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Blind Faith
As Trafford Sewell struggles to work through the usual crowds of commuters, he is confronted by the intimidating figure of his priest, full of accusatory questions. Why has Trafford not been streaming his every moment of sexual intimacy onto the community website like everybody else? Does he think he's different or special in some way? Does he have something to hide? Imagine a world where everyone knows everything about everybody. Where what a person "feels" and "truly believes" is protected under the law, while what is rational, even provable, is condemned as heresy. A world where to question ignorance and intolerance is to commit a crime against Faith. Ben Elton’s dark, savagely comic novel imagines a postapocalyptic society where religious intolerance combines with a confessional sex-obsessed, self-centric culture to create a world where nakedness is modesty, ignorance is wisdom, and privacy is a dangerous perversion. A chilling vision of what’s to come, or something rather close to what we call reality?
368 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2007
About the author
Ben Elton
65 books1,523 followersBen Elton was born on 3 May 1959, in Catford, South London. The youngest of four, he went to Godalming Grammar School, joined amateur dramatic societies and wrote his first play at 15. He wanted to be a stagehand at the local theatre, but instead did A-Level Theatre Studies and studied drama at Manchester University in 1977.
His career as both performer and writer encompasses some of the most memorable and incisive comedy of the past twenty years. His groundbreaking work as a TV stand-up comedian set the (high) standard of what was to follow. He has received accolades for his hit TV sitcoms, The Young Ones, Blackadder and The Thin Blue Line.
More recently he has had successes with three hit West End musicals, including the global phenomenon We Will Rock You. He has written three plays for the London stage, including the multi-award-winning Popcorn. Ben's international bestselling novels include Stark, Inconceivable, Dead Famous and High Society. He won the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award for the novel Popcorn.
Elton lives in Perth with his Aussie wife Sophie and three children.
His career as both performer and writer encompasses some of the most memorable and incisive comedy of the past twenty years. His groundbreaking work as a TV stand-up comedian set the (high) standard of what was to follow. He has received accolades for his hit TV sitcoms, The Young Ones, Blackadder and The Thin Blue Line.
More recently he has had successes with three hit West End musicals, including the global phenomenon We Will Rock You. He has written three plays for the London stage, including the multi-award-winning Popcorn. Ben's international bestselling novels include Stark, Inconceivable, Dead Famous and High Society. He won the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award for the novel Popcorn.
Elton lives in Perth with his Aussie wife Sophie and three children.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 608 reviews
May 16, 2019
Best Elton read yet! A post climate change event put a lot of our planet underwater and leaving us a world running on blind faith, where a cult of individualism, consumerism, invasive social media and neo-Christianity dominates every part of the lives of the masses. Protagonist Trafford Sewell secretly loathes this way of life, and in a world of zero privacy, he begins to changes his life one secret at a time. Despite being doused in Elton's terrible renditions of commoner speech and sometimes trite humour, this book is a gem with not so subtle nods to The Prisoner, 1984, The Trial etc. A wonderful and well thought out dystopia, a nightmare of a sub tropical London, of sweaty unclad bodies, over population and most of all compulsory over sharing of every areas of everyone's lives across all social-media. I can think of very few worse future scenarios!
The arcing of the book from irreverent comedy to full-scale attack on the practices, values, the damn hypocrisy of consumerism and individualism, is so well crafted, the way it emerges from the dark comedy feel to becoming the real story being told. 8 out of 12 Four Star jam.
2019 and 2009 read
The arcing of the book from irreverent comedy to full-scale attack on the practices, values, the damn hypocrisy of consumerism and individualism, is so well crafted, the way it emerges from the dark comedy feel to becoming the real story being told. 8 out of 12 Four Star jam.
2019 and 2009 read
March 14, 2009
why can't i give a book zero stars? this book gets zero stars.
maybe even negative stars.
also i would like to add that if you think this book is good you should try to read better books so that you have some sort of standard of comparison. seriously: people are probably talking about this behind your back.
maybe even negative stars.
also i would like to add that if you think this book is good you should try to read better books so that you have some sort of standard of comparison. seriously: people are probably talking about this behind your back.
March 2, 2018
In a world where everyone is famous and social media is paramount to status and survival in general, the brainwashed conform to the sheep mentality of the 'now'. Following the Governments religious propaganda blindly, declaring science heresy and attributing everything to the grace of the beholder, fanaticism is rife; that and blogging, viral vids, and a 24/7 individual online presence.
Blind Faith is at once scary and humorous in it message and entertainment value.
This book won't appeal to everyone but I'ev read it twice and loved it each time.
My rating: 5/5 stars. A book I will keep coming back to when I want to escape reality for a while.
Blind Faith is at once scary and humorous in it message and entertainment value.
This book won't appeal to everyone but I'ev read it twice and loved it each time.
My rating: 5/5 stars. A book I will keep coming back to when I want to escape reality for a while.
January 31, 2008
This book explores many issues that are prevalent in today's society such as vaccinations, religion, privacy, education, personal appearance, going with the mob, blind faith - too much to delve into in this review.
Blind Faith is a very apt title as most characters in this book are following faith blindly, just because someone says this is the way something is then it is believed and accepted and we have a lot of sheep living life aimlessly. Elton exaggerates what can happen if we lose ourselves and become one of the mob, if we keep nothing private and showcase our lives to everyone and if we disregard reason and follow blindly.
At times this book is hilarious, completely satirical as is Elton's way, but also sad and scary. It's sad and scary because who knows, we could end up like this - okay, maybe a bit far fetched but we are already on our way to losing our individualism, our personal voice. Instead we are seeing too much of people on TV, on the internet, voyeurism is becoming a way of life especially for our young and I don't think this is a good thing at all - if you display too much of yourself don't you in turn lose some of yourself?
Blind Faith is a very apt title as most characters in this book are following faith blindly, just because someone says this is the way something is then it is believed and accepted and we have a lot of sheep living life aimlessly. Elton exaggerates what can happen if we lose ourselves and become one of the mob, if we keep nothing private and showcase our lives to everyone and if we disregard reason and follow blindly.
At times this book is hilarious, completely satirical as is Elton's way, but also sad and scary. It's sad and scary because who knows, we could end up like this - okay, maybe a bit far fetched but we are already on our way to losing our individualism, our personal voice. Instead we are seeing too much of people on TV, on the internet, voyeurism is becoming a way of life especially for our young and I don't think this is a good thing at all - if you display too much of yourself don't you in turn lose some of yourself?
April 14, 2010
I do feel slightly guilty for disliking things Ben Elton writes. After all, he is one of the people behind Blackadder. Unfortunately, it turns out he's not exactly a great novelist.
Blind Faith is set in a future where climate change has flooded much of the Earth, overcrowding is everpresent, and people have turned their back on science and reason. Instead, society is a voyeuristic, exhibitionist, faith-based, reality-TV like mess. Everyone live streams almost every moment of their lives on the web; everyone has videos compiled of their most private memories (losing virginities, giving birth, etc.) and is sharing them with the entire world; and faith leaders control the society with an Inquisition and barbaric methods, while people are quick to form angry mobs that turn on individuals, screaming "pedo" and tearing them apart. Oh, and everyone is overweight, all the food is full of sugar, and people practice no self-restraint and celebrate themselves all the time.
In this mess lives Trafford, a man who rather likes privacy and has a sense of dignity / shame. He has a wife. They have a baby. And one day, someone suggests he might want to commit one of the vilest crimes of all, and vaccinate her (vaccines are heresy), in order to protect her from the many, many lethal plagues that decimate children (mumps, measles, etc.)
Trafford is one of those dystopian nobody-heroes that instantly remind the reader of 1984, Brave New World, Brazil, and other classics. A completely downtrodden little unimportant cog. Fine. Something sparks, and suddenly there are deadly secrets and subversion in his life. So far so good. Unfortunately, the book falls flat in almost every other regard.
Let's start with the little things: suspension of disbelief. It's impossible. Seriously, a world as overcrowded as this society could not sustain itself. Everyone eating all the time is a nice idea, but in a flooded world, where does the food grow? Talking of floods, sure, global warming will raise sea levels, but the effects in this book are Waterworldian - far beyond the credible. Even if we believe all that, how could this society of uneducated imbeciles (at one point, a book that isn't written for children is described as a challenge) ever function? People who make or repair plasma screens, fix internet connections, design buildings, etc. etc. etc. - they all need some measure of education.
Even if we assume suspension of disbelief (thanks to a generous portion of goodwill), the book disappoints. It isn't particularly funny, nor original, and all the points it makes are so unbelievably obvious, its satire is so ham-fisted, that it feels like a book written for ten year olds. Except for the sex in it, of course.
Ben Elton is the writer who is the quickest at noticing some cultural trend, and who pounces on it, writing and publishing a novel while even our short tabloid-fuelled attention span has not wandered away. He wrote Popcorn, about Natural Born Killers and Oliver Stone and Quentin Tarantino style movies. He wrote Past Mortem, while Friends Reunited had not yet been dethroned by MySpace and Facebook. He wrote House Arrest, while Big Brother was still new and fashionable. You get the drift. Whatever fad starts to get noticed by tabloids, Ben Elton sniffs it out and lambasts it in a novel. Here, he concentrates his fire on social networking sites like Facebook and Myspace (I think it's called Facespace in the book), the Jerry Springer generation / experience, and anti-science backlash.
