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3.01 AVERAGE
3.01 AVERAGE
adventurous
funny
mysterious
This is one of various works touted as “the first science fiction novel” (especially in contexts where people are pointing out the strong influence of female authors in the early development of science fictional concepts). The full title is The Description of a New World, Called The Blazing-World, first published in 1666, but with an expanded version (as discussed below) published in 1668.
In brief: a young woman is abducted by a would-be suitor but the ship carrying them is blown off course to the North Pole and enters a passage into an alternate world, in the course of which everyone on the ship except for the young woman perishes of the cold. From the description of the transition and the destination, the world seems to be not so much located in the interior of the Earth, but accessed as a sort of Klein bottle concept where both worlds are “exterior” to each other. The text seems to alternate between treating the home world of the young woman (who is never identified by name -- first she is simply “the lady”, later referenced by another title) as our own world, but later on there is reference to three worlds, with the third being the one the author herself dwells in, which is not directly accessible to the other two. The “Blazing World,” as this destination is called, is clearly utopian, being united under a single emperor and a single religion where everyone lives in peace and harmony. The inhabitants are of a number of different races, partaking of the nature of various animals (bird-men, fish-men, bear-men, worm-men, in addition to unmarked humans) to each of which is attributed some inherent set of intellectual skills. Unsurprisingly given the era when it was written, there’s a lot of unexamined essentialism, colonialism, and “white savior” issues. “The lady,” by virtue of her inherent virtue and purity is instantly recognized as being worthy to be the spouse of the emperor and is thereafter referred to simply as “the empress.”
After this elevation in status, the text bogs down in a long philosophical treatise, presented as the empress’s inquiries of the various beast-scientists as to the nature of the world she has come to rule. The Wikipedia entry on the book suggests that this section had originally been a separate and purely factual treatise “Observations on Experimental Philosophy,” which was appended to the fictional tale in the 1668 edition. (If this is the case, I’d dearly love to get ahold of the simpler 1666 text to see if it holds up better.) If I’d been reading this as a text, I probably would never have gotten past the first few pages of this section, but I had quite wisely downloaded the LibriVox.org audiobook version in preparation for a long road trip. Even so I had to take a break to avoid being put entirely to sleep.
Eventually, the dramatized lecture on experimental philosophy shifts into a more complex story when the Empress turns her hand to introducing Christianity to the Blazing World (though she knowingly uses stage-magician’s tricks to convince her subjects of its truth) and then has her beast-philosophers summon up immaterial spirits to satisfy her curiosity about the condition of the world she left behind. They discourse for some time on theology and philosophy and in the end the Empress sets her heart on creating a Cabbala. The Empress asks the spirits to recommend to her a scribe who can write up the Cabbala for her and they recommend one Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle. There’s only one problem: the Duchess lives in an entirely different world in accessible to the Blazing World, but they can procure her spirit to talk to the Empress by a sort of astral projection, “and truly their meeting did produce such an intimate friendship between them, that they became Platonick Lovers, although they were both Femals.” [swoon] The Empress expresses a desire that the Duchess should rule over a similar realm to her own, but the spirits point out that every person is capable of creating an infinity of worlds within their own imagination over which they could rule, so why be content with just one? Both women exercise this power for a while, creating and abandoning invented worlds at whim. Oh, and the Duchess introduces the Empress to several important English concepts including Theater, with which she is much taken. (There are also digressions where the Duchess laments her husband’s financial woes and how badly Fortune has treated him.) The Empress decides she wants to visit England for herself, so she and the Duchess to the astral projection thing again and somehow both end up sharing the Duke of Newcastle’s body with him and there’s this discussion of the awkwardness of three spirits sharing a single body and the jealousies that arise thereby.
The next section involves a court case against the personification of Fortune, who is being indicted for crimes against the Duke of Newcastle, during which the Duchess pleads his case most eloquently and successfully. After this, the two women’s souls take leave of each other, promising to visit regularly (by astral projection, of course). And that’s the end of Part 1.
Part 2 can be summarized as, “The Empress checks out how things are going back in her home world, discovers that her homeland is beleaguered and throws the scientific and natural resources of the Blazing World at the problem of how to smite her homeland’s enemies and make it the dominant political power of its world. This involves the invention of submarines and chemical warfare. A great deal of the world-building info-dump from the beginning of the novel now becomes relevant as the special physical resources of her new realm are weaponized against the unsuspecting folks back home. They are victorious and the Empress returns home considering it a job well done. There is a last episode where the Duchess visits her in spirit once more and is lavishly entertained. The story concludes with an epilogue to the reader from the Duchess, describing the supreme delights of world-building and encouraging others to do the same.
