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cemoses's review against another edition
4.0
Better then the first book thought you need to read it to understand what is happening in this book. It is very suprisingly sentimental. The hero of the first book returns to Erewhon to ind out he has been made a god. Butler is his most effective in making fun of religion.
nwhyte's review against another edition
http://nhw.livejournal.com/537851.html[return][return]It's a classic lost world/utopia satire, first published in 1870 (though this is the revision of thirty years later). The writing is stodgily Victorian in places, but it is enlivened by Butler's na
ederwin's review against another edition
3.0
What if Jesus (or some other religious figure) came back, saw his followers, and said "Wait! That's not what I meant!" This book explores that question. But, in 1901, you can only do that with satire.
Higgs left the hidden land of Erewhon at the end of book 1 in a balloon. When he returns he finds that a church has sprung up around this miracle of the Sun Child returning to his heavenly father. Eyewitnesses report having seen horses magically flying alongside him -- actually birds -- and have preserved some of their holy poop. The religion is based around badly remembered versions of things Higgs said on his previous visit, some of which were Christian sayings.
(I've not read book 1 but a proper Erewhonian would start at the end and work backwards.)
Parts of this are funny. It is like a rough sketch for a Discworld novel. And I suspect Pratchett was inspired by parts of this. (Example: there is an Erewhonian bird with a song that sounds like "More Pork". Could this be the origin of Ankh Morpork? There also seems to be a bit of the idea for the "thieves guild". '...honesty does not consist in never stealing, but in knowing how and where it will be safe to do so.” “Remember,” said Mr. Turvey to my father, “how necessary it is that we should have a plentiful supply of thieves, if honest men are ever to come by their own.”') But Pratchett is a much more entertaining writer. This thing drags in many places, repeating stuff we've already been told 3 or 4 times. (I had to force myself to finish this, even though some parts were very funny, other parts were dreary.)
Some of the bits I like: When children are too good, they can be sent to a "deformatory" to learn to lie a least a little.
Higgs decides not to try to hard to correct or replace the corrupted religion because, thinking back on his own Victorian England: "... those who in my country would step into the church’s shoes are as corrupt as the church, and more exacting."
I can't resist more quotes:
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This could be a 5-star book if half the text were edited out.
Higgs left the hidden land of Erewhon at the end of book 1 in a balloon. When he returns he finds that a church has sprung up around this miracle of the Sun Child returning to his heavenly father. Eyewitnesses report having seen horses magically flying alongside him -- actually birds -- and have preserved some of their holy poop. The religion is based around badly remembered versions of things Higgs said on his previous visit, some of which were Christian sayings.
"Can you not see how impossible it is for the Sunchild ... could have made the forgiveness of his own sins depend on the readiness with which he forgave other people? No man in his senses would dream of such a thing. It would be asking a supposed all-powerful being not to forgive his sins at all, or at best to forgive them imperfectly. No; Yram got it wrong. She mistook ‘but do not’ for ‘as we.’ The sound of the words is very much alike; the correct reading should obviously be, ‘Forgive us our trespasses, but do not forgive them that trespass against us.’ This makes sense, and turns an impossible prayer into one that goes straight to the heart of every one of us.”
(I've not read book 1 but a proper Erewhonian would start at the end and work backwards.)
Parts of this are funny. It is like a rough sketch for a Discworld novel. And I suspect Pratchett was inspired by parts of this. (Example: there is an Erewhonian bird with a song that sounds like "More Pork". Could this be the origin of Ankh Morpork? There also seems to be a bit of the idea for the "thieves guild". '...honesty does not consist in never stealing, but in knowing how and where it will be safe to do so.” “Remember,” said Mr. Turvey to my father, “how necessary it is that we should have a plentiful supply of thieves, if honest men are ever to come by their own.”') But Pratchett is a much more entertaining writer. This thing drags in many places, repeating stuff we've already been told 3 or 4 times. (I had to force myself to finish this, even though some parts were very funny, other parts were dreary.)
Some of the bits I like: When children are too good, they can be sent to a "deformatory" to learn to lie a least a little.
“Then how can you expect your child to learn those petty arts of deception without which she must fall an easy prey to any one who wishes to deceive her? How can she detect lying in other people unless she has had some experience of it in her own practice? How, again, can she learn when it will be well for her to lie, and when to refrain from doing so, unless she has made many a mistake on a small scale while at an age when mistakes do not greatly matter? The Sunchild (and here he reverently raised his hat), as you may read in chapter thirty-one of his Sayings, has left us a touching tale of a little boy, who, having cut down an apple tree in his father’s garden, lamented his inability to tell a lie. Some commentators, indeed, have held that the evidence was so strongly against the boy that no lie would have been of any use to him, and that his perception of this fact was all that he intended to convey; but the best authorities take his simple words, ‘I cannot tell a lie,’ in their most natural sense, as being his expression of regret at the way in which his education had been neglected. If that case had come before me, I should have punished the boy’s father, unless he could show that the best authorities are mistaken (as indeed they too generally are), and that under more favourable circumstances the boy would have been able to lie, and would have lied accordingly.
Higgs decides not to try to hard to correct or replace the corrupted religion because, thinking back on his own Victorian England: "... those who in my country would step into the church’s shoes are as corrupt as the church, and more exacting."
I can't resist more quotes:
If he would develop a power of suffering fools gladly, he must begin by suffering them without the gladness.
and
He had earned a high reputation for sobriety of judgement by resolutely refusing to have definite views on any subject ...
and
Our sense of moral guilt varies inversely as the squares of its distance in time and space from ourselves.
and
It has been said that though God cannot alter the past, historians can; it is perhaps because they can be useful to Him in this respect that He tolerates their existence.
and
“He said, ‘Cursed be they that say, “Thou shalt not serve God and Mammon, for it is the whole duty of man to know how to adjust the conflicting claims of these two deities.”’”
and
... it is obviously better to aim at imperfection than perfection; for if we aim steadily at imperfection, we shall probably get it within a reasonable time, whereas to the end of our days we should never reach perfection.
and
Sisyphus, again! Can any one believe that he would go on rolling that stone year after year and seeing it roll down again unless he liked seeing it? [...] If he had greatly cared about getting his load over the last pinch, experience would have shown him some way of doing so. The probability is that he got to enjoy the downward rush of his stone, and very likely amused himself by so timing it as to cause the greatest scare to the greatest number of the shades that were below.
and
... the horrors of the inquisition in the middle ages are nothing to what he depicted as certain to ensue if medical men were ever to have much money at their command.
This could be a 5-star book if half the text were edited out.
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