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oleksandr's review against another edition
2.0
This is an early SF from 1872, which is more a satire and philosophy than ‘true’ SF. I read is as a part of monthly reading for October 2020 at The Evolution of Science Fiction group.
This is a rather short book, that consists of roughly two parts. In the first part (around 1/3rd of the book) the protagonist travels to a distant land in an expectation of glory and wealth from ‘opening’ new lands. The rest of the story describes a far-away land of Erewhon (Nowhere), where people live and act the way opposite to the Author’s period Europe. Among the themes:
- Anti-technology. The most interesting part, based on Darwin’s evolution theory, which states that in biology the development is gradual and long, in mechanics it is fast, therefore machines will out-develop us. This is the earliest (I’m aware of) fear of machines’ revolution
- Anti-reason. Assuming that more unreason creates more reason, local scientists spend their lives in pursuing unneeded research.
- Souls not leave bodies after death, but enter newborn bodies
Overall, interesting ideas but extremely boringly written.
This is a rather short book, that consists of roughly two parts. In the first part (around 1/3rd of the book) the protagonist travels to a distant land in an expectation of glory and wealth from ‘opening’ new lands. The rest of the story describes a far-away land of Erewhon (Nowhere), where people live and act the way opposite to the Author’s period Europe. Among the themes:
- Anti-technology. The most interesting part, based on Darwin’s evolution theory, which states that in biology the development is gradual and long, in mechanics it is fast, therefore machines will out-develop us. This is the earliest (I’m aware of) fear of machines’ revolution
- Anti-reason. Assuming that more unreason creates more reason, local scientists spend their lives in pursuing unneeded research.
- Souls not leave bodies after death, but enter newborn bodies
Overall, interesting ideas but extremely boringly written.
octavia_cade's review against another edition
challenging
slow-paced
3.0
Rereading this for a nonfiction project I'm going to be working on, and it's just as batshit as I remember. I think the last time I read it was before I started leaving reviews over on Goodreads, anyway, so time to update my reading list. Anyway, being from New Zealand I have an interest in NZ-adjacent utopias, and the influence of the sheep farm is redolent here. A large part of it's satire, of course - the deliberate opposition of physical and moral illness, for one - but it's hard to miss the taint of eugenics, as well as the near total blanking of the Indigenous population. That last is probably a good thing, given the presentation of the single Maori supporting character, which is unflattering to say the least.
Where the thing really goes off the rails, though, and I say that in the full consciousness that it is an interesting and weirdly compelling jumping of the tracks, yanking the narrative aside for three solid chapters as it does, is in the refusal of the Erewhonians to deal with any mechanism past the onset of the Industrial Revolution. They're worried about machines breeding machines and leaping ahead on the evolutionary ladder, which is certainly a significant theme in science fiction, if rarely explored so early in the history of the genre.
Where the thing really goes off the rails, though, and I say that in the full consciousness that it is an interesting and weirdly compelling jumping of the tracks, yanking the narrative aside for three solid chapters as it does, is in the refusal of the Erewhonians to deal with any mechanism past the onset of the Industrial Revolution. They're worried about machines breeding machines and leaping ahead on the evolutionary ladder, which is certainly a significant theme in science fiction, if rarely explored so early in the history of the genre.
variouslilies's review against another edition
3.0
After much polite side-stepping despite comically running into this book in several other works I read in this past year, I finally sat down and finished it. It's a relatively short novel and by no means a literary masterpiece; It's not difficult to get through in one or two sittings. I'm not sure if being aware of the context and implications that Fisher, Deleuze-Guattari, Latour and many more offer for this book is a good thing before going into it, but there was nothing I could do about that.
Erewhon is, as anyone would tell you, a satirical novel about Victorian society. It's the story of an unsuspecting narrator passing through the fictional realm of Erewhon, a dystopian land with various strange societal mores. In the most interesting chapters of the book (Book of the Machines) we learn that the people in Erewhon have voluntarily destroyed all advanced machines and have kept none but the simplest tools. According to the inhabitants of Erewhon, a cataclysmic process of Darwinian evolution might allow a simple timepiece to give birth to monsters that would rule over humans. The most compelling part of the book is Butler's view on the relationship between humans and machines and the ability of machines to propagate themselves. In short, the fact that human beings are involved in the reproduction of machines does not mean that they lack a reproductive system: on the contrary, human beings are essentially a part of the machinic reproductive system.
This, as it turns out, is heavily laden with philosophical implications. Through this compelling concept and the interesting arguments Butler puts forth, this book serves as a work of theory-fiction that has inspired cybernetic philosophy and challenged vitalism. Of course the story is much more imbued with caution and warning, directly inspired by the Gothic social atmosphere surrounding Darwinism, and it is devoid of any kind of cyberpunk jouissance that can be found in later philosophical works that it inspired; But the blueprint of some tenets of the subsequent cybernetic philosophy can be found within the text and it serves as a good introduction to them.