It all feels horrendously frustrating. He creates a world so he can criticise it. He creates characters so we can resent them. Fine, I resent them, but I don't read books just so I can hate all the characters and their world. There needs to be something more - and in this novel, there isn't. The plot is never truely tense, it follows the dystopia template so closely that you sort of know how it's going to end before you've even met all the characters, and the lack of subtlety comes across as shallow and stupid. It's a bit as if someone had taken a Banksy graffiti and turned it into a novel. (Nothing against Banksy - some of his work is funny and satirical and enjoyable - but it's meant for one wall, not for 300 pages)
All in all, a waste of time.
Blind Faith is set in a future where climate change has flooded much of the Earth, overcrowding is everpresent, and people have turned their back on science and reason. Instead, society is a voyeuristic, exhibitionist, faith-based, reality-TV like mess. Everyone live streams almost every moment of their lives on the web; everyone has videos compiled of their most private memories (losing virginities, giving birth, etc.) and is sharing them with the entire world; and faith leaders control the society with an Inquisition and barbaric methods, while people are quick to form angry mobs that turn on individuals, screaming "pedo" and tearing them apart. Oh, and everyone is overweight, all the food is full of sugar, and people practice no self-restraint and celebrate themselves all the time.
In this mess lives Trafford, a man who rather likes privacy and has a sense of dignity / shame. He has a wife. They have a baby. And one day, someone suggests he might want to commit one of the vilest crimes of all, and vaccinate her (vaccines are heresy), in order to protect her from the many, many lethal plagues that decimate children (mumps, measles, etc.)
Trafford is one of those dystopian nobody-heroes that instantly remind the reader of 1984, Brave New World, Brazil, and other classics. A completely downtrodden little unimportant cog. Fine. Something sparks, and suddenly there are deadly secrets and subversion in his life. So far so good. Unfortunately, the book falls flat in almost every other regard.
Let's start with the little things: suspension of disbelief. It's impossible. Seriously, a world as overcrowded as this society could not sustain itself. Everyone eating all the time is a nice idea, but in a flooded world, where does the food grow? Talking of floods, sure, global warming will raise sea levels, but the effects in this book are Waterworldian - far beyond the credible. Even if we believe all that, how could this society of uneducated imbeciles (at one point, a book that isn't written for children is described as a challenge) ever function? People who make or repair plasma screens, fix internet connections, design buildings, etc. etc. etc. - they all need some measure of education.
Even if we assume suspension of disbelief (thanks to a generous portion of goodwill), the book disappoints. It isn't particularly funny, nor original, and all the points it makes are so unbelievably obvious, its satire is so ham-fisted, that it feels like a book written for ten year olds. Except for the sex in it, of course.
Ben Elton is the writer who is the quickest at noticing some cultural trend, and who pounces on it, writing and publishing a novel while even our short tabloid-fuelled attention span has not wandered away. He wrote Popcorn, about Natural Born Killers and Oliver Stone and Quentin Tarantino style movies. He wrote Past Mortem, while Friends Reunited had not yet been dethroned by MySpace and Facebook. He wrote House Arrest, while Big Brother was still new and fashionable. You get the drift. Whatever fad starts to get noticed by tabloids, Ben Elton sniffs it out and lambasts it in a novel. Here, he concentrates his fire on social networking sites like Facebook and Myspace (I think it's called Facespace in the book), the Jerry Springer generation / experience, and anti-science backlash.
It all feels horrendously frustrating. He creates a world so he can criticise it. He creates characters so we can resent them. Fine, I resent them, but I don't read books just so I can hate all the characters and their world. There needs to be something more - and in this novel, there isn't. The plot is never truely tense, it follows the dystopia template so closely that you sort of know how it's going to end before you've even met all the characters, and the lack of subtlety comes across as shallow and stupid. It's a bit as if someone had taken a Banksy graffiti and turned it into a novel. (Nothing against Banksy - some of his work is funny and satirical and enjoyable - but it's meant for one wall, not for 300 pages)
All in all, a waste of time.
September 13, 2008
This was my first Ben Elton, and I'll definitely be reading more.
Whilst being funny, this book was actually a little scary. Ok, so this is a gross exaggeration of the way our society seems to be headed, but it's still the way our society is headed nonetheless.
Privacy is a thing that many people claim to hold dear, yet many of us also use sites like MySpace and Facebook on a regular basis. This, however is through choice. How would people feel if they were forced to upload every TINY detail about their lives to these sites (including photos of yourself stark naked, compulsory videos of you giving birth... etc etc). This book explores the extreme of our worldwide growingly obsessive nature with knowing everything about everyone. The characters in the book are forced to blindly follow a faith that someone seemingly thought of one day... If they choose not to they are breaking the law. Science is illegal. Everyone must have live webstream access to your home. Scary stuff.
Whilst being funny, this book was actually a little scary. Ok, so this is a gross exaggeration of the way our society seems to be headed, but it's still the way our society is headed nonetheless.
Privacy is a thing that many people claim to hold dear, yet many of us also use sites like MySpace and Facebook on a regular basis. This, however is through choice. How would people feel if they were forced to upload every TINY detail about their lives to these sites (including photos of yourself stark naked, compulsory videos of you giving birth... etc etc). This book explores the extreme of our worldwide growingly obsessive nature with knowing everything about everyone. The characters in the book are forced to blindly follow a faith that someone seemingly thought of one day... If they choose not to they are breaking the law. Science is illegal. Everyone must have live webstream access to your home. Scary stuff.
October 13, 2021
Ben Elton is not a science fiction writer. I mean, in this novel’s global warming stricken world, the entire planet is underwater and London is an archipelago with subtropical temperatures. Dude.
However, that got me thinking that perhaps accuracy isn’t the point. Ben Elton is a comedy writer at the end of the day, and a comedian’s raw material is usually the immediate present. Remember the UK in 2007? When everyone was obsessed with paedophiles, obesity, Facebook, princess Diana and Islamic terrorism? Elton has basically taken a big carnival mirror and put it in front of all that, thus creating a reflection of society that exaggerates all its worst traits (and none of the virtues). Hence, this book is not a "chilling vision of the future", as it says on the blurb, but rather a gross exaggeration of the present.
So, London is an archipelago in which everyone is morbidly obese and almost completely naked (in part because of the heat but mostly out of vanity). The government has been replaced by a theocracy that forces the population to share their every waking moment on social media and brag as loudly and as enthusiastically as they can about everything they do. It’s kind of like Brave New World only instead of having everyone being on drugs, everyone must behave like they are starring in the worst kind of reality TV show.
But the book fails as a satire insofar as it lacks subtlety and having anything constructive to say. It is often an unpleasant read, not so much because of the unpleasantness of the situations we are being shown, but because of the way the author is clearly judgemental of the real-life situations he has drawn inspiration from. All this criticising people for enjoying reality TV, being overly dramatic or eating junk food comes across as terribly snobbish.
Another important failure is the protagonist. In most dystopian novels, our hero starts out as a boring old everyman, but a series of events lead him to see the world he had taken for granted in another light. In this book, Trafford is critical of every single aspect of society from page 1, and for no other reason than it-doesn’t-feel-right. You’d think someone who has grown up in this world would not be repelled by the ubiquity of obese near-naked bodies the way he is. Instead, he talks like a baby boomer plucked out of our time and dropped into this world. By the time the compulsory worldview-changing events start happening, all it really does is confirm what he already suspected. So, really, there’s no character arc.
And sure, even though I said this shouldn’t really count as a dystopia, I still indulged in the snide and kind of pointless game of taking note of the things the author “predicted”. Two stood out to me: the way everyone posts or shares everything they do on social media (predicting streamers, vloggers and influencers was quite prescient for 2007, if you ask me); and then - and this one really made me spit my coffee - the Fizzy Coffs, i.e., “physical office days”, i.e., the 25% of working days employees have to go work in the office instead of from home. Damn you coronavirus, get out of my literature, I thought I was safe from you here!
However, that got me thinking that perhaps accuracy isn’t the point. Ben Elton is a comedy writer at the end of the day, and a comedian’s raw material is usually the immediate present. Remember the UK in 2007? When everyone was obsessed with paedophiles, obesity, Facebook, princess Diana and Islamic terrorism? Elton has basically taken a big carnival mirror and put it in front of all that, thus creating a reflection of society that exaggerates all its worst traits (and none of the virtues). Hence, this book is not a "chilling vision of the future", as it says on the blurb, but rather a gross exaggeration of the present.
So, London is an archipelago in which everyone is morbidly obese and almost completely naked (in part because of the heat but mostly out of vanity). The government has been replaced by a theocracy that forces the population to share their every waking moment on social media and brag as loudly and as enthusiastically as they can about everything they do. It’s kind of like Brave New World only instead of having everyone being on drugs, everyone must behave like they are starring in the worst kind of reality TV show.
