Underground Man (Classics of Science Fiction)

by Gabriel Tarde, H.G. Wells (Introduction)

Gabriel de Tarde was a well-known French sociologist and criminologist. Underground Man, published in 1905, was written to dramatize de Tarde's theory that man is the creature of his social environment. In the story, mankind is driven underground by the extinction of the sun; attitudes change dramatically as the migrants drill deeper and deeper. The book is divided into three sections. In the first, de Tarde ironically outlines man's struggle to build a Utopia; in the second, the sun turns red, the sea becomes ice, the air begins to fall in flakes of nitrogen and oxygen. Persuaded that power and heat can be obtained from the center of the earth, the survivors start digging enormous crypts. Here, under the earth, they build a genial and artistic community, with marvelous labor-saving machines that enable them to concentrate on creating works of art. The moral of de Tarde's tale is that in the proper environment man can do all things--even overcome his own basic nature.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy

198 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1896

About the author

Jean-Gabriel de Tarde, writing as Gabriel Tarde was a French sociologist, criminologist and social psychologist.

Reviews

[Warren Fournier · Rating 3 out of 5]

The future "rocks!"

I ran into a bit of initial frustration when attempting to read and review an English translation of this book, and I almost gave up, but it worked out well in the end. "Underground Man" was originally titled "Fragment d'histoire future," and is an 1896 post-apocalyptic utopian fantasy about Earth's civilizations dwelling underground after a devastating global freeze that makes the surface uninhabitable, long preceding great stories like "Wool" and "Snowpiercer."

Unfortunately, I got disillusioned quite quickly. At first, I was tickled that HG Wells wrote the preface to this story, but I'm not sure he even read the book he was introducing. He rambles on about God only knows what with a degree of insufferable snobbery, spending much of the time talking about how whimsical and humorous the French language is compared to English, and makes fun of the "common Englishman" who dreams about someday learning French like him. But one has come to expect such elitism from a man who thought it would be a good idea to nuke the uninformed masses off the planet to make room for a leftist oligarchy who could dictate utopia to the progressive chosen ones that remained.

Then, to make matters worse, I had an e-book translation of this novel that was only about two years old, but thankfully it seems to have been taken down from the Kindle store. I couldn't even tell you who the publisher was, because I can't find a single thing about it online. This was obviously one of those sham publications that you have to watch out for. The book read as though someone used Google translate on the French and was the most unreadable slop next to Ridero Publishing's terrible so-called English e-books of Alexander Belyaev's Russian Radium-Age scifi fantasies. Just get a load of this example:

"All the glaciers that have been useless because the geological a while got here to life again, extra gigantic than ever."

Are you serious?! Fortunately, I was able to find the original Cloudesley Brereton (yes, that is really someone's name) translation for free, which I had not seen previously available when I first went to procure this book. So what we get in a REAL translation instead is:

"All the glaciers that had been dead since the geological ages came to life again, more colossal than ever."

That's more like it! Now let's see if this book was worth the frustration, shall we?

Here are some examples of Neo-troglodyte life in the future according to Gabriel de Tarde. They never figure out how to grow their own food underground, deciding to entirely rely on sending expeditions to the freezing surface to dig out frozen animal corpses. As such, no tobacco can be grown, and even if it could, the citizens would not be allowed to smoke underground, so the author says that public health had never been better. Wow! That's quite a statement from a 19th century Frenchman! Not only that, but disease has practically been eradicated because all microbial pathogens and animal vectors were destroyed by the icy disaster on the surface. Right. Because I'm sure nothing was clinging to the first underground settlers, no spores, no dust mites, no indestructible viruses or cockroaches.

Everyone runs around au naturel, because there are no textiles to make clothes out of fibers from long extinct plants or silkworms, which the author assures us is a good thing because all the humans left on earth are of the hardiest stock, meaning everyone is fit and healthy and easy on the eyes. Guess there's no such thing as "bad naked" anymore.

And gone is the problem of "fake news!" Why? Because journalists have to be more thoughtful in the 26th Century since there are no trees on which to make and print newspapers, so everything has to be written on stone... Which... somehow... makes people... not lie anymore? That takes the phrase "written in stone" way too literally. Besides, nobody invented electronics or TV or anything by the 2500's?

Oh, but they did have machinery of all sorts, mostly to dig out more living space, and electricity and central heating and lights and stuff. All powered by the heat from the Earth's core. Wait a minute. Just how deep did these people have to go? They only got their news by replacing the daily paper with chiseled rocks, yet they had the technology to tap into the molten core? Well, believe me, that makes more sense than some of the other nonsense you'll find here.