For me, it is this emphasis on the self-conscious creation of an inventive secondary world, and the exploration of its nature, properties, and consequences, that places The Blazing World solidly in the lineage of modern science fiction and fantasy. If the plot seems a bit sluggish to the modern reader, and the language overly florid, and the social politics more than a little cringe-worthy, this must be chalked up to being A Product of Its Times and, if not forgiven, at least understood. As an imaginative creation, the Blazing World ranks solidly up there with Middle Earth, Narnia, and Barsoom. For that matter, when stripped down to the essence of the plot, the story could hold its own against many a straight-forward quest adventure. But do yourself a favor and listen to the audio version while doing something tedious like housework or weeding. I doubt many modern readers would have the patience to slog through it otherwise.
In brief: a young woman is abducted by a would-be suitor but the ship carrying them is blown off course to the North Pole and enters a passage into an alternate world, in the course of which everyone on the ship except for the young woman perishes of the cold. From the description of the transition and the destination, the world seems to be not so much located in the interior of the Earth, but accessed as a sort of Klein bottle concept where both worlds are “exterior” to each other. The text seems to alternate between treating the home world of the young woman (who is never identified by name -- first she is simply “the lady”, later referenced by another title) as our own world, but later on there is reference to three worlds, with the third being the one the author herself dwells in, which is not directly accessible to the other two. The “Blazing World,” as this destination is called, is clearly utopian, being united under a single emperor and a single religion where everyone lives in peace and harmony. The inhabitants are of a number of different races, partaking of the nature of various animals (bird-men, fish-men, bear-men, worm-men, in addition to unmarked humans) to each of which is attributed some inherent set of intellectual skills. Unsurprisingly given the era when it was written, there’s a lot of unexamined essentialism, colonialism, and “white savior” issues. “The lady,” by virtue of her inherent virtue and purity is instantly recognized as being worthy to be the spouse of the emperor and is thereafter referred to simply as “the empress.”
After this elevation in status, the text bogs down in a long philosophical treatise, presented as the empress’s inquiries of the various beast-scientists as to the nature of the world she has come to rule. The Wikipedia entry on the book suggests that this section had originally been a separate and purely factual treatise “Observations on Experimental Philosophy,” which was appended to the fictional tale in the 1668 edition. (If this is the case, I’d dearly love to get ahold of the simpler 1666 text to see if it holds up better.) If I’d been reading this as a text, I probably would never have gotten past the first few pages of this section, but I had quite wisely downloaded the LibriVox.org audiobook version in preparation for a long road trip. Even so I had to take a break to avoid being put entirely to sleep.
Eventually, the dramatized lecture on experimental philosophy shifts into a more complex story when the Empress turns her hand to introducing Christianity to the Blazing World (though she knowingly uses stage-magician’s tricks to convince her subjects of its truth) and then has her beast-philosophers summon up immaterial spirits to satisfy her curiosity about the condition of the world she left behind. They discourse for some time on theology and philosophy and in the end the Empress sets her heart on creating a Cabbala. The Empress asks the spirits to recommend to her a scribe who can write up the Cabbala for her and they recommend one Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle. There’s only one problem: the Duchess lives in an entirely different world in accessible to the Blazing World, but they can procure her spirit to talk to the Empress by a sort of astral projection, “and truly their meeting did produce such an intimate friendship between them, that they became Platonick Lovers, although they were both Femals.” [swoon] The Empress expresses a desire that the Duchess should rule over a similar realm to her own, but the spirits point out that every person is capable of creating an infinity of worlds within their own imagination over which they could rule, so why be content with just one? Both women exercise this power for a while, creating and abandoning invented worlds at whim. Oh, and the Duchess introduces the Empress to several important English concepts including Theater, with which she is much taken. (There are also digressions where the Duchess laments her husband’s financial woes and how badly Fortune has treated him.) The Empress decides she wants to visit England for herself, so she and the Duchess to the astral projection thing again and somehow both end up sharing the Duke of Newcastle’s body with him and there’s this discussion of the awkwardness of three spirits sharing a single body and the jealousies that arise thereby.
The next section involves a court case against the personification of Fortune, who is being indicted for crimes against the Duke of Newcastle, during which the Duchess pleads his case most eloquently and successfully. After this, the two women’s souls take leave of each other, promising to visit regularly (by astral projection, of course). And that’s the end of Part 1.
