Erewhon (English Library)

The situation in which the narrator finds himself is at first curious, but quickly becomes outright bizarre. The values of the Erewhonians seem alien to us (sickness is punished by imprisonment, crime is merely frowned upon, beauty and manners are equated with morality) so that we are presented with a people who are both detestable and fascinating. At the same time, however, the Victorians who first read Butler's book would have come to realise the parallels between Erewhonian culture that of Victorian Britain, and it is the satire of the novel that is really interesting. The absurd institutions mentioned - the Musical Banks, the Colleges of Unreason, the Museum of the Machines - and the hypocritical nature of the Erewhonian religion, all would have reminded readers of their own world. For instance, at the Colleges of Unreason, the hypothetical language is taught, and the reader wonders why people would learn a language that has no use outside of the colleges. Then they realise that the same could be said for languages like Latin and ancient Greek. These are languages that are irrelevant to today, but are still studied in higher seats of learning.

In Erewhon, Butler created a satire of his own society that is both enlightening and entertaining. The characters are hardly very rounded and the story is not particularly filled out, but that hardly seems to matter. What Butler has to say is interesting, even now, and the way he says it is a delight to read. As E. M. Forster wrote concerning the author, "He wanted to write a serious book not too seriously". There were even times when his narrative had me giggling quitely to myself.

I would very much recommend this book.


GREAT IDEAS MADE TEDIOUS   March 18, 2000
10 out of 25 found this review helpful

This is a very stodgy and prolix 19th-century book, which none the less contains some excellent ideas of the social sci-fi variety. Looked at another way, it manages to bore you to death despite its shining originality. It was obviously written in a hurry (withholding the author's name) and was partly hacked together from Butler's essays; this is painfully evident in the later section, when you long for the interesting-but-sterile social analysis to end and the plot to move on. If only Butler had taken the time to weave his wonderful concepts more expertly into the fabric of the story, this could have been one of the classics of social science fiction. But it's still better than The Difference Engine.