I can see why Wells must have liked the ideas in this book, because the main point is that the artificial underground lifestyle has somehow revolutionized society, abolishing capital and the need for any kind of economy. Everyone is magically enlightened and woke! Doesn't stop then from being incredibly racist, but you'll just have to read that part for yourselves to believe it. How simply living in caves was supposed to precipitate all of these sociological changes was absolute bullocks to me, but I guess Wells bought it hook, line, and sinker... If he actually read the book, like I said.

The writing is quite gorgeous, but as dry as sand in the Gobi. There's really very little plot to speak of either. At first I thought this was going to be a romance between an ubermensch named "Scarface" and some Red Sonja type, but no. Once the human race decides to go underground, any traditional narrative is forsaken for pure exposition and preaching, basically the author sharing his idea for a perfect civilization.

And this vision of the future is quite bizarre as you can already guess. But it certainly is interesting and makes for some joyful reading. It is at least refreshing to not have to read about yet another dystopia, another tyrannical dictatorship, another society in decline. In this case, everyone is happy and looks great in the nude. Hurray for the future!

So in conclusion, science fiction fans, I found this to be a rather lackluster but pleasant little utopian speculation that can be quite charming in it's naivete. If you are curious and want to read this book, buy a vintage hard copy or make sure you are getting a free public domain transfer of the original Cloudesley Brereton translation.

SCORE: Two rocks and a pebble, rounded up to three stars forever obscured beneath miles of the earth's crust and a perpetually frozen tundra under a dead sun.

[Christopher · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wasn’t going to bother with a review for this but it was so bizarre I just couldn’t help it.

An absurdly silly yet still entertaining post-apocalyptic tale that chronicles man’s shedding of his restrictive evil nature and the realization of his perfection through the evolution of group cooperation and herd behavior. When the sun suddenly dies, the remaining populations on earth are forced to move their societies underground. Like Noah and his ark full of animals and plants, they take with them their most valuable items for rebuilding their new world also: paintings, bronzes, violins, and books of poetry. After a few centuries of subterranean slaughter, somehow the inevitable victors emerge: secular saintly aesthetes who create a romantic neo-troglodytical artistic utopia through the prodigious use of prophylactics and capital punishment. And love.

Lots and lots of charming love.



And, I kid you not, he also talks about “purity and essence.”



I also can’t help noting that De Tarde also has some strange fascination with “the Chinese.” Before men flee underground, during the onset of the new ice age, de Tarde describes the meadows no longer being green, the skies no longer being blue, and the Chinese no longer being yellow… And later, after the descent, he speaks not of Chinese “ancestor worship” but instead of Chinese “ancestor cannibalism.”

Gabriel de Tarde seems to have some renown as a criminologist and sociologist but without actually delving into his academic books, I can only imagine he was a French equivalent of Abraham Laslow - dreamers who came up with a novel idea or two which led to alternative approaches in their fields but who were at best, shallow flakes, and at the extreme, mad as March hares.

Stanley Kubrick, you’ve been found out, you thief…



We'll meet again,
Don't know where,
Don't know when,
But I know,
We'll meet again,
Some sunny day...

[Leticia · Rating 3 out of 5]

This picturesque, more 'Gedankenexperiment' than story short book is very different and original in ironically imagining a civilization forced underground after the Sun has gone cold and the Earth's surface is frozen. Something to read if you are interested in Subterranean Fiction.
The 'underground society' is presented as an Utopia but a lot of questions and considerations are left open for further interpretation. One of them is that this book has some openly racist content that I understood as a criticism, due to the obvious sarcastic tone of the narrative, of this future underground society encapsulated in its own intolerance and self-image of perfection, but the way how this racism is blatantly exposed is somehow shocking.

[Janne Wass · Rating 1 out of 5]

In 1904 French sociologist, criminologist and psychologist Gabriel Tarde’s only science fiction novel, “Fragment d'histoire future”, was posthumously published on the year of his death. It was swiftly translated to English, with a foreword by H.G. Wells, and published in 1905 as “Underground Man”.

A modern reader would not find its structure to correspond with what we are used to calling a novel, as there are no clear protagonists, nor any clear character-driven plot. Rather, the book is a long piece of speculative prose laying out the future of mankind under a new Ice Age as the sun rapidly cools down.
Tarde begins with describing a future where Greek ethics, philosophy and culture has been revived, logic and security are the governing principles, and individualism, courage and progress have been cast aside for a world of equality and predictability. As the sun begins to cool, different factions in society bicker about what is to be done, many arguing that the best thing should be to wait and see. However, an individualist leader rises from the people, laying out a plan for “Neo-Troglodytism”, that a new society must be established underground.

