it was 80 years ago. And while we don't have feelies, there was Smell-o-Vision by 1963, and movies have become more surrounding and sensory. The references to radio and even television make the novel less dated, but it is definitely dated in its vision of the future. The whole "noble savage" idea, here ironically embodied in a young man who quotes Shakespeare (hence the title), is definitely passe.
I do like what Huxley does with mass media and advertising. The book starts out well. But by the time we have Mr. Savage flogging his would-be girlfriend and then hanging himself, enough is enough. Like the more optimistically futuristic Cold Comfort Farm, this book wears out its welcome before the end, and deliberately leaves more of a bad taste. In CCF, a Ford is a chance to escape the farm, while here Ford is Lord of an automated society.
One of my favorite Mystery Science 3000 jokes, on the Catalina Caper episode, references this novel.
Aldous Huxley
Brave New World
Original price unknown, bought used for $3.95
Worn paperback
B-
As Huxley himself admits in his 1946 Foreword, this is a flawed novel, with faults of characterisation, setting, and plotting. It does differ from other dystopias that I own in that here sex and even promiscuity is encouraged, as part of the destruction of individuality. (Huxley points out that in '46 there are American cities in which the number of divorces equals the number of marriages, gasp!) In a way, the mass production of "twins," sometimes nearly 100 identical beings in one litter, is more plausible than it was 80 years ago. And while we don't have feelies, there was Smell-o-Vision by 1963, and movies have become more surrounding and sensory. The references to radio and even television make the novel less dated, but it is definitely dated in its vision of the future. The whole "noble savage" idea, here ironically embodied in a young man who quotes Shakespeare (hence the title), is definitely passe.
I do like what Huxley does with mass media and advertising. The book starts out well. But by the time we have Mr. Savage flogging his would-be girlfriend and then hanging himself, enough is enough. Like the more optimistically futuristic Cold Comfort Farm, this book wears out its welcome before the end, and deliberately leaves more of a bad taste. In CCF, a Ford is a chance to escape the farm, while here Ford is Lord of an automated society.
One of my favorite Mystery Science 3000 jokes, on the Catalina Caper episode, references this novel.
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Erewhon Revisited
1901, from the same volume as Erewhon
Samuel Butler
B-
As with Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, once again I remember preferring the sequel and then find that the original holds up better. Butler felt that the sequel was superior but correctly suspected it would be less popular. Despite fleshing out the characters more and making the plot more cohesive, the satire is weaker. The hero returns to Erewhon after almost twenty years and finds that he's become the subject of a cult because of his mysterious escape in a balloon. This is funny to read so soon after The Wizard of Oz, especially since his last name is revealed to be Higgs, and the Wizard's last name will turn out to be Diggs. Butler has some interesting insights into cults and religions, but they're less profound than the multiple layers of the first book.
In The Way of All Flesh, illegitimate children are treated sympathetically, and in this book Butler reveals that Higgs unknowingly has a bastard by Yram, his gaoler's daughter. This son, George (the names aren't all backwards this time), is kind, brave, and wise for his years. Higgs's legitimate son, John, befriends him when he himself visits briefly. The book ends with John planning a longer return to Erewhon, which seems to set up another sequel, but Butler died the year after this came out.
This book reveals that Erewhon is located near New Zealand, bordering on Erewhemos (sort of "Somewhere" backwards). Presumably, there's an Erewhyna out there, too.
Samuel Butler
B-
As with Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, once again I remember preferring the sequel and then find that the original holds up better. Butler felt that the sequel was superior but correctly suspected it would be less popular. Despite fleshing out the characters more and making the plot more cohesive, the satire is weaker. The hero returns to Erewhon after almost twenty years and finds that he's become the subject of a cult because of his mysterious escape in a balloon. This is funny to read so soon after The Wizard of Oz, especially since his last name is revealed to be Higgs, and the Wizard's last name will turn out to be Diggs. Butler has some interesting insights into cults and religions, but they're less profound than the multiple layers of the first book.
In The Way of All Flesh, illegitimate children are treated sympathetically, and in this book Butler reveals that Higgs unknowingly has a bastard by Yram, his gaoler's daughter. This son, George (the names aren't all backwards this time), is kind, brave, and wise for his years. Higgs's legitimate son, John, befriends him when he himself visits briefly. The book ends with John planning a longer return to Erewhon, which seems to set up another sequel, but Butler died the year after this came out.
This book reveals that Erewhon is located near New Zealand, bordering on Erewhemos (sort of "Somewhere" backwards). Presumably, there's an Erewhyna out there, too.
Friday, February 10, 2012
Erewhon
1872, 1927 Modern Library edition
Samuel Butler
Erewhon, or Over the Range
Original price unknown, bought used obviously for $4.00
Surprisingly good condition hardcover
B
The name of the novel and its land is almost "nowhere" backwards, and some of the other names are similarly reversed, like "Yram" and "Ydgrun." (The latter is for Mrs. Grundy, the symbol of stodgy, judgmental values.) Butler did the same thing to the Victorian English culture he knew so well as the son of a clergyman. He satirized it by sort of reversing its assumptions. What's odd for a modern reader is not knowing exactly how to take the satire. For instance, in Erewhon illness is criminal and crime is just a sickness. Nowadays, there are people who believe that criminals are victims of society, and there are people who believe it's your fault if you're sick, even if you have cancer. Were these attitudes coming into being as long ago as 140 years?