Part 2 can be summarized as, “The Empress checks out how things are going back in her home world, discovers that her homeland is beleaguered and throws the scientific and natural resources of the Blazing World at the problem of how to smite her homeland’s enemies and make it the dominant political power of its world. This involves the invention of submarines and chemical warfare. A great deal of the world-building info-dump from the beginning of the novel now becomes relevant as the special physical resources of her new realm are weaponized against the unsuspecting folks back home. They are victorious and the Empress returns home considering it a job well done. There is a last episode where the Duchess visits her in spirit once more and is lavishly entertained. The story concludes with an epilogue to the reader from the Duchess, describing the supreme delights of world-building and encouraging others to do the same.
For me, it is this emphasis on the self-conscious creation of an inventive secondary world, and the exploration of its nature, properties, and consequences, that places The Blazing World solidly in the lineage of modern science fiction and fantasy. If the plot seems a bit sluggish to the modern reader, and the language overly florid, and the social politics more than a little cringe-worthy, this must be chalked up to being A Product of Its Times and, if not forgiven, at least understood. As an imaginative creation, the Blazing World ranks solidly up there with Middle Earth, Narnia, and Barsoom. For that matter, when stripped down to the essence of the plot, the story could hold its own against many a straight-forward quest adventure. But do yourself a favor and listen to the audio version while doing something tedious like housework or weeding. I doubt many modern readers would have the patience to slog through it otherwise.
adventurous
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
what a wonderful story!
i am genuinely confused as to why everyone i have spoken to about this novel despises it. are you all taking this read at face value? even then it is an entertaining fantasy tale. are the long sentences off putting? after a stretch of reading any complex or different reading style the brain adapts to ease access. even then, the long sentences add to the fantastical ramblings of this beautiful piece of escapist fantasy.
naturally, with any good piece of literature, there are multiple interpretations. one may consider this a piece of pro-colonial fiction, yet i am confused as to this interpretation. is there not a lack of any racial hierarchies in this utopia? is it not explicitly stated that one race should not try to overthrow another in this peaceful world? naturally, the segregated idea of utopia is one to be criticised in modern interpretations, however, i would argue that this piece is not referencing colonialism at all (although if it was, it would most certainly be anti-colonial) and instead is simply a genius work of escapism from a woman shunned by her own society for her mental illness. nobody will read this, i am sure, but i would like to say fuck you guys in particular who do not take this piece seriously because of Cavendish's mental illnesses. This is a wonderful work from a woman trapped in stigmas of her own society, who yearns for a new lease at life in a world without judgement.
i am genuinely confused as to why everyone i have spoken to about this novel despises it. are you all taking this read at face value? even then it is an entertaining fantasy tale. are the long sentences off putting? after a stretch of reading any complex or different reading style the brain adapts to ease access. even then, the long sentences add to the fantastical ramblings of this beautiful piece of escapist fantasy.
naturally, with any good piece of literature, there are multiple interpretations. one may consider this a piece of pro-colonial fiction, yet i am confused as to this interpretation. is there not a lack of any racial hierarchies in this utopia? is it not explicitly stated that one race should not try to overthrow another in this peaceful world? naturally, the segregated idea of utopia is one to be criticised in modern interpretations, however, i would argue that this piece is not referencing colonialism at all (although if it was, it would most certainly be anti-colonial) and instead is simply a genius work of escapism from a woman shunned by her own society for her mental illness. nobody will read this, i am sure, but i would like to say fuck you guys in particular who do not take this piece seriously because of Cavendish's mental illnesses. This is a wonderful work from a woman trapped in stigmas of her own society, who yearns for a new lease at life in a world without judgement.
slow-paced
Read for class. This is an extremely weird little book.
adventurous
informative
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
informative
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
informative
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
The Blazing World is one of the weirdest books I have ever read. Cavendish’s philosophical utopia is another world inhabited by bear-men, bird-men, worm-men and more species, each with a particular role in a society defined by the number one. One language, one ruler, one religion. I loved it, it was unlike anything you’d expect to be written in 1666, and is also praised for being a science fiction written by a woman, though despite the gender of The Blazing World’s author and empress, the Utopia is expectedly flawed. Cavendish stages her ideal world as a place where women are exiled to the home, with no such position in society (notice how each species I mentioned is prefaced by ‘men’), in addition to a removal of religions aside from Christianity from her society. She suggests the world to be better without other faiths, and though I myself have no belief, I can recognise that a world with no such religious difference where Cavendish condemns alternate faiths cannot be a Utopia. She also self-inserts herself as a great figure of power within her Utopia, using much of it as a platform to share the results of her scientific experiments, many of which being ultimately proven wrong by our modern development. Aside from this, such results were amusing, the characters of the Utopia were charming, and I had an enjoyable time in Cavendish’s brilliant, if not flawed, Blazing World.
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
historians will call them spiritual besties commingling in the body of the duchess’s husband