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The Question Mark
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY DR MO MOULTON
In 1925 Muriel Jaeger, dissatisfied with the unrealistic utopian stories of H G Wells and Edward Bellamy, set out to explore ‘The Question Mark’ of what a future society might look like if human nature were truthfully represented.
Her hero, disgruntled office worker Guy, is pitched 200 years into a future London where each citizen is offered free education and a personal ‘power-box’ granting access to communication, transportation and entertainment. To Guy, the great challenges facing society seem solved, but its in-habitants tell a different story of fractured life in this supposed utopia.
Preceding the publication of Huxley’s Brave New World by 5 years, The Question Mark is a significant cornerstone in the foundation of the dystopia genre, and an impressive work of literary science fiction.
In 1925 Muriel Jaeger, dissatisfied with the unrealistic utopian stories of H G Wells and Edward Bellamy, set out to explore ‘The Question Mark’ of what a future society might look like if human nature were truthfully represented.
Her hero, disgruntled office worker Guy, is pitched 200 years into a future London where each citizen is offered free education and a personal ‘power-box’ granting access to communication, transportation and entertainment. To Guy, the great challenges facing society seem solved, but its in-habitants tell a different story of fractured life in this supposed utopia.
Preceding the publication of Huxley’s Brave New World by 5 years, The Question Mark is a significant cornerstone in the foundation of the dystopia genre, and an impressive work of literary science fiction.
208 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1926
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204 people want to read
About the author
Muriel Jaeger
8 booksThough critical response ultimately led her to stop publishing, Oxford-educated writer Muriel Jaeger (1892-1969) made her mark with dynamic critiques of modern Western civilization. From the paranormal (Hermes Speaks, 1933) to utopia (The Question Mark, 1926) to genetic engineering (Retreat from Armageddon, 1936), Jaeger brought a unique voice to the struggles of subjectivity and scientific reason that shook the post-Victorian mindset. Her works are often referenced and rarely found.
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Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews
September 16, 2019
Careful what you wish for...
Guy Martin isn’t happy. It’s 1925, and he seems to be settled in a job as a bank clerk which gives him little satisfaction, either intellectually or financially. Thanks to a scholarship he’s educated a little above his class, but has failed to rid himself completely of the Cockney accent that gives away his humble origins. As a result, he feels he doesn’t really fit in socially anywhere except for the Socialist Club, which he has joined, not so much out of a love for the poor and disadvantaged, but for the access to people who don’t judge him by his class. But, of course, they do, especially the middle-class young woman on whom he has set his heart, whose egalitarian instincts don’t stretch to romantic liaisons with the hoi-polloi. It is in this mood of disillusionment about society that he finds himself suddenly transported to the 22nd century, where he finds that all humanity’s needs have been met by increased mechanisation and people are free to pursue whatever course in life they choose...
Jaeger was writing this in 1926 in response to the rash of Utopian fiction that was prevalent in that period. Her own introduction tells us that, to a degree, she buys into the idea of the socialist utopia, at least in so far as that she believes that soon, given the will, society will have the means to provide decent living conditions to all citizens, and that mechanisation will free people from the drudgery and exhaustion of repetitive and uninspiring work. However, she sets out to speculate what, in that event, would happen to humanity – how would we develop, individually and as a society? And she suggests that the Utopias that assume that, freed from poverty, suddenly all people will become good and kind and devote themselves to art and culture are perhaps not taking account of human nature.
While reading, I felt this owed more than a little to Wells’ The Time Machine and it also reminded me a little of Huxley’s later Brave New World, so I was glad to read in the short but very interesting and informative introduction by Dr Mo Moulton of the University of Birmingham that she sees this as a link in that chain too. She also says it alludes directly to Bellamy’s classic Utopian novel, Looking Backward, one I haven’t yet read but really must since it gets referenced so often.
However, I felt this had a more human feel than Wells’ far distant future, where humanity had evolved almost beyond recognition. Jaeger’s people are still very much like us – they smoke and drink and speak English, play sports, argue, marry, etc. (Though not necessarily in that order.) This makes them far easier to understand and empathise with than Wells’ Eloi. Also, by beginning the book in 1925 and letting us see the class and economic divisions of her own time, she avoids the odd kind of nostalgia that some dystopias indulge in, as if the past was somehow a lost idyll to which we should try to return. Jaeger’s depiction is nicely balanced – both her present and her future have good and bad in them, with the clear suggestion that economic and social changes will change our problems rather than rid us of them entirely.