Lewis Mumford writes in the introduction, "Butler's wildest jokes are nearer to present-day truths than many sober Victorian platitudes. His straighteners are our psychoanalysts and psychiatrists...." If this was true in 1927, it's even more true in 2012. Butler's three chapters from The Book of the Machines, with the fearful discussion of machines becoming more sophisticated and conscious, definitely seems prescient.
The chapter on "the rights of animals," followed by "the rights of vegetables," takes vegetarianism and veganism to extremes, but the thing is, so do some modern diets. It's also clear that meat-eating is on one level symbolic of sex, with everyone sneaking some on the side, and "a young man of promising amiable disposition" being told by his doctor to "eat meat, law or no law," yet feeling guilty about it, till "he stole secretly on a dark night into one of those dens in which meat was surreptitiously sold." He takes it home and cooks it in his bedroom but is filled with "remorse and shame." He goes back many times, despite guilt, until he's caught by the authorities. In the end, the "poor boy" hangs himself.
Similarly, as Mumford notes, the Musical Banks are a satire on both modern religion and modern banking, and yet a more modern (post-modern?) reader than the original Modern Library reader is going to see religion and banking in a different way than in the 1920s.
Butler spends too much time explaining how he got to and about in Erewhon (Swift was much better at that sort of thing), but the actual substance of the satire is good. I remember preferring the sequel, but that wasn't published till 1901, so we've got a long wait till I can compare the two.
Samuel Butler
Erewhon, or Over the Range
Original price unknown, bought used obviously for $4.00
Surprisingly good condition hardcover
B
The name of the novel and its land is almost "nowhere" backwards, and some of the other names are similarly reversed, like "Yram" and "Ydgrun." (The latter is for Mrs. Grundy, the symbol of stodgy, judgmental values.) Butler did the same thing to the Victorian English culture he knew so well as the son of a clergyman. He satirized it by sort of reversing its assumptions. What's odd for a modern reader is not knowing exactly how to take the satire. For instance, in Erewhon illness is criminal and crime is just a sickness. Nowadays, there are people who believe that criminals are victims of society, and there are people who believe it's your fault if you're sick, even if you have cancer. Were these attitudes coming into being as long ago as 140 years?
Lewis Mumford writes in the introduction, "Butler's wildest jokes are nearer to present-day truths than many sober Victorian platitudes. His straighteners are our psychoanalysts and psychiatrists...." If this was true in 1927, it's even more true in 2012. Butler's three chapters from The Book of the Machines, with the fearful discussion of machines becoming more sophisticated and conscious, definitely seems prescient.
The chapter on "the rights of animals," followed by "the rights of vegetables," takes vegetarianism and veganism to extremes, but the thing is, so do some modern diets. It's also clear that meat-eating is on one level symbolic of sex, with everyone sneaking some on the side, and "a young man of promising amiable disposition" being told by his doctor to "eat meat, law or no law," yet feeling guilty about it, till "he stole secretly on a dark night into one of those dens in which meat was surreptitiously sold." He takes it home and cooks it in his bedroom but is filled with "remorse and shame." He goes back many times, despite guilt, until he's caught by the authorities. In the end, the "poor boy" hangs himself.
Similarly, as Mumford notes, the Musical Banks are a satire on both modern religion and modern banking, and yet a more modern (post-modern?) reader than the original Modern Library reader is going to see religion and banking in a different way than in the 1920s.
Butler spends too much time explaining how he got to and about in Erewhon (Swift was much better at that sort of thing), but the actual substance of the satire is good. I remember preferring the sequel, but that wasn't published till 1901, so we've got a long wait till I can compare the two.
Friday, December 2, 2011
Gulliver's Travels
1726
Jonathan Swift
Gulliver's Travels
B
While the misanthropy keeps this from being a great book, it also drives the satire. The Lilliput adventure is best known, although in high school I think I was most drawn to the mockery of the pseudointellectuals of Laputa. At the time, this collection (the short works even more so) was probably the most obscene thing I'd ever read, and having now moved on to the 1740s, the way that four-letter words are bluntly thrown around here still startles. (Changes in censorship and/or mores in the England of George I and that of George II)? Also, while most of Swift's worlds are dystopias, or at least places you might want to visit but not live in, it is striking how even in the "perfect" land of the Houyhnhnms (which I pronounce in my head as "homonyms" just to get through that section), there are such things as race and class, with certain breeds of horses working as servants. And, yes, this is the novel where the word "Yahoo" (for "stupid human") comes from.
Jonathan Swift
Gulliver's Travels
B
While the misanthropy keeps this from being a great book, it also drives the satire. The Lilliput adventure is best known, although in high school I think I was most drawn to the mockery of the pseudointellectuals of Laputa. At the time, this collection (the short works even more so) was probably the most obscene thing I'd ever read, and having now moved on to the 1740s, the way that four-letter words are bluntly thrown around here still startles. (Changes in censorship and/or mores in the England of George I and that of George II)? Also, while most of Swift's worlds are dystopias, or at least places you might want to visit but not live in, it is striking how even in the "perfect" land of the Houyhnhnms (which I pronounce in my head as "homonyms" just to get through that section), there are such things as race and class, with certain breeds of horses working as servants. And, yes, this is the novel where the word "Yahoo" (for "stupid human") comes from.
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