Much of the book then goes on to describe this new society, based on people working together for the common good, and using technology and science to make labour-saving machines, that give people freedom to pursue art and music.

In short, the book was intended as an illustration of Tarde’s idea that humans are the product of the social environments, and that when pushed, humans can be highly adaptable and even go against their basic nature – for example, forgo their need for sunlight and fresh air.

In his foreword H.G. Wells praises Tarde’s wit and satire, which he laments translates poorly to English. The next year, Wells published his own disaster novel predicting a Great Change for mankind, “In the Days of the Comet”, and one does wonder if he wasn’t inspired to outdo his French colleague.

[José Luis Valenciano · Rating 5 out of 5]

El frances Gabriel Tarde (1843-1904), nos ofrece con su obra "Fragmento de historia futura", publicada en 1896, una original distopia que parte de la premisa de un confinamiento forzoso de la humanidad en el subsuelo, debido a una nueva era glacial derivada de un sol agonizante.
Este cataclismo llega en una suerte de edad de oro de la humanidad, acostumbrada a la paz y sin especiales conflictos, ni siquiera en lo relativo a luchas por el poder político. Los supervivientes se agolpan, esperando su final, en Arabia, hasta que surge entre ellos un Milcíades que les despierta y da esperanza en su salvación si renuncian a la superficie y se centran en vivir bajo tierra, obteniendo, merced a la tecnología, todo el sustento y alojamiento que necesitan; todo ello sin olvidar traer copias de todo el conocimiento científico acumulado.
Con una visión altamente optimista, la nueva sociedad generada en estas condiciones, en lugar de volverse caótica y degenerar (como una comunidad china con la que se encuentran algunos de sus exploradores); libre finalmente de preocupación por satisfacer sus necesidades más basicas, se vuelca en las artes y las ciencias y se agrupa en torno a preferencias gremiales más que nacionalistas y patrióticas.
La edición de Abraxas cuenta con un postfacio de Herbert George Well, que dice mucho sobre la influencia de Tarde en el mundo de la novela de anticipación de finales del siglo XIX y principios del XX.

[Yavuz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ütopik, ironik, fantastik ve tabiki de fütürist...

H. G Well'in önsözü ile :

" Bu küçük kitap ile Tarde, kendisini en çok ilgilendiren fikre, yani içedönük dünya fikrine ulaşmış oluyor.
Tarde burada, biraz aiay ederek, biraz onaylayarak, insan ilişkilerinin yeni bir anlayışını işaret eder ve zengin imalar taşıyan bir uzaklıktan baktığı günümüzün toplumsal ilişkilerini eleştirir. Anlamlı, neşeli bir tavırla insan olanaklarının derinlerine iner, yazarımızı asıl bu pasajlarda buluruz. Tarde, bu konuda düşünüp taşınmış bir adamın özgüveniyle, "toplum birbirleriyle hizmet takas eden insanlardan oluşur" deyişini reddeder. Birçoğumuzun belli belirsiz de olsa kavramaya başladığı "toplum düşüncelerin takas edilmesinden oluşur" fikrini açıkça ortaya atar. Bunun ardından gelen pasajlar, Tarde'a uygun insanların zihninde birçok ilginç gelişmenin tohumu olacaktır. Bunlar, bu küçük kitaptaki başka her şeyin örttüğü, süslediği, gizlediği malzemeyi, ciddi gerçekliği oluşturur. "

[Aaron Schuschu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thought it was going to be a nineteenth century dystopia with the message being an environmentalism ahead of its time, but turned out to be… was this dissing eggheads ahead of its time, or dissing incels ahead of its time?

[David · Rating 1 out of 5]

Read the blurb, then skip it and go read H.G. Wells.

[Faith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting, man versus nature

[Eileen · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.75 stars

[Osman Tümay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tarde’ın okuduğum ilk kitabının bilim kurgu formatında olması hoş oldu. Diğerleri de sırayla…

[Francisco Hidalgo · Rating 4 out of 5]

¨Pero para el teórico, para el artista, para el esteticista de todos los géneros, producir es una pasíon, consumir es un gusto. Puesto que todo artista es también un aficionado; pero su afición, relativa a las demás artes antes que a la suya, no representa en su vida más que un papel secundario comparado con su papel especial. El artista crea por placer y sólo él crea de esta suerte.¨

Algunos indicios me hacen pensar que la chispa que inpiro al creador de Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann surgio de este libro.

[Thomaz Amancio · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ler as utopias de outrora - as honestas e as irônicas - é sempre um fascínio. Em poucos outros lugares se encontra com tanta clareza os sonhos e os pesadelos de uma época, aquilo que ela deseja e aquilo que abomina, em suma, como vê  e pensa e sente o mundo.