But the book fails as a satire insofar as it lacks subtlety and having anything constructive to say. It is often an unpleasant read, not so much because of the unpleasantness of the situations we are being shown, but because of the way the author is clearly judgemental of the real-life situations he has drawn inspiration from. All this criticising people for enjoying reality TV, being overly dramatic or eating junk food comes across as terribly snobbish.
Another important failure is the protagonist. In most dystopian novels, our hero starts out as a boring old everyman, but a series of events lead him to see the world he had taken for granted in another light. In this book, Trafford is critical of every single aspect of society from page 1, and for no other reason than it-doesn’t-feel-right. You’d think someone who has grown up in this world would not be repelled by the ubiquity of obese near-naked bodies the way he is. Instead, he talks like a baby boomer plucked out of our time and dropped into this world. By the time the compulsory worldview-changing events start happening, all it really does is confirm what he already suspected. So, really, there’s no character arc.
And sure, even though I said this shouldn’t really count as a dystopia, I still indulged in the snide and kind of pointless game of taking note of the things the author “predicted”. Two stood out to me: the way everyone posts or shares everything they do on social media (predicting streamers, vloggers and influencers was quite prescient for 2007, if you ask me); and then - and this one really made me spit my coffee - the Fizzy Coffs, i.e., “physical office days”, i.e., the 25% of working days employees have to go work in the office instead of from home. Damn you coronavirus, get out of my literature, I thought I was safe from you here!
February 21, 2019
At first, the book was rather a shock to the system. Just the language (not really swearing) and the world setting; it was quite disturbing. Due to its dystopian nature, it's reminiscent of Orwell's 1984 and I thought, this morning, this post-apocalyptic world is quite contrary in nature to others like Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale in that everything is supposedly exposed (from private body parts to thoughts). It is actually a very uncomfortable read especially since I'm a very private person but...
Persistence pays! Those twists at the end nearly brought this book up to 5-stars but because it wasn't easy to adjust to the language, I just took it down a notch. It's a well-worth reading book especially for a bookclub as I think it will generate a lot of discussion from faith to evolution, what it means to be human, what price would you pay to stay "human", etc.
Persistence pays! Those twists at the end nearly brought this book up to 5-stars but because it wasn't easy to adjust to the language, I just took it down a notch. It's a well-worth reading book especially for a bookclub as I think it will generate a lot of discussion from faith to evolution, what it means to be human, what price would you pay to stay "human", etc.
January 14, 2014
Are you wondering what the disadvantages could be of a world with no privacy and where sharing is imperative? Then you should definitely read this book. Blind faith describes one of the futures that could happen to mankind as a result of the evolution of technology. It will constantly make you think about everyday stuff and makes you without a doubt appreciate your privacy.
It is well written from beginning to end. Once you start reading, you just cannot stop. While approaching the end of the book, the tension is building up and you simply have to know the end. Although the end was a little bit predictable, it did not diminish the value of the book and that is the art of a skilled author that Ben Elton definitely is. I devoured the book and could not put it down. It gets a hold of you and you can relate to what the characters experience. It will make you question our social media and the way it controls you in a sort of way.
If I have to give my opinion I would advise you not to doubt whether you want to read this book or not. This book is the perfect way to fully enjoy your spare time, so read and enjoy.
It is well written from beginning to end. Once you start reading, you just cannot stop. While approaching the end of the book, the tension is building up and you simply have to know the end. Although the end was a little bit predictable, it did not diminish the value of the book and that is the art of a skilled author that Ben Elton definitely is. I devoured the book and could not put it down. It gets a hold of you and you can relate to what the characters experience. It will make you question our social media and the way it controls you in a sort of way.
If I have to give my opinion I would advise you not to doubt whether you want to read this book or not. This book is the perfect way to fully enjoy your spare time, so read and enjoy.
November 26, 2007
This book made me feel like I had just watched an entire series of big brother - which is kind of the point but I'm sure you can be satirical about the dumbing down of society without dumbing down your book to the same level. It is crass and revolting. Totally uninspiring text, not funny, not enlightening in the slightest, and the ending is about as anticlimactic as they come. At least it is relatively short and only wasted half a day of my life. For a much better satirical look at where the current degradation of society is leading read 'Feed' by M T Anderson.
January 26, 2012
This may just be the absolute best novel I've ever read. No, the best book even. Let me put it this way - it's the first book I did not remove from my Kindle after completing it because I absolutely know I will be reading it again.
The year is never clearly stated but the math puts it somewhere around 2120. Post-apocelyptic Earth has survived a flood that wiped out half of the planet's land mass and inhabitants. What's left is a mess. The part of the world we focus on is London and the UK. The Earth is so overcrowded that you cannot walk from place to place without touching people. Global warming (which caused the flooding) has made the atmosphere so hot that people have to be nearly naked in order to survive. All of this is very plausible, and then we have... a government ruled by The Temple, an amorphous entity that controls all and makes very little sense.
This novel is frightening in its possibilities. Taken to extremes, today's zealots could turn out the way the devout turn out in Blind Faith. Taken to extremes, the Internet could automatically publicize every small aspect of our lives as it does in Blind Faith. In short, this stuff COULD HAPPEN.
This book should be required reading for free-thinkers and secular humanists certainly, but more importantly, for everyone. Don't let your choices lead you here, Ben Elton seems to be saying. Don't let this be our future. Ev Love.
The year is never clearly stated but the math puts it somewhere around 2120. Post-apocelyptic Earth has survived a flood that wiped out half of the planet's land mass and inhabitants. What's left is a mess. The part of the world we focus on is London and the UK. The Earth is so overcrowded that you cannot walk from place to place without touching people. Global warming (which caused the flooding) has made the atmosphere so hot that people have to be nearly naked in order to survive. All of this is very plausible, and then we have... a government ruled by The Temple, an amorphous entity that controls all and makes very little sense.
This novel is frightening in its possibilities. Taken to extremes, today's zealots could turn out the way the devout turn out in Blind Faith. Taken to extremes, the Internet could automatically publicize every small aspect of our lives as it does in Blind Faith. In short, this stuff COULD HAPPEN.
This book should be required reading for free-thinkers and secular humanists certainly, but more importantly, for everyone. Don't let your choices lead you here, Ben Elton seems to be saying. Don't let this be our future. Ev Love.
September 26, 2012
In much the same vein as Farenheit 451, A Brave New World, and 1984, Elton takes the theme of total government control through current technology with well-developed characters and spins a masterful, if not terrifying tale.
After a cataclysmic flood caused by Global Warming occurs, society is run by a government with The Temple at its head. The Temple seems to be an ammalgamation of various belief from Christianity to Green Mythology, with the exclusion of Islam. Science is Evil. Everlasting love through The Temple is sacred. Privacy is illegal. Complete openeness into each others lives is demanded through mandatory posts on social media websites, mandated streams of specific events, limited clothing encouraged, and multiple sexual partners/marriages are encouraged. It is socially unacceptable to ostracize. Eddification is demanded. Reason is the ultimate evil.
Trafford attempts to fly below the radar screen. Calling attention to oneself is dangerous for anyone, but particularly dangerous for one with doubts. He follows the law as evidenced by his second marriage, participation in Confession, minimum expected daily posts, and appearances at at least some of the office Group Hug sessions. He even emoted when he and his first wife lost their child like the parents of all the other dead children. When he and his second wife have a baby girl. Trafford is unwilling to stand by send his baby to the arms of Jesus, Diana, and Elvis. He has her vaccinated. The worst of all black arts. What follows is Trafford's journey to reclaim reason, and his belief that humanity is worth saving.
After a cataclysmic flood caused by Global Warming occurs, society is run by a government with The Temple at its head. The Temple seems to be an ammalgamation of various belief from Christianity to Green Mythology, with the exclusion of Islam. Science is Evil. Everlasting love through The Temple is sacred. Privacy is illegal. Complete openeness into each others lives is demanded through mandatory posts on social media websites, mandated streams of specific events, limited clothing encouraged, and multiple sexual partners/marriages are encouraged. It is socially unacceptable to ostracize. Eddification is demanded. Reason is the ultimate evil.
Trafford attempts to fly below the radar screen. Calling attention to oneself is dangerous for anyone, but particularly dangerous for one with doubts. He follows the law as evidenced by his second marriage, participation in Confession, minimum expected daily posts, and appearances at at least some of the office Group Hug sessions. He even emoted when he and his first wife lost their child like the parents of all the other dead children. When he and his second wife have a baby girl. Trafford is unwilling to stand by send his baby to the arms of Jesus, Diana, and Elvis. He has her vaccinated. The worst of all black arts. What follows is Trafford's journey to reclaim reason, and his belief that humanity is worth saving.
February 27, 2019
I found this book in a large metal dumpster outside my dormitory, right next to the German translation of the book of Mormon and a book called "How to Live with a Huge Penis". The tacky, tasteless cover made me want to slide it back in, together with the other two, but I'm glad I didn't, because this is one of the most interesting books I've read so far this year (as in February, 2019).
It starts off rather simple. I'd even say, a bit primitive - like a poor man's version of the Brave New World, offering a world without nuance, a world that is just bad. It felt like Ben Elton crammed everything he hates about the world today into an exaggerated madness that is the London in Blind Faith.
However, soon plot picks up the pace and you realize you can't let go of the book! Even though the initial ideas were simplistic, more ideas develop as the book goes on, and those are the strong point of the story, I think.
