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3.01 AVERAGE
3.01 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
lighthearted
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This is basically a fan fiction
For 1666 I have to give it to the writer. It's definitely something unusual eye opening and full of surprising scenes, creatures and ideas. However, it can also drag in parts. We had a great time talking about it though. Here is what we thought on the 35th episode of the Mind Duck Books Podcast: http://bit.ly/3HkKV8c
In a book full of Neoplatonic and religious ideas (that self-contradict) masquerading as scientific ones and look rather silly in retrospect, a book that also appears to mock microscopes as frivolous at best, it's quite astonishing that a plot device that serves as nothing more than bridging a logical gap to make the imagined world more consistent anticipated the theory of the multiverse by 325+ years. The least scientific idea to the author turning out to be the most. Delightful.
Overall, this book had some brilliantly original scenes, most notably the opening inter-dimensional travel and the maritime battles, which save it from my dreaded 2 star ranking just barely (it's like a 2.6).
Overall, this book had some brilliantly original scenes, most notably the opening inter-dimensional travel and the maritime battles, which save it from my dreaded 2 star ranking just barely (it's like a 2.6).
challenging
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Margaret is truly great. It’s all in here, from Gulliver’s Travels to Philip Pullman, but 100-300 years prior. It’s true tho: the first 1/3 - 1/2 of her fun stories are boring and normal seeming romances before they go NUTS, sending you through the multiverse. Idk if she thinks she’s tricking you or just gets bored and starts writing whatever midway through? Bless her regardless
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
The Blazing World is dense and does not wait up for you, although its playfulness and occasional humor offer some reprieve. Nearly half the book is dedicated to a seemingly endless list of queries into the logic, social structure, and philosophy of a newly discovered hidden world. Though this passage is impressive in its scope, it was draining to read all at once. The Blazing World's big appeal for me is how its many fantastic elements are used to disarm the reader to illustrate how these questions and their answers could just as easily be applied to our own world, a core function of so much science fiction. While it's often tricky to get a handle on this 1666 book, it's easy to understand how it was so foundational to the genre.
After a delightful yet dull middle section, the interdimensional war plot that shows up toward the end was a blessing, even though it casually advocates for total monarchy through genocide. Different times! It's hard to properly judge this book on its actual merits and not just as a curious early entry in a vast genre, but the best I can say is I had a good time with this bonkers and scatterbrained tour of a parallel world.
After a delightful yet dull middle section, the interdimensional war plot that shows up toward the end was a blessing, even though it casually advocates for total monarchy through genocide. Different times! It's hard to properly judge this book on its actual merits and not just as a curious early entry in a vast genre, but the best I can say is I had a good time with this bonkers and scatterbrained tour of a parallel world.
A wonder of worldbuilding and a precursor to SF. Drawing comparison to Thomas More's Utopia, Margaret Cavendish's writing uses the setting of the discovery of another world to wax philosophical more than political. The Blazing World feels vastly ahead of its time, the English being often indistinguishable from writings of the mid 1800s as opposed to the 1600s.
The prose takes on an experimental (for the time) style, using both poetic and prose devices to explore religion, monarchy and the nature of spiritual and material matter and the balance between the two. The inhabitants of the Blazing World are hybrids of animal and man, each given professions based on their genetic presuppositions. This gives way for social commentary, including a lengthy discussion of the place of men and women in society. The description is incredibly rich, Cavendish creates vivid and original images of her created world, the geology is as imaginative as the characters. Here, in 1666, are the seeds which evolved over the centuries into staples of what is now known as classic SF. And not just SF but also meta fiction, for the Duchess herself is a character, referred to with humility (adverse to the wish fulfilment of other self-insert fiction) as being commissioned for a dialogue with the spirits of The Blazing World after the likes of ancient philosophers (Plato and Aristotle) and recent writers of the time (Descartes and Gallileo), highlighting where her self-proclaimed experimental philosophy differs from these writers.
This philosophy being that, when it comes to world building, one cannot rely too heavily on the theories of forerunners because these can just as often restrain ambition as lend to it through applying one's own philosophy.
Thus, Cavendish attempts building separate worlds, using Pythagoras' theorem, Epicuris' opinions and Descartes' rationalism respectively as their bases, but abandons them all in favour of her own invention (and humble admission of failure to fully grasp these ideas): a combination of sensitivity and rationalisation. Worlds must be made and dissolved, through experimentation, for a desired world to be arrived at.
It also serves as a cautionary tale, that if one's fidelity to one's own opinion, without pause to consider reason, is too high, this gives way to both a lack of moderation and unwillingness to better the world around oneself. Even if disagreement is reached at the end of a discussion, at least there has been a discussion and both sides can reach further understanding of each other, as embodied by the material and spiritual, the real world and the Blazing World. Through these metaphors, meta analogies and characters, Cavendish champions the ambition and achievements of the individual's own merit over group mentality.