As melhores dentre elas são as que surpreendem, desenhando cenários para a vida humana, e suas consequências, que não teríamos imaginado sozinhos. Em outras palavras, as mais idiossincráticas, as que carregam a marca não só de seu tempo mas também de uma mente, hm, interessante.


O livro de Tarde é dessa espécie, ao mesmo tempo fruto de uma imaginação sugestiva e de um pensamento sociológico e filosófico original. A figura do narrador-personagem, velha como a literatura, serve para manter a narrativa naquela zona cinzenta de indefinição entre a honestidade e a ironia. No entremeio, pontuam clarões de ideias que oferecem um olhar surpreendente sobre fenômenos familiares, e até esboços de uma teoria ou sistema capaz de oferecer respostas inauditas a questões do presente.

[Claudia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Com algumas poucas observações interessantes, o livro serve mais para mostrar o que Tarde imaginava do futuro (lembra-se o tempo todo dos limites históricos/científicos da futurologia do autor) e das potencialidades humanas do que como entretenimento de imaginação fantástica. Há sempre a sensação de que o livro é datado e desinteressante para leitores de hoje. O suposto experimento fictício da sociedade sem natureza ficou bem aquém da minha expectativa.

É um bocado constrangedor quando a futurologia se mostra cafona... Sem contar que o autor é (foi) daqueles que acreditam - dentre outras ingenuidades - que o retorno à antiguidade clássica é o melhor que a humanidade pode fazer.

Vale a leitura para os curiosos como eu, se considerarmos também que dá pra ler tudo em poucas horas, contanto que se contenham as expectativas - Tarde definitivamente não é um escritor de ficção científica.

[nks · Rating 2 out of 5]

After the melancholy and oft-tedious pages of Richard Jefferies’ After London, I was thrilled to discover that The Underground Man was ironic, satirical, and occasionally funny. Published in 1896 in French as Fragment d’histoire future and in 1905 in English as The Underground Man, Gabriel de Tarde’s tale of the end of the world is both post-apocalyptic and utopian. I only hesitate to call it a “cosy catastrophe” because the only character we meet—besides our future historian narrator about whom we know nothing—dies in a tragic battle against this own people, and a cosy catastrophe is meant to show a protagonist who both survives the end of the world and thrives as a result. It is, however, as Tarde puts it in the book’s first sentence, a “fortunate disaster.”

Read the rest of my review here: http://www.bookpunks.com/early-apocal...

[Aiko · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cette nouvelle d'anticipation est très originale ; elle ne contient aucun personnage principal, le narrateur se contente de décrire le monde dans lequel il vit, le comparant à celui qui précédait la catastrophe. Un texte composé essentiellement de descriptions peut être assez déroutant, et le côté philosophique omniprésent dans le livre peut en rebuter plus d'un. Cependant, le style d'écriture de Gabriel Tarde, à la fois poétique et scientifique, est compréhensible et m'a personnellement emportée. Je ne pense pas que j'apprécierais de vivre dans une telle société, mais ce texte a le mérite de nous faire réfléchir sur beaucoup de points (arts, sciences, relations sociales...) ; bien que la nouvelle ait été écrite en 1876 et que le monde précédant la catastrophe paraisse "faible" au niveau technologique, cette société ne semble pas si éloignée de la nôtre.

[Cintia Andrade · Rating 4 out of 5]

Antes de Yevgeny Zamyatin, antes de George Orwell, houve Tarde. Esse texto curtinho do final do século XIX é uma ficção científica sobre um futuro onde o sol se apagou e a humanidade precisa migrar para o centro da terra. E aí entram todos os temas clássicos hoje já tão exaustivamente explorados pelo novo filão das distopias: as relações humanas, questões de habitação, alimentação e distribuição de riquezas, etc. Apesar da organização não ser das mais interessantes, Tarde (que era sociólogo) brilha quando descreve ironicamente as novas relações sociais e o papel da arte na sociedade.

[Kathryn Vereline · Rating 2 out of 5]

Terribleness read . hard to follow confusing to keep on fo cus . words did not flow smoothly.was not

I found the book to be hard to follow. It was confusing and did not talk about the title as it was misleading. Not about the under ground passages during the times were the under ground passages here in the USA. More talk about European under ground.

[Al Capwned · Rating 3 out of 5]

More like an alternative history narrative than a novel, this post-apocalyptic story is bizarre and although there is not much to it, you just can't stop reading it.

[Celo · Rating 3 out of 5]

One (long) sentence review: Not really a story much more like a description of future history mixed and spiced with utopistic predictions in underground post apocalyptic world.

[Freddie Klein · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting with a great concept but hard to follow.