Ben Elton writes well, even though the language he employs is rather simple. He gave this book a very neat structure and he reveals the world bit by bit, which I find a lot more satisfying than exposition through first person narration.
There were a few things I didn't like as much, but most of them are plot-relevant, so I won't discuss them in this review. The protagonist was annoying from time to time and I found some of his actions outright ridiculous. As for other characters, a lot of them were one-dimensional, but that's mainly because a lot of this book is meant to be a parody.
I think it's fitting that I found this book in a dumpster, since fiction is banned in the world of Blind Faith and can only be found in abandoned places.
It starts off rather simple. I'd even say, a bit primitive - like a poor man's version of the Brave New World, offering a world without nuance, a world that is just bad. It felt like Ben Elton crammed everything he hates about the world today into an exaggerated madness that is the London in Blind Faith.
However, soon plot picks up the pace and you realize you can't let go of the book! Even though the initial ideas were simplistic, more ideas develop as the book goes on, and those are the strong point of the story, I think.
Ben Elton writes well, even though the language he employs is rather simple. He gave this book a very neat structure and he reveals the world bit by bit, which I find a lot more satisfying than exposition through first person narration.
There were a few things I didn't like as much, but most of them are plot-relevant, so I won't discuss them in this review. The protagonist was annoying from time to time and I found some of his actions outright ridiculous. As for other characters, a lot of them were one-dimensional, but that's mainly because a lot of this book is meant to be a parody.
I think it's fitting that I found this book in a dumpster, since fiction is banned in the world of Blind Faith and can only be found in abandoned places.
Read
August 6, 2011It's a shame that a lot of people dismiss Ben Eltons books as 'lightweight' because he's also a comedian. I've enjoyed all his books and this one was no exception. A rather narrow dividing line between between fact and fiction in many areas and a fantastic attack on our inane and mindless celebrity culture, as well as a parody on religious 'faith'. Given that he managed to weave in a futiure where global warming has flooded the planet, he certainly managed to reflect a number of current issues! Any criticism? Wasn't at all sure about the ending in some ways.... we were left with hope about our own spirit certainly, but Trafford's bravery didn't quite ring the bell for me! Strengths? I particularly liked the 1984 tones that ran through the book - the conformity of how society (could) operate, and the 'rights' without responsibilities. We should hope this is not a prophetic book..... or are we too late?
January 22, 2012
An ugly utopia. Where privacy is illegal, daily blogging mandated and failure to upload regular videos of sexual encounters is considered strange.
Excellent book. The writing was wonderful and I found myself (courtesy of the e-reader) highlighting paragraph after paragraph because it was so well-written that I just wanted to re-read it. The ideas where interesting because they diverged from life as we know it in such a believable way. We already blog and tweet and do status updates, making it all very believable (I wonder what someone fifty or even twenty years ago would make of it).
The world grey, dirty, diseased, frail. This is what utopia might really be like. The real jobs all out-sourced. The people hiding in apartments until the government finds jobs for them and mandates that they leave, that they meet people. People everywhere, numbness. I love the idea that the people shuffle everywhere, like old men and women.
I highly recommend this book as a good read.
Excellent book. The writing was wonderful and I found myself (courtesy of the e-reader) highlighting paragraph after paragraph because it was so well-written that I just wanted to re-read it. The ideas where interesting because they diverged from life as we know it in such a believable way. We already blog and tweet and do status updates, making it all very believable (I wonder what someone fifty or even twenty years ago would make of it).
The world grey, dirty, diseased, frail. This is what utopia might really be like. The real jobs all out-sourced. The people hiding in apartments until the government finds jobs for them and mandates that they leave, that they meet people. People everywhere, numbness. I love the idea that the people shuffle everywhere, like old men and women.
I highly recommend this book as a good read.
May 21, 2020
In dystopian fiction literature terms the name of Trafford Sewell should be added to those of Winston Smith and Guy Montag as future anti heroes. With this book Elton has created a totalitarian future that is very, very close to today's society. He is clever in that he can take a grain of truth, and build it up into a dessert, or the way he can take a current social feeling and build a vast corrupt social structure on its premise. For example I am sure at some point we have all felt the slight social pressure to ask an upset friend online "are u ok hun?" especially if others have already asked this question or similar. In Elton's world failure to do this would be a heinous crime worthy of drawing down a pack of rabid bullies as well drawing unwanted attention from the formal social hierarchy.
In addition he can also work the reverse, he can drill down into that grain of sand to scrutinise its structure, or dissect that feeling into its often complex parts or even slightly change it so that now instead of asking "u ok hun?" out of concern or even formality it is now fear that drives you to ask and quickly before you are noticed and the pack turn on you.
Very topical also in that it describes two plagues/pandemics of measles and mumps. Disease is now rife due to vaccination being illegal... food for thought there.
Imagination, fiction, privacy and certain aspects of science do not exist in this world. Everyone's life is broadcast online including sex and childbirth. It is "1984" for the followers of "Love Island" and "Lord of the Flies" for the Facebook generation. I think that because Elton's terrifying new society is couched in online speak, with global warming, and the dumbing down of society, the rise of unintelligent"Reality" tv shows it is far more scary than Orwell's or Bradbury's future worlds. Elton's world has the lobster cooking potential. ie. if you put a lobster into a pot of water and gradually turn the heat up, bit by bit, over time it will cook without realising it is being cooked. That is the scary thing in Elton's book, we are nearly there, we are almost cooked!
Our (anti) hero is Trafford Sewell who works in monolithic government organisation processing various items of data to find obscure connections. I wont go into the plot, which has been done before ie individual battles for freedom from overbearing society. In the end, the fascination for this genre lies in the world that they create, not in the individual plot.
This is the third Ben Elton novel that I have read and one thing I have noted is that he does not go in for happy-ish endings. While this is not a criticism, I now find myself approaching his books with an idea of the outcome. Surely one happy-ish in an odd book or two would add something to the suspense.
To those who may not know Ben Elton, he was brash, loud, in your face political comedian and commentator in the UK in the 80s. He would point out double standards and cruelty in the government's polices and ministers. His style was fast, bubbling prose ending in a crescendo.
His books are of the same ilk. I normally like my books like Werthers original toffees long, slow gentle sweets which are gently soothing. Mr Elton's books are fizzy bangs for the gob! However It does you good to have a blast now and again. Would make for a good episode of "Black Mirror" I thoroughly enjoyed this book and silently weep for our future.
In addition he can also work the reverse, he can drill down into that grain of sand to scrutinise its structure, or dissect that feeling into its often complex parts or even slightly change it so that now instead of asking "u ok hun?" out of concern or even formality it is now fear that drives you to ask and quickly before you are noticed and the pack turn on you.
Very topical also in that it describes two plagues/pandemics of measles and mumps. Disease is now rife due to vaccination being illegal... food for thought there.
Imagination, fiction, privacy and certain aspects of science do not exist in this world. Everyone's life is broadcast online including sex and childbirth. It is "1984" for the followers of "Love Island" and "Lord of the Flies" for the Facebook generation. I think that because Elton's terrifying new society is couched in online speak, with global warming, and the dumbing down of society, the rise of unintelligent"Reality" tv shows it is far more scary than Orwell's or Bradbury's future worlds. Elton's world has the lobster cooking potential. ie. if you put a lobster into a pot of water and gradually turn the heat up, bit by bit, over time it will cook without realising it is being cooked. That is the scary thing in Elton's book, we are nearly there, we are almost cooked!
Our (anti) hero is Trafford Sewell who works in monolithic government organisation processing various items of data to find obscure connections. I wont go into the plot, which has been done before ie individual battles for freedom from overbearing society. In the end, the fascination for this genre lies in the world that they create, not in the individual plot.
This is the third Ben Elton novel that I have read and one thing I have noted is that he does not go in for happy-ish endings. While this is not a criticism, I now find myself approaching his books with an idea of the outcome. Surely one happy-ish in an odd book or two would add something to the suspense.
To those who may not know Ben Elton, he was brash, loud, in your face political comedian and commentator in the UK in the 80s. He would point out double standards and cruelty in the government's polices and ministers. His style was fast, bubbling prose ending in a crescendo.
His books are of the same ilk. I normally like my books like Werthers original toffees long, slow gentle sweets which are gently soothing. Mr Elton's books are fizzy bangs for the gob! However It does you good to have a blast now and again. Would make for a good episode of "Black Mirror" I thoroughly enjoyed this book and silently weep for our future.
October 19, 2008
This was really bad. I like some of Ben Elton's books - I liked Stark, I liked High Society - and he does those satirical "issue" novels well, with a great black comedic style. But "Blind Faith" just misses the mark. I think it owes a fair bit to Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World", except it just does it so badly, so clumsily - urgh. There was no subtlety to this, no characterisation, no humour. I didn't enjoy it at all.
February 2, 2009
'1984' for an internet generation. A bit too jaded and cynical for my taste, though Elton is a master world-builder. Not overly fond of being smacked over the head with repeated 'atheism is the only true reasonable way!' message, nor did I think the jab at the One campaign all that witty. Lost pace towards the end.