The Blazing World is a pioneering piece of writing for many fields and genres and, overall, a trip that's well worth taking, it sets both the mind and imagination ablaze with wonderful imagery and complex ideas.
The prose takes on an experimental (for the time) style, using both poetic and prose devices to explore religion, monarchy and the nature of spiritual and material matter and the balance between the two. The inhabitants of the Blazing World are hybrids of animal and man, each given professions based on their genetic presuppositions. This gives way for social commentary, including a lengthy discussion of the place of men and women in society. The description is incredibly rich, Cavendish creates vivid and original images of her created world, the geology is as imaginative as the characters. Here, in 1666, are the seeds which evolved over the centuries into staples of what is now known as classic SF. And not just SF but also meta fiction, for the Duchess herself is a character, referred to with humility (adverse to the wish fulfilment of other self-insert fiction) as being commissioned for a dialogue with the spirits of The Blazing World after the likes of ancient philosophers (Plato and Aristotle) and recent writers of the time (Descartes and Gallileo), highlighting where her self-proclaimed experimental philosophy differs from these writers.
This philosophy being that, when it comes to world building, one cannot rely too heavily on the theories of forerunners because these can just as often restrain ambition as lend to it through applying one's own philosophy.
Thus, Cavendish attempts building separate worlds, using Pythagoras' theorem, Epicuris' opinions and Descartes' rationalism respectively as their bases, but abandons them all in favour of her own invention (and humble admission of failure to fully grasp these ideas): a combination of sensitivity and rationalisation. Worlds must be made and dissolved, through experimentation, for a desired world to be arrived at.
It also serves as a cautionary tale, that if one's fidelity to one's own opinion, without pause to consider reason, is too high, this gives way to both a lack of moderation and unwillingness to better the world around oneself. Even if disagreement is reached at the end of a discussion, at least there has been a discussion and both sides can reach further understanding of each other, as embodied by the material and spiritual, the real world and the Blazing World. Through these metaphors, meta analogies and characters, Cavendish champions the ambition and achievements of the individual's own merit over group mentality.
The Blazing World is a pioneering piece of writing for many fields and genres and, overall, a trip that's well worth taking, it sets both the mind and imagination ablaze with wonderful imagery and complex ideas.
Perhaps it is because of the novelty of the ideas, that a WOMAN has written them, or maybe because it is simply a wonderful take, but I love the way we are introduced to the world within the book. The Duchess of Newcastle is witty! It is charming. This is how reading Jane Austen for the first time should have felt, if it were not for my blindness and internal misogyny. (Pfft, a book about marriages, I've got enough of that drama in my own life no thanks! And colonial British-era ones? Why would I subject myself to that! - Which is fair. Ah well.) Cavendish is so smart, I say, since she introduces a character from a multi-dimensional other world. A questioning, inquisitive, curious, ruthless and childishly curious in turns, Empress. She holds scientific and philosophical court with her advisors, and then the commonplace figures in this story, spirits. Now this multi-dimensional world seems to be very much like our own, but with some alternate timeline. Then, as a scribe, the Duchess of Newcastle is whooshed in from our world (For the likes of Galileo would scoff at writing down the words of a woman) and promptly becomes A Favourite! Yus, a Favourite. I don't care what the modern interpretations say, or how platonic the religious author calls the friendship, this whole plot has bisexual dark academia energy. And yes there's a whole lot about her dear beloved husband and the ecstacy of their two souls with him in him? Now this Duchess (Cavendish, herself) has insatiable ambition. She wants to rule over a land and so they both start imagining up worlds. So wildly entertaining! They visit other worlds, hop around portals, philosophize everything they find interesting. They analyze and break down their worlds to be a part of their imaginations where in they keep building and breaking down castles in the air, at the spirits' behest. Stories are really the best medium for philosophy breakdowns and that's why moral stories work but here? This is a different level altogether. I am gushing unashamedly; can you imagine, if there were more women writers, more women philosophers, more women inventors, discoverers, creators of such treasure troves of knowledge and whimsical stories fro way back then and beyond before? What an absolute shame. I came across Cavendish's work because of a podcast on redesigning Philosophy Course curriculum to include Women Philosophers more prominently, called The New Narratives Philosophy podcast. I am extremely glad for it, but especially so for introducing to me this person, this writer, this storyteller.
Of course, the book isn't without it's racism and colonialism heavy undertones - The Duchess advises the Empress to keep her kingdom as one nation with one people of one religion. Secularism is too complicated and difficult she says. How this works in a world of animal-people, I can guess from history.
Of course, the book isn't without it's racism and colonialism heavy undertones - The Duchess advises the Empress to keep her kingdom as one nation with one people of one religion. Secularism is too complicated and difficult she says. How this works in a world of animal-people, I can guess from history.