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alicechris's reviews
129 reviews
News from Nowhere by William Morris
2.5
This is a really weird book that I wanted to like but ended up feeling just sort of average about. I love Morris's designs and had a vague idea he'd done some communist writing, and then found this by chance. After reading a lot of dystopia last year (Parable of the Sower + Talents) I was excited to try a utopian novel.
I don't want to be too critical because the book is a product of its time, and some of it did really resonate with me - finding meaning in crafts and nature, and a vision of England (although nations don't seem to exist anymore) as a 'garden, where nothing is wasted and nothing is spoilt'. Although some changes in this future seem very personal (Morris didn't like Manchester and so it ceased to exist), his vision of what a city could be will stick with me, and feels really relevant to current environmentalism (especially as someone who wrote a dissertation on urban green space).
It because clear pretty quickly there isn't a place for me in Morris's utopia - women are mostly housekeepers (at one point Morris talks about the emancipation of women as being pointless...) and there are so many descriptions of women as being more attractive in the future. Morris's self-insert also has a creepy romance with a 20 year old (he is in his fifties, and you can kind of infer he has a wife and kids). Health problems will apparently all disappear under communism too, can't wait!
I find Morris's backwards looking communism intriguing - at some points he seems to fall into the Victorian myth of a previous golden era of democracy (or in this case communism I guess) ended by the Norman conquest, and so his ideals feel less about potential, and so less radical, than they could do. This probably also explains a thread of what I'm calling 'Thames Valley patriotism' in the book.
On its own terms, this book is pretty good, but I do feel I've lost some respect for Morris now unfortunately. One of the good things about reading someone else's utopia is it's helped me sharpen what my own might be, and reminded me of Octavia E. Butler's 'The Book of Martha' - no one is going to be satisfied by anyone else's ideal world, so it's not surprising that Morris's pitch didn't totally win me over.
I don't want to be too critical because the book is a product of its time, and some of it did really resonate with me - finding meaning in crafts and nature, and a vision of England (although nations don't seem to exist anymore) as a 'garden, where nothing is wasted and nothing is spoilt'. Although some changes in this future seem very personal (Morris didn't like Manchester and so it ceased to exist), his vision of what a city could be will stick with me, and feels really relevant to current environmentalism (especially as someone who wrote a dissertation on urban green space).
It because clear pretty quickly there isn't a place for me in Morris's utopia - women are mostly housekeepers (at one point Morris talks about the emancipation of women as being pointless...) and there are so many descriptions of women as being more attractive in the future. Morris's self-insert also has a creepy romance with a 20 year old (he is in his fifties, and you can kind of infer he has a wife and kids). Health problems will apparently all disappear under communism too, can't wait!
I find Morris's backwards looking communism intriguing - at some points he seems to fall into the Victorian myth of a previous golden era of democracy (or in this case communism I guess) ended by the Norman conquest, and so his ideals feel less about potential, and so less radical, than they could do. This probably also explains a thread of what I'm calling 'Thames Valley patriotism' in the book.
On its own terms, this book is pretty good, but I do feel I've lost some respect for Morris now unfortunately. One of the good things about reading someone else's utopia is it's helped me sharpen what my own might be, and reminded me of Octavia E. Butler's 'The Book of Martha' - no one is going to be satisfied by anyone else's ideal world, so it's not surprising that Morris's pitch didn't totally win me over.
Fierce Appetites: Loving, losing and living to excess in my present and in the writings of the past by Elizabeth Boyle
4.25
Brilliant! That this book flows so well whilst exploring such a range of content (the author's life in 2020 month by month, her life up to 2020, and of course medieval Ireland) is a testament to her skills as a writer and communicator - I came out of the book feeling a little jealous of her students! A lot of historians I've met are very interesting people but it's very much part of the discipline to remove yourself from your work, so I really enjoyed this style of writing and I hope it catches on. As an ex-historian left wondering what it was all for post-degree this was a reminder of how much I love history and the good that can be done (and the art that can be made) with it.
Doctor Who: Goth Opera by Paul Cornell, Peter Darvill-Evans
adventurous
fast-paced
4.0
This is one of the first Doctor Who books I've read and it's a really good example of how the medium can be used for Doctor Who stories - this is much more complicated and gory than the TV show would really be able to do (especially in the eighties). That being said, I'd love an audio adaptation of this.
I'm a big fan of the fifth doctor but there aren't that many episodes of his I find myself coming back to. This book characterises him well and expands on his relationships with Tegan and Nyssa (it's set just after Snakedance).
The plot of this is generally good and there are some excellent bits of dialogue, but the writing sometimes feels stilted and the writer occasionally forgets Nyssa isn't human despite making a point of this in other places. There are a few too many loose ends that get individually tied up at the end, which drags a little.
If you're out to try a Doctor Who novel, I'd recommend this one!
I'm a big fan of the fifth doctor but there aren't that many episodes of his I find myself coming back to. This book characterises him well and expands on his relationships with Tegan and Nyssa (it's set just after Snakedance).
The plot of this is generally good and there are some excellent bits of dialogue, but the writing sometimes feels stilted and the writer occasionally forgets Nyssa isn't human despite making a point of this in other places. There are a few too many loose ends that get individually tied up at the end, which drags a little.
If you're out to try a Doctor Who novel, I'd recommend this one!