September 10, 2011
You know that one guy? He's the new kid to join the club, all wide-eyed and eager to learn about the cool new thing he's been introduced to. After the first couple meetings, he thinks he knows what's what, and starts getting into discussions with people about the topic the club covers. Unfortunately, he's not the greatest conversationalist, and ends up getting confrontational with the people he's trying to have a rational discussion with. "You think X? Well I think Y, and you're an idiot for thinking X. Let me list in detail why you're stupid and why what you think is stupid." Suddenly he thinks he can run the club better than the people who have been there for years. And somehow, against everyone's better judgement, one of his plans gets put into action. And then everyone dies.
Blind Faith is a story about that guy. Or at least, it should have been. Instead, Blind Faith is a satire/social commentary on the social media/reality tv/fast food loving culture of today. And unfortunately, it has all the subtleties of a speeding train to the face. The names of the popular websites in this potential future are simply abbreviated or mashed up versions of the popular websites of today: Facebook and Myspace are merged together to create Facespace; Youtube and Google get a few letters dumped from their names (in a break from the pattern, McDonald's is still McDonald's).
The dialogue is even more obvious. Trafford, our main character, regurgitates the information he receives from characters he meets back to other characters. Not once do we get a sense that he really understands what he's talking about, but we're supposed to agree with him, to root for him, because he's chosen science completely over the absurd future religion. In one of several arguments with his wife (a firm believer in the religion), she tries to meet him half-way, admitting that while man may have created vaccines (more on them later), couldn't it be possible that God gave them that information? While that should be an excellent starting point for someone trying to ease another person into seeing a new point of view, it's not good enough for Trafford. It's either science or God for him, and he makes it very clear (to the point of boredom) what his stance on God is. At this point in the novel, even I, someone who doesn't subscribe to any monotheistic religion wished I could make Trafford shut up. He is a boring, flat character with no redeeming qualities. And no personality traits, for that matter. He's simply a mouthpiece for the author, a soap box for him to stand on and rant about the absurdities he sees around him, exaggerated to the point of unbelievability. In the end, he's depicted as a martyr, dying for his cause, but honestly? I couldn't bring myself to care.
There are several other main characters in the book, and almost all of them are arguably more interesting than Trafford. Cassius, an elderly coworker of Trafford's is a Vaccinator, someone who administers now-illegal vaccines for easily preventable childhood diseases. He risks his life vaccinating infants in the hopes that some of them will survive the epidemics that plague the world now that vaccinations are treated as poisons, going against the will of God. I wish we could have learned more about his life, and the adventures he must have gone through in his day, but once Trafford has his daughter vaccinated, he uses Cassius as a source of books and rarely speaks to him after that.
Then there's Chantorria, Trafford's wife. She tries to be a devout follower of the future Christianity, but when she learns that, not only is Trafford keeping secrets, he had her child vaccinated -- both serious crimes, she too decides to keep them secret. In the end, she breaks down, no longer able to keep a private life and see herself as a good, religious woman, and the results are tragic. I would have liked to read about her conflicted thoughts, and how she struggled to reconcile these two lives, but unfortunately the book is predominantly written through Trafford's point of view.
Confessor Bailey and Sandra Dee make up the rest of the main characters, and they seem to suffer from the same disease that Trafford does that makes him flat and one-dimensional. They literally have no interesting or redeeming qualities that I can think of, sorry.
But I think now is a good time to mention about something I noticed about the characters as a whole. The female characters anyway. There are absolutely no strong female characters in this book. And while I could probably make an argument that there are no strong male characters in this book as well, but as we are still supposed to root for the male characters, it's still unfair. I know very well that not every book can be (or should be!) a feminist's best friend. But is it so much to ask for that there be a single female character one can look to in this book and not find horribly problematic? That a book doesn't reek of sexism, not just from within the fictional society, but from the author himself? When female characters are described, it's almost guaranteed that the focus will be on breasts and butts.
They are the loudest talkers, they are the worst gossips, they're bullies and busybodies and bitches, traitors and schemers, pitiful, weak and vain. I get that they're supposed to be a product of this future culture, but even Sandra Dee, the one woman that seems to think for herself is an undercover police officer. She uses Trafford for information and illegal books, and has his infant daughter infected with cholera so he couldn't announce he had her vaccinated to the rest of the community. What a lovely lady.
Chantorria is the only female character I could stand in more doses, primarily for the reasons listed above. She's interesting, but she makes bad decisions constantly. She succumbs to vanity, has religious delusions and treats her new-found "friends" as servants before being kicked back down to the lowest social rung once more. These would be perfectly acceptable character flaws if she had just grown in the ind. But she doesn't. By the last few chapters, she has a mental breakdown and confesses she knew her child was vaccinated, and walks down the street flogging herself. Once again in this novel, a woman is reduced to being pitiful, useless and hysterical.
Moving on, let's talk about the world Ben Elton has built for us. Or rather, has failed to build. The dystopia was supposed to have come about after global warming caused massive flooding on the earth. Okay, I can buy that. What I can't get behind is that, despite this catastrophic flood, despite the lack of vaccinations in infants allowing epidemics to kill about half of the children born before they reach five years of age, and despite that, with all of this flooding, there simply can't be enough farmlands to grow or raise enough food to support lifestyles similar to ours, that there has been a population explosion. People are packed like sardines, and having a single, three-person family in a tiny apartment is a luxury. And pretty much everyone is some degree of overweight.
My suspension of disbelief can only go so far, and Elton seems determined to stretch it until it snaps in two and hits me in the face. How is there enough electricity being generated to power the giant video screen walls in every room without land for them? Where is this food coming from? How can predominantly uneducated people maintain all of the technology that runs their lives? How can these same uneducated people read Darwin's Theory of Evolution, understand it, and agree with it in one night, when a simple children's science book is described as being hard to understand by an adult? And how can the author expect us to believe that a conservative, fundamentalist religious group would suddenly decide that public nudity and public sex -- especially in women, oh the horror -- should be accepted and encouraged? The entertainment industry (adult and otherwise) have rarely been on good terms with the religious right, and the mixture of the two in this way comes off as even more forced and contrived than Trafford's ideas.
There's little else to say about this book that wouldn't be a repeat of the above, or nitpicking at lesser problems. In all it felt more like a rough draft, and I do believe that it could have been better and more interesting if the plot holes were filled, and the characters were rounded out. I'd even give Trafford a second chance if he had a personality trait or two. As it stands, this book just didn't meet the expectations I had of it. If you're on the fence about it, I'd recommend picking it up at your library or buying a cheap used copy instead of paying full price.
Blind Faith is a story about that guy. Or at least, it should have been. Instead, Blind Faith is a satire/social commentary on the social media/reality tv/fast food loving culture of today. And unfortunately, it has all the subtleties of a speeding train to the face. The names of the popular websites in this potential future are simply abbreviated or mashed up versions of the popular websites of today: Facebook and Myspace are merged together to create Facespace; Youtube and Google get a few letters dumped from their names (in a break from the pattern, McDonald's is still McDonald's).
The dialogue is even more obvious. Trafford, our main character, regurgitates the information he receives from characters he meets back to other characters. Not once do we get a sense that he really understands what he's talking about, but we're supposed to agree with him, to root for him, because he's chosen science completely over the absurd future religion. In one of several arguments with his wife (a firm believer in the religion), she tries to meet him half-way, admitting that while man may have created vaccines (more on them later), couldn't it be possible that God gave them that information? While that should be an excellent starting point for someone trying to ease another person into seeing a new point of view, it's not good enough for Trafford. It's either science or God for him, and he makes it very clear (to the point of boredom) what his stance on God is. At this point in the novel, even I, someone who doesn't subscribe to any monotheistic religion wished I could make Trafford shut up. He is a boring, flat character with no redeeming qualities. And no personality traits, for that matter. He's simply a mouthpiece for the author, a soap box for him to stand on and rant about the absurdities he sees around him, exaggerated to the point of unbelievability. In the end, he's depicted as a martyr, dying for his cause, but honestly? I couldn't bring myself to care.
There are several other main characters in the book, and almost all of them are arguably more interesting than Trafford. Cassius, an elderly coworker of Trafford's is a Vaccinator, someone who administers now-illegal vaccines for easily preventable childhood diseases. He risks his life vaccinating infants in the hopes that some of them will survive the epidemics that plague the world now that vaccinations are treated as poisons, going against the will of God. I wish we could have learned more about his life, and the adventures he must have gone through in his day, but once Trafford has his daughter vaccinated, he uses Cassius as a source of books and rarely speaks to him after that.
Then there's Chantorria, Trafford's wife. She tries to be a devout follower of the future Christianity, but when she learns that, not only is Trafford keeping secrets, he had her child vaccinated -- both serious crimes, she too decides to keep them secret. In the end, she breaks down, no longer able to keep a private life and see herself as a good, religious woman, and the results are tragic. I would have liked to read about her conflicted thoughts, and how she struggled to reconcile these two lives, but unfortunately the book is predominantly written through Trafford's point of view.
Confessor Bailey and Sandra Dee make up the rest of the main characters, and they seem to suffer from the same disease that Trafford does that makes him flat and one-dimensional. They literally have no interesting or redeeming qualities that I can think of, sorry.