At first, Guy is entranced by this new world. He finds himself living with the doctor who has, in some unexplained way, brought him to this time, and is introduced to the doctor’s nephew, John Wayland, who will be his initial guide to the society. Dr Wayland and John are both intellectuals, choosing to spend their days on scientific and artistic pursuits, and indulging in philosophical debate with their friends. But soon Guy begins to discover that this society is just as divided as in his own time. Many people don’t have either the capacity or the desire for an intellectual life. They are called the normals and, while all their physical needs are met, they are left somewhat purposeless, their empty lives filled with childlike emotions and pursuits. The intellectuals treat them kindly enough, but with an amused contempt at their antics. Guy finds himself again standing uncomfortably on the dividing line between two classes, and gradually begins to wonder if the advances of the last two hundred years have made things better or worse.
Despite its age, I found that this book is addressing questions which are perhaps even more urgent today. With increasing automation, we will soon have to decide what we as a society will do with vastly increased leisure time. While it’s easy to think that would be a great thing, as usual it will be the least skilled and least intellectually inclined people who will be affected most. Will we step up to the plate and find ways to give people a fulfilling purpose, or will we simply throw millions, billions, of people out of work and leave them with nothing to strive for? Jaeger doesn’t give answers but, although in her future people have not been left in material poverty, reading between the lines her society seems to be becoming depopulated – not in a healthy, planned way, but more as a response to the lack of purpose and hope; and with intellect as the new currency, there is still a major divide between rich and poor.
Well written, thought-provoking, and a rather more human look at utopian society than we often get. I thoroughly enjoyed this and, as so often, am at a loss to know why this would have been “forgotten”, since it seems to me as good as many of the ones which have been granted classic status.
NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, the British Library.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
Guy Martin isn’t happy. It’s 1925, and he seems to be settled in a job as a bank clerk which gives him little satisfaction, either intellectually or financially. Thanks to a scholarship he’s educated a little above his class, but has failed to rid himself completely of the Cockney accent that gives away his humble origins. As a result, he feels he doesn’t really fit in socially anywhere except for the Socialist Club, which he has joined, not so much out of a love for the poor and disadvantaged, but for the access to people who don’t judge him by his class. But, of course, they do, especially the middle-class young woman on whom he has set his heart, whose egalitarian instincts don’t stretch to romantic liaisons with the hoi-polloi. It is in this mood of disillusionment about society that he finds himself suddenly transported to the 22nd century, where he finds that all humanity’s needs have been met by increased mechanisation and people are free to pursue whatever course in life they choose...
Jaeger was writing this in 1926 in response to the rash of Utopian fiction that was prevalent in that period. Her own introduction tells us that, to a degree, she buys into the idea of the socialist utopia, at least in so far as that she believes that soon, given the will, society will have the means to provide decent living conditions to all citizens, and that mechanisation will free people from the drudgery and exhaustion of repetitive and uninspiring work. However, she sets out to speculate what, in that event, would happen to humanity – how would we develop, individually and as a society? And she suggests that the Utopias that assume that, freed from poverty, suddenly all people will become good and kind and devote themselves to art and culture are perhaps not taking account of human nature.
While reading, I felt this owed more than a little to Wells’ The Time Machine and it also reminded me a little of Huxley’s later Brave New World, so I was glad to read in the short but very interesting and informative introduction by Dr Mo Moulton of the University of Birmingham that she sees this as a link in that chain too. She also says it alludes directly to Bellamy’s classic Utopian novel, Looking Backward, one I haven’t yet read but really must since it gets referenced so often.
However, I felt this had a more human feel than Wells’ far distant future, where humanity had evolved almost beyond recognition. Jaeger’s people are still very much like us – they smoke and drink and speak English, play sports, argue, marry, etc. (Though not necessarily in that order.) This makes them far easier to understand and empathise with than Wells’ Eloi. Also, by beginning the book in 1925 and letting us see the class and economic divisions of her own time, she avoids the odd kind of nostalgia that some dystopias indulge in, as if the past was somehow a lost idyll to which we should try to return. Jaeger’s depiction is nicely balanced – both her present and her future have good and bad in them, with the clear suggestion that economic and social changes will change our problems rather than rid us of them entirely.
At first, Guy is entranced by this new world. He finds himself living with the doctor who has, in some unexplained way, brought him to this time, and is introduced to the doctor’s nephew, John Wayland, who will be his initial guide to the society. Dr Wayland and John are both intellectuals, choosing to spend their days on scientific and artistic pursuits, and indulging in philosophical debate with their friends. But soon Guy begins to discover that this society is just as divided as in his own time. Many people don’t have either the capacity or the desire for an intellectual life. They are called the normals and, while all their physical needs are met, they are left somewhat purposeless, their empty lives filled with childlike emotions and pursuits. The intellectuals treat them kindly enough, but with an amused contempt at their antics. Guy finds himself again standing uncomfortably on the dividing line between two classes, and gradually begins to wonder if the advances of the last two hundred years have made things better or worse.