Erewhon is, as anyone would tell you, a satirical novel about Victorian society. It's the story of an unsuspecting narrator passing through the fictional realm of Erewhon, a dystopian land with various strange societal mores. In the most interesting chapters of the book (Book of the Machines) we learn that the people in Erewhon have voluntarily destroyed all advanced machines and have kept none but the simplest tools. According to the inhabitants of Erewhon, a cataclysmic process of Darwinian evolution might allow a simple timepiece to give birth to monsters that would rule over humans. The most compelling part of the book is Butler's view on the relationship between humans and machines and the ability of machines to propagate themselves. In short, the fact that human beings are involved in the reproduction of machines does not mean that they lack a reproductive system: on the contrary, human beings are essentially a part of the machinic reproductive system.
Surely if a machine is able to reproduce another machine systematically, we may say that it is a reproductive system. What is a reproductive system, if it not be a system for reproduction? And how few of the machines are there which have not been produced systematically by other machines? But it is man that makes them do so. Yes; but is it not insects that make many of the plants reproductive, and would not whole families of plants not die out if their fertilization was not effected by a class of agents utterly foreign to themselves? Does any one say that the red clover has no reproductive system because the humble bee (and the humble bee only) must aid and abet it before it can reproduce? No one. The humble bee is a part of the reproductive system of the clover. Each one of ourselves has sprung from minute animalcules whose identity was entirely distinct from our own, and which acted after their kind with no thought or heed of what we might think about it. These little creatures are part of our own reproductive system; then why not we part of that of the machines?
This, as it turns out, is heavily laden with philosophical implications. Through this compelling concept and the interesting arguments Butler puts forth, this book serves as a work of theory-fiction that has inspired cybernetic philosophy and challenged vitalism. Of course the story is much more imbued with caution and warning, directly inspired by the Gothic social atmosphere surrounding Darwinism, and it is devoid of any kind of cyberpunk jouissance that can be found in later philosophical works that it inspired; But the blueprint of some tenets of the subsequent cybernetic philosophy can be found within the text and it serves as a good introduction to them.
tsundoku281's review against another edition
5.0
Wow. I really enjoyed this! This book certainly wasn't perfect and the narrative style was prone to repetition but Butler has raised so many fascinating concepts and ideas & he has masterfully crafted Erewhon, on a par with 1984 I would say...
I'm currently considering ideas of criminality , gender and physiognomy , education, the unborn (potentially link to the Aeneid), the idea that illness is condemned but not immorality!! This is all for my essay where I'll be linking Erewhon to News From Nowhere , I much prefer it to Morris' utopia because this one is so much more thought-provoking and vivid. The reader is fully submerged in the perplexing world of Erewhon and then abruptly removed , as Higgs shifts to an objective examination of their beliefs! I'll be pondering this for a while...
I'm currently considering ideas of criminality , gender and physiognomy , education, the unborn (potentially link to the Aeneid), the idea that illness is condemned but not immorality!! This is all for my essay where I'll be linking Erewhon to News From Nowhere , I much prefer it to Morris' utopia because this one is so much more thought-provoking and vivid. The reader is fully submerged in the perplexing world of Erewhon and then abruptly removed , as Higgs shifts to an objective examination of their beliefs! I'll be pondering this for a while...
litprof's review against another edition
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
A late 19th century example of speculative fiction's potential to inspire readers to critique their own culture and paradigm through a hypothetical society's legal, religious, economic, and cultural values. The novel even bluntly exposes the economic motives of British conversion colonialism without deigning to disguise the critique. Butler offers a prescient framing of fears over machine singularity through the voice of an Erewhonian scholar in one of a series of memos on Erewhon's culture. These chapters can become tedious after the beautiful early passages depicting the narrator's journey to Erewhon, presumably inspired by the author's own travel through New Zealand.
crypticmeg's review against another edition
I ended up skipping ahead to The Book of the Machines chapters, which is what I was interested in really. These comprised a fascinating early discussion of the possibilities of machine intelligence. The rest failed to captivate me.
bartlebybleaney's review against another edition
2.0
Doesn't go anywhere--just circles the same idea again and again. Probably great reading for someone who enjoys this sort of "idea" book, but I prefer a more balanced ratio of ideas and events, to say nothing of dialogue.
ianbanks's review against another edition
3.0
As a satire of contemporary Britain and the social mores of the time, this is wonderful, with the added sting of historical perspective adding to the bite of the climax. As a novel, though, it is very ordinarily done.