But I think now is a good time to mention about something I noticed about the characters as a whole. The female characters anyway. There are absolutely no strong female characters in this book. And while I could probably make an argument that there are no strong male characters in this book as well, but as we are still supposed to root for the male characters, it's still unfair. I know very well that not every book can be (or should be!) a feminist's best friend. But is it so much to ask for that there be a single female character one can look to in this book and not find horribly problematic? That a book doesn't reek of sexism, not just from within the fictional society, but from the author himself? When female characters are described, it's almost guaranteed that the focus will be on breasts and butts.
They are the loudest talkers, they are the worst gossips, they're bullies and busybodies and bitches, traitors and schemers, pitiful, weak and vain. I get that they're supposed to be a product of this future culture, but even Sandra Dee, the one woman that seems to think for herself is an undercover police officer. She uses Trafford for information and illegal books, and has his infant daughter infected with cholera so he couldn't announce he had her vaccinated to the rest of the community. What a lovely lady.
Chantorria is the only female character I could stand in more doses, primarily for the reasons listed above. She's interesting, but she makes bad decisions constantly. She succumbs to vanity, has religious delusions and treats her new-found "friends" as servants before being kicked back down to the lowest social rung once more. These would be perfectly acceptable character flaws if she had just grown in the ind. But she doesn't. By the last few chapters, she has a mental breakdown and confesses she knew her child was vaccinated, and walks down the street flogging herself. Once again in this novel, a woman is reduced to being pitiful, useless and hysterical.
Moving on, let's talk about the world Ben Elton has built for us. Or rather, has failed to build. The dystopia was supposed to have come about after global warming caused massive flooding on the earth. Okay, I can buy that. What I can't get behind is that, despite this catastrophic flood, despite the lack of vaccinations in infants allowing epidemics to kill about half of the children born before they reach five years of age, and despite that, with all of this flooding, there simply can't be enough farmlands to grow or raise enough food to support lifestyles similar to ours, that there has been a population explosion. People are packed like sardines, and having a single, three-person family in a tiny apartment is a luxury. And pretty much everyone is some degree of overweight.
My suspension of disbelief can only go so far, and Elton seems determined to stretch it until it snaps in two and hits me in the face. How is there enough electricity being generated to power the giant video screen walls in every room without land for them? Where is this food coming from? How can predominantly uneducated people maintain all of the technology that runs their lives? How can these same uneducated people read Darwin's Theory of Evolution, understand it, and agree with it in one night, when a simple children's science book is described as being hard to understand by an adult? And how can the author expect us to believe that a conservative, fundamentalist religious group would suddenly decide that public nudity and public sex -- especially in women, oh the horror -- should be accepted and encouraged? The entertainment industry (adult and otherwise) have rarely been on good terms with the religious right, and the mixture of the two in this way comes off as even more forced and contrived than Trafford's ideas.
There's little else to say about this book that wouldn't be a repeat of the above, or nitpicking at lesser problems. In all it felt more like a rough draft, and I do believe that it could have been better and more interesting if the plot holes were filled, and the characters were rounded out. I'd even give Trafford a second chance if he had a personality trait or two. As it stands, this book just didn't meet the expectations I had of it. If you're on the fence about it, I'd recommend picking it up at your library or buying a cheap used copy instead of paying full price.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 7, 2012
Ben Elton
Blind Faith
‘The Lord made Heaven and Earth. The Lord made us. The Lord does this, the Lord wants that. We don’t know how or why, we don’t need to know, it just happens. There’s never any explanation, it’s all a miracle. Children are born, some die, it’s God’s will, we can’t change it. Don’t you think that, in a way, that’s sort of ... sort of ...?’ Thus Trafford, the hero of Elton’s Blind Faith, puts the question to his wife Chantorria, a terrified conformist in the insane world of London several centuries after a global warming disaster has driven humanity back into an age of faith. Yes, this is a cautionary tale, a savage exposure of man’s need to believe and conform.
The novel harks back to Orwell’s 1984, but with a lighter touch and emphasis on religion rather than politics. In place of Big Brother and The Party we have The Temple, the authority that never fails, one that through the power of The Love controls cyberspace and individual thinking. Reason is subordinated to faith, science merely a manifestation of the Lord’s power; democracy is the will of the people, but a people brainwashed, threatened and in terror of non-conformity. Huge wallscreens in every apartment and public space monitor behaviour, with leaders demanding displays of faith in The Love, in which personal revelations of one’s indulgence in, say, feasting or oral sex, are mandatory. Pleasures must be shared, as must pain and grief caused by the perpetual child mortality rate – the water is polluted, London a reeking sewer, commuting replaced by Fizzy Coff – a physical appearance at the office, a necessarily rare occurrence in the overheated congested city.
Despite the parallels with Orwell – incipient paranoia when indulging in Own Life for example – Blind Faith’s totalitarianism encourages, nay, demands, self exposure. There is no Puritanism here: nakedness and sexual activity at all times, especially in public, are de rigueur. In fact, abstinence or reticence in these matters suggests a dearth of respect for The Love and is a serious concern of the local Confessor or the apartment censor Barbieheart, ‘the principle eyes and ears of the building, an enormous, globular, housebound sentinel who, although too big to leave her apartment, occupied every room.’ Like Winston Smith, Trafford falls secretly in love with a dissident, but ultimately with wider consequences when his viral email causes millions to receive their first Humanist mail shot.
Blind Faith is an exuberant and gripping novel that pillories evangelism and political correctness, delighting in exposing People Power and the cant and hypocrisy at the heart of belief. From obligatory local Hug-ins to massive pop-style congregations at the New Wembley Stadium, where The Love rules and you’d better not only believe it, but say it loud, shout it Big Time, and never betray a scruple of doubt. For heretics the torture chamber and the stake await! Books are out and wallscreens are in. Birthing videos must be posted, as must one’s private sex life. After all, what’s to be ashamed of? The Lord gave us genitals that we may celebrate Him, Big Time! Darwin is the Devil’s agent and science is merely the Lord’s way of reminding us of His power. Vaccination and those who support or practise it are defying the Lord’s will and must be hunted out, tied to the stake and burned over a pile of seditious books, any that may yet be found floating in the upper stories of deserted houses.
Of course this is all over the top, but very funny and not so far-fetched that it doesn’t chime with certain tendencies in our insidious world of what Elton calls ‘infotainment’, where cheerful idiocy rules the airwaves and cyberspace, and privacy and modesty are heretical.
At the end of the book, when Trafford’s daughter, Caitlin Happymeal, is the sole infant survivor in the latest smallpox epidemic (because of her covert vaccination) he is ‘ordered to stand on that stage at Wembley and credit divine intervention ... to give thanks to a stupid, vicious, capricious, illogical, immoral, maniacal deity who clearly exists only in the imaginations of idiots and bullies.’ Will he conform or be a recusant and face the consequences? Elton’s nail-biting plot has several more twists and turns before we know whether Trafford, like Orwell’s Winston Smith, will become yet another victim of orthodoxy.
Blind Faith
‘The Lord made Heaven and Earth. The Lord made us. The Lord does this, the Lord wants that. We don’t know how or why, we don’t need to know, it just happens. There’s never any explanation, it’s all a miracle. Children are born, some die, it’s God’s will, we can’t change it. Don’t you think that, in a way, that’s sort of ... sort of ...?’ Thus Trafford, the hero of Elton’s Blind Faith, puts the question to his wife Chantorria, a terrified conformist in the insane world of London several centuries after a global warming disaster has driven humanity back into an age of faith. Yes, this is a cautionary tale, a savage exposure of man’s need to believe and conform.
The novel harks back to Orwell’s 1984, but with a lighter touch and emphasis on religion rather than politics. In place of Big Brother and The Party we have The Temple, the authority that never fails, one that through the power of The Love controls cyberspace and individual thinking. Reason is subordinated to faith, science merely a manifestation of the Lord’s power; democracy is the will of the people, but a people brainwashed, threatened and in terror of non-conformity. Huge wallscreens in every apartment and public space monitor behaviour, with leaders demanding displays of faith in The Love, in which personal revelations of one’s indulgence in, say, feasting or oral sex, are mandatory. Pleasures must be shared, as must pain and grief caused by the perpetual child mortality rate – the water is polluted, London a reeking sewer, commuting replaced by Fizzy Coff – a physical appearance at the office, a necessarily rare occurrence in the overheated congested city.
Despite the parallels with Orwell – incipient paranoia when indulging in Own Life for example – Blind Faith’s totalitarianism encourages, nay, demands, self exposure. There is no Puritanism here: nakedness and sexual activity at all times, especially in public, are de rigueur. In fact, abstinence or reticence in these matters suggests a dearth of respect for The Love and is a serious concern of the local Confessor or the apartment censor Barbieheart, ‘the principle eyes and ears of the building, an enormous, globular, housebound sentinel who, although too big to leave her apartment, occupied every room.’ Like Winston Smith, Trafford falls secretly in love with a dissident, but ultimately with wider consequences when his viral email causes millions to receive their first Humanist mail shot.
Blind Faith is an exuberant and gripping novel that pillories evangelism and political correctness, delighting in exposing People Power and the cant and hypocrisy at the heart of belief. From obligatory local Hug-ins to massive pop-style congregations at the New Wembley Stadium, where The Love rules and you’d better not only believe it, but say it loud, shout it Big Time, and never betray a scruple of doubt. For heretics the torture chamber and the stake await! Books are out and wallscreens are in. Birthing videos must be posted, as must one’s private sex life. After all, what’s to be ashamed of? The Lord gave us genitals that we may celebrate Him, Big Time! Darwin is the Devil’s agent and science is merely the Lord’s way of reminding us of His power. Vaccination and those who support or practise it are defying the Lord’s will and must be hunted out, tied to the stake and burned over a pile of seditious books, any that may yet be found floating in the upper stories of deserted houses.
Of course this is all over the top, but very funny and not so far-fetched that it doesn’t chime with certain tendencies in our insidious world of what Elton calls ‘infotainment’, where cheerful idiocy rules the airwaves and cyberspace, and privacy and modesty are heretical.
At the end of the book, when Trafford’s daughter, Caitlin Happymeal, is the sole infant survivor in the latest smallpox epidemic (because of her covert vaccination) he is ‘ordered to stand on that stage at Wembley and credit divine intervention ... to give thanks to a stupid, vicious, capricious, illogical, immoral, maniacal deity who clearly exists only in the imaginations of idiots and bullies.’ Will he conform or be a recusant and face the consequences? Elton’s nail-biting plot has several more twists and turns before we know whether Trafford, like Orwell’s Winston Smith, will become yet another victim of orthodoxy.
August 28, 2012
This book has it all, and more. A gripping plot, excellent writing and characters that you really care about. There was one plot twist that was a bit predictable, but other than that I cannot find a flaw with this book, I really can't.
Blind Faith follows the journey of one man's awakening in a post-apocalyptic UK society where everyone is expected to share everything about their lives, by law. Everyone must blog and Tube the most important moments, to take pride in themselves as they were created by God. Society is completely controlled by the Temple, and has been almost since the Great Flood caused by global warming a generation earlier. Everyone has an interactive screen and camera in their living room which can be viewed by anyone at any time, and everyone is expected to be delighted by this. Privacy, knowledge, science are all crimes in this land, that whilst seeming so out of reach is explained by a course of events that seem highly rational. Childhood epidemics are commonplace, as the Temple have banned vaccinations as being an act of denying God and Diana in Heaven. Oh and everyone has ridiculous names - for example Princess Lovebud, Barbieheart, Gucci Kitkat among others.
The book follows Trafford and his family in this society. Trafford is a man who enjoys keeping secrets. Not particularly big ones, just enough for him to know that he is bucking the trend. He does the bare minimum of "sharing" expected, wears as many clothes as he can get away with and tries his best not to be noticed. After the birth of his daughter Caitlin Happymeal, he is approached by a member of his workplace who is secretly a Vaccinator, who offers (not so surprisingly) to vaccinate her, and from there the whole series of events unfolds.
It is a fantastic parody, showing the danger of blind faith and ignorance, the catastrophic consequences of humans ignoring their reason in favour of superstition. Read it.
Blind Faith follows the journey of one man's awakening in a post-apocalyptic UK society where everyone is expected to share everything about their lives, by law. Everyone must blog and Tube the most important moments, to take pride in themselves as they were created by God. Society is completely controlled by the Temple, and has been almost since the Great Flood caused by global warming a generation earlier. Everyone has an interactive screen and camera in their living room which can be viewed by anyone at any time, and everyone is expected to be delighted by this. Privacy, knowledge, science are all crimes in this land, that whilst seeming so out of reach is explained by a course of events that seem highly rational. Childhood epidemics are commonplace, as the Temple have banned vaccinations as being an act of denying God and Diana in Heaven. Oh and everyone has ridiculous names - for example Princess Lovebud, Barbieheart, Gucci Kitkat among others.
The book follows Trafford and his family in this society. Trafford is a man who enjoys keeping secrets. Not particularly big ones, just enough for him to know that he is bucking the trend. He does the bare minimum of "sharing" expected, wears as many clothes as he can get away with and tries his best not to be noticed. After the birth of his daughter Caitlin Happymeal, he is approached by a member of his workplace who is secretly a Vaccinator, who offers (not so surprisingly) to vaccinate her, and from there the whole series of events unfolds.
It is a fantastic parody, showing the danger of blind faith and ignorance, the catastrophic consequences of humans ignoring their reason in favour of superstition. Read it.
February 27, 2008
This book reminded me a lot of Orwell's 1984, however the society depicted was a lot more ridiculous than that in 1984 (the book IS a black comedy though). A little predictable at times, but still a good read.
The world depicted is in the near future (say 50 years) after global warming has flooded a lot of the world - the book is set in London, which is now a series of islands. Basically a perverted form of religion has taken over, where nothing is private and everything must be shared with everyone else. It's also all about consumption, everyone eats lots of fast food (McDonalds is considered luxury where you go for wedding receptions or to celebrate some major occasion), they barely wear any clothes (you've got to be proud of what you've got, you're not allowed to hide it), etc..
In this world Trafford is a man who hasn't been brainwashed, he has his own thoughts, he keeps secrets (a crime), and despises the society he lives in. The story follows Trafford's journey in discovering a world outside "blind faith", and the consequences of that.
The world depicted is in the near future (say 50 years) after global warming has flooded a lot of the world - the book is set in London, which is now a series of islands. Basically a perverted form of religion has taken over, where nothing is private and everything must be shared with everyone else. It's also all about consumption, everyone eats lots of fast food (McDonalds is considered luxury where you go for wedding receptions or to celebrate some major occasion), they barely wear any clothes (you've got to be proud of what you've got, you're not allowed to hide it), etc..
In this world Trafford is a man who hasn't been brainwashed, he has his own thoughts, he keeps secrets (a crime), and despises the society he lives in. The story follows Trafford's journey in discovering a world outside "blind faith", and the consequences of that.
March 21, 2018
This was my second Ben Elton book and I really enjoyed it. It was very different from what I had read by him previously, Time and Time Again, but just as good in it's own way.
Elton does a good job with surprises, I think. I saw one of the twists coming in this book but he twists them just a bit more beyond expectation.
Admittedly I was a bit dubious about this book in the beginning too. It's a very weird world. Imagine everyone, including yourself, always wearing the least amount of clothes possible - literally lingerie to work. And everyone is always watching everyone, like social media blown out of proportion, where your neighbour's can suddenly log into a web cam and watch you having sex. And above all that, being proud of this! It's a bit unsettling in the beginning but once I got used to it, this book became a page-turner.
It is by no means amazing. It's a bit like a knock-off combination of 1984 meets Brave New World. But it's fun.
Elton does a good job with surprises, I think. I saw one of the twists coming in this book but he twists them just a bit more beyond expectation.
Admittedly I was a bit dubious about this book in the beginning too. It's a very weird world. Imagine everyone, including yourself, always wearing the least amount of clothes possible - literally lingerie to work. And everyone is always watching everyone, like social media blown out of proportion, where your neighbour's can suddenly log into a web cam and watch you having sex. And above all that, being proud of this! It's a bit unsettling in the beginning but once I got used to it, this book became a page-turner.
It is by no means amazing. It's a bit like a knock-off combination of 1984 meets Brave New World. But it's fun.
July 4, 2008
I have mixed feelings about this book.
Ben Elton's satirical commentary about life does strike a chord. The irony of our quest to promote and encourage individualism and human rights, causes society to lose its soul. We do things and say things because society expects us to. We seek more and more to belong. We blindly follow where we are led and forget to question and be critical.
Even though, I understand that the story is set in a really bizarre future to re-inforce the how ridiculous society has become, I could not quite get into the book for the same reason.
I liked the social commentary theme of the book. Not sure I liked the way this was told.
Ben Elton's satirical commentary about life does strike a chord. The irony of our quest to promote and encourage individualism and human rights, causes society to lose its soul. We do things and say things because society expects us to. We seek more and more to belong. We blindly follow where we are led and forget to question and be critical.
Even though, I understand that the story is set in a really bizarre future to re-inforce the how ridiculous society has become, I could not quite get into the book for the same reason.
I liked the social commentary theme of the book. Not sure I liked the way this was told.
July 6, 2013
I absolutely loved this book. Ben Elton puts a brilliant futuristic spin on Orwell's classic, 1984, with similar themes and a cast of intriguing and mentally unstable characters.
This book shouldn't be taken too seriously, as I believe the intended message is one of mockery upon a 'fill your children's bucket with confidence' culture, and 'give 'em all a trophy' attitude, and how that could potentially affect future generations. The social media projections are a laugh, too. Put this on your 'to read' list.
This book shouldn't be taken too seriously, as I believe the intended message is one of mockery upon a 'fill your children's bucket with confidence' culture, and 'give 'em all a trophy' attitude, and how that could potentially affect future generations. The social media projections are a laugh, too. Put this on your 'to read' list.
April 14, 2008
This book was a gift, that i'd probably not have bought for myself. I'd read Ben Elton's earlier work, but hadn't picked up anything since Inconceivable. At the time of reading i had yet to read Orwell's 1984, but have read Brave New World many years ago. Co-incidence really that the next book i read was 1984.
The parallels are obvious, but Elton's take has more of a satirical humourous look at a a future world in a very obsessive 'big brother' society.
The parallels are obvious, but Elton's take has more of a satirical humourous look at a a future world in a very obsessive 'big brother' society.
October 26, 2008
Part 1984, part Fahrenheit 451, Blind Faith is set in a dystopian post global warming future. A future where everyone's lives are permanently on the Web and where the cults of self and celebrity along with a deeply intolerant religious state create a nightmare world.
The idea is good, though Elton's satire is used more as a club than a rapier and you do rather feel that the message could have been driven home just as effectively with a little more subtlety.
The idea is good, though Elton's satire is used more as a club than a rapier and you do rather feel that the message could have been driven home just as effectively with a little more subtlety.
December 31, 2008
Ben Elton's novel is fun, an updated version of 1984 with real twists that reflect modern day England's obsession with both religion and statistics not to mention any remaining sense of privacy. While the novel ostensibly mocks faith it is equally harsh on celebrity culture and casual perhaps even indifferent attention to sex.
April 28, 2018
This is the fourth book of Elton's I've read, and I eagerly awaited it after reading Chart Throb. Unfortunately I was left feeling a little disappointed with this one.
Props to the idea: he invents a realistic dystopian London (mostly underwater thanks to climate change) and the smothering self-love culture where nothing is secret is pretty developed and certainly claustrophobic. However, there's so much to wrap your head around in the beginning, and, once you finally get to grips with the world, the novel is over. The ending felt rushed and the fate of the protagonist abruptly changed over the span of about 10 pages. Perhaps this was the point, as *very, very mild spoiler* sometimes the good guys don't win, they don't even get to fight, and we ARE given a glimmer of revolution at the end to suggest it's actually the beginning of something. But the main character's whole arc is squashed so quickly it feels unsatisfying. The motivations of another main character also didn't make much sense to me - we're just supposed to accept it once they tell us what they are. I do see 100% what Elton was going for and I think if fans saw this review they'd scream 'THAT'S WHAT HE MEANT, THOUGH!', but sometimes intention just isn't enough.
I feel like Dead Famous was the perfect balance of thriller and commentary, but something was just LACKING in Blind Faith that I couldn't quite put my finger on. It attempts to take on too much: censorship, social media madness, porn, anti-vaxxers, organised religion, capitalist dystopia... and on top of that there's a whole vocabulary of neo-language (which usually I adore) you have to grapple with and ultimately it all gets a bit confused. With a few more years of thinking and developing (especially given a lot of events that followed publication, including a resurgence of anti-vax movements and, well, Amazon's whole thing), I think it might have been better executed and might also have aged better. It was certainly a good prediction of where we were heading, albeit a little obvious.
It might be cruel to say, but it fell short of being 'Brooker-esque' in that it felt more condescending in its tone towards youth culture than it did satirical. I noticed this tonal shift a little in Chart Throb, and it seems the more modern the subjects Elton writes about get, the less well he does at succinctly tackling them. In doing a bit of googling I've just seen the cover of his 2019 novel Identity Crisis and cringed - I can tell from a glance that it takes on gender, twitter trolling and politics - something I would usually jump at the chance to explore but, based off the lack of subtlety in Blind Faith, I now dread to see how it's handled.
Perhaps this isn't Elton's intention as I know from his stand up he's very pro-PC and criticises all those who utter 'YoU cAn'T sAy anYThINg nOwADayS!', but I think a lot of his work is misunderstood due to trying to address so many issues at once. His more recent novels have fueled the arguments of the people he makes fun of - and some might say this is a mark of brilliant satire, but to me it just proves that it hasn't quite been executed well enough. He's 1000x a more ambitious and intelligent writer than I'll ever be, but I do feel like I engage less with his writing the older I get (and the more affected I am by politics, which is probably actually a merit to Elton in one way or another). I haven't heard any hype for Identity Crisis either way, so perhaps it's tame enough to not serve as rage-fuel for either side of the political spectrum, but I still feel like it's going to hit a little too close to home for me at the tender, identity crisis-prone age of 25. I know he wants to approach these subjects from 'the right side of empathy', but unless I see a review proving it as such, I'll probably give Identity Crisis a miss.
TL;DR: Might be worth a read for the world created, but ultimately unsatisfying.
Props to the idea: he invents a realistic dystopian London (mostly underwater thanks to climate change) and the smothering self-love culture where nothing is secret is pretty developed and certainly claustrophobic. However, there's so much to wrap your head around in the beginning, and, once you finally get to grips with the world, the novel is over. The ending felt rushed and the fate of the protagonist abruptly changed over the span of about 10 pages. Perhaps this was the point, as *very, very mild spoiler* sometimes the good guys don't win, they don't even get to fight, and we ARE given a glimmer of revolution at the end to suggest it's actually the beginning of something. But the main character's whole arc is squashed so quickly it feels unsatisfying. The motivations of another main character also didn't make much sense to me - we're just supposed to accept it once they tell us what they are. I do see 100% what Elton was going for and I think if fans saw this review they'd scream 'THAT'S WHAT HE MEANT, THOUGH!', but sometimes intention just isn't enough.
I feel like Dead Famous was the perfect balance of thriller and commentary, but something was just LACKING in Blind Faith that I couldn't quite put my finger on. It attempts to take on too much: censorship, social media madness, porn, anti-vaxxers, organised religion, capitalist dystopia... and on top of that there's a whole vocabulary of neo-language (which usually I adore) you have to grapple with and ultimately it all gets a bit confused. With a few more years of thinking and developing (especially given a lot of events that followed publication, including a resurgence of anti-vax movements and, well, Amazon's whole thing), I think it might have been better executed and might also have aged better. It was certainly a good prediction of where we were heading, albeit a little obvious.
It might be cruel to say, but it fell short of being 'Brooker-esque' in that it felt more condescending in its tone towards youth culture than it did satirical. I noticed this tonal shift a little in Chart Throb, and it seems the more modern the subjects Elton writes about get, the less well he does at succinctly tackling them. In doing a bit of googling I've just seen the cover of his 2019 novel Identity Crisis and cringed - I can tell from a glance that it takes on gender, twitter trolling and politics - something I would usually jump at the chance to explore but, based off the lack of subtlety in Blind Faith, I now dread to see how it's handled.
Perhaps this isn't Elton's intention as I know from his stand up he's very pro-PC and criticises all those who utter 'YoU cAn'T sAy anYThINg nOwADayS!', but I think a lot of his work is misunderstood due to trying to address so many issues at once. His more recent novels have fueled the arguments of the people he makes fun of - and some might say this is a mark of brilliant satire, but to me it just proves that it hasn't quite been executed well enough. He's 1000x a more ambitious and intelligent writer than I'll ever be, but I do feel like I engage less with his writing the older I get (and the more affected I am by politics, which is probably actually a merit to Elton in one way or another). I haven't heard any hype for Identity Crisis either way, so perhaps it's tame enough to not serve as rage-fuel for either side of the political spectrum, but I still feel like it's going to hit a little too close to home for me at the tender, identity crisis-prone age of 25. I know he wants to approach these subjects from 'the right side of empathy', but unless I see a review proving it as such, I'll probably give Identity Crisis a miss.
TL;DR: Might be worth a read for the world created, but ultimately unsatisfying.
May 21, 2019
Ben Elton has written some amusing and interesting books. This is not one of them.
The plot, such as it is, cribs heavily from "1984", and takes place with an almost glacial slowness. Humor is almost nonexistent. The satire is so lacking in subtlety that it falls flat, and the points he sets out to make are so painfully obvious that you could jot them down right now without reading the book if I gave you some keywords. (Antivaxxers, Instagram, global warming, modesty, surveillance...)
The characters all manage to be repellent without being interesting, and perhaps most distasteful of all, the increasingly Tory Elton seems willing to unleash as subtext his patronizing disdain for the working classes and their simply ghastly proletarian tastes. (They wear ill-fitting sportswear and eat at McDonalds, can you imagine?)
By all means read Elton's "Stark", "Gridlock", "Gasping" or "Popcorn", but steer well clear of this one. Or if you want a novel that deals with what social networking is doing to society but in an intelligent and amusing way, try Feed"Feed" by M.T. Anderson.
The plot, such as it is, cribs heavily from "1984", and takes place with an almost glacial slowness. Humor is almost nonexistent. The satire is so lacking in subtlety that it falls flat, and the points he sets out to make are so painfully obvious that you could jot them down right now without reading the book if I gave you some keywords. (Antivaxxers, Instagram, global warming, modesty, surveillance...)
The characters all manage to be repellent without being interesting, and perhaps most distasteful of all, the increasingly Tory Elton seems willing to unleash as subtext his patronizing disdain for the working classes and their simply ghastly proletarian tastes. (They wear ill-fitting sportswear and eat at McDonalds, can you imagine?)
By all means read Elton's "Stark", "Gridlock", "Gasping" or "Popcorn", but steer well clear of this one. Or if you want a novel that deals with what social networking is doing to society but in an intelligent and amusing way, try Feed"Feed" by M.T. Anderson.
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