Despite its age, I found that this book is addressing questions which are perhaps even more urgent today. With increasing automation, we will soon have to decide what we as a society will do with vastly increased leisure time. While it’s easy to think that would be a great thing, as usual it will be the least skilled and least intellectually inclined people who will be affected most. Will we step up to the plate and find ways to give people a fulfilling purpose, or will we simply throw millions, billions, of people out of work and leave them with nothing to strive for? Jaeger doesn’t give answers but, although in her future people have not been left in material poverty, reading between the lines her society seems to be becoming depopulated – not in a healthy, planned way, but more as a response to the lack of purpose and hope; and with intellect as the new currency, there is still a major divide between rich and poor.
Well written, thought-provoking, and a rather more human look at utopian society than we often get. I thoroughly enjoyed this and, as so often, am at a loss to know why this would have been “forgotten”, since it seems to me as good as many of the ones which have been granted classic status.
NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, the British Library.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
June 23, 2022
“You are the natural rebel, the Satanist—one of those unfortunates born with inverted instincts. Your necessity is to attack and to suffer. You may not know it, but, whatever your circumstances, you would seek out suffering. […] In no place nor time would you be at home. You are he who goes up and down upon the earth and to and fro on it.”
Chapter X, v.
Guy Martin is in a dead-end job in London in the 1920s, disappointed in love and feeling a great ennui for the world he lives in. In a moment of desperation he goes to his room, lies down and wills himself to enter a trance, a kind of akinetic catatonia or coma, which allows his consciousness to withdraw from the world. And then…
And then, after what seems to be an out-of-body experience, he finds himself apparently waking in the 22nd century in a kind of Utopia – literally ‘Nowhere’ – where energy is free, technology is beyond all 20th-century imagining, and labour is not only minimal but optional for many. Introduced to his new way of living by the Wayland family, he believes all is perfect, a socialist dream where all have access to whatever they need or want.
But all is not perfect in this future England, and Guy finds that neither human nature nor society adapt well to an idealised system, and especially a oerson such as himself who has existed in and experienced the Depression of the twenties. What will his reaction be to this growing realisation?
As Jaeger explained in her Author’s Introduction, “It is that life [which] will be lived in those Nowheres […] that I am in search of.” She explicitly critiqued writers like H G Wells because she didn’t believe in the human characters with which these authors peopled their future societies. I read Wells’s The Sleeper Awakes (1910) many years ago and now see that while Jaeger’s premise is similar to Wells’s – namely that protagonist goes into a coma, only to revive two centuries later – she takes it in a very different direction: less a scientific romance, more an observation of how human nature might change as social conditions adapt to a less hand-to-mouth existence even as technology improves.
Thus society, as she envisages it, has in the 2120s essentially evolved into two classes, the Intellectual and the Normal. The former appears to operate on an entirely rational basis, calmly analytical in its approach and prone to regarding Normals as mildly amusing; the other is prey to its emotions, secretly obsessive in its passions and susceptible to populist or evangelical messages. Guy veers from one camp to the other yet belongs to neither, consequently setting up intimations of what could be psychosis with a return to his out-of-body experience.
Those expecting a Jules Verne type of scientific romance may well be disappointed. True, there are technical wonders such as aerocycles and power-boxes providing limitless energy, but there are also printed newspapers and wheeled automobiles in this visibly green and pleasant land. Brought back to consciousness by Dr Wayland, Guy meets Normals (like the doctor’s wife Agatha and their grown-up children Ena and Terry) as well as Intellectuals such as Ena and Terry’s cousin John – who becomes his principal guide and mentor. Then the reader is treated to a sequence of episodes through which Guy tries to adjust to this Nowhere, with mixed results.
What is he to make of John’s bachelor club? Of Terry’s celebrity status running races in places like the Alps? Of a paradisiacal clinic for “the hopelessly diseased or insane or unsocial” (as John characterises suicides and those convicted of crimes passionnels) called the Euthanasia Palace? Or a charismatic and Messianic millenarianist who attracts expectant crowds to Richmond Hill at dawn on the Last Day?
Jaeger’s debut novel was published by the Woolfs’ Hogarth Press (a facsimile of Leonard Woolf’s acceptance letter is included as a frontispiece) with little anticipation of its being a huge success. In her introduction Dr Mo Moulton – who’s an authority on Jaeger, her friendship with Dorothy L Sayers and her membership of the Mutual Admiration Society – sets the author and The Question Mark in their literary, social and historical contexts, and establishes the influences that found their way into its pages: Socialism (“fertilised,” writes Jaeger, “by the ideals of Anarchism and Syndicalism”) plus a dash of Theosophy and Spiritualism. Jaeger – and therefore Guy – also shows an evident dislike of what John Wayland identifies as “Poverty and Competition,” themes which re-emerge in the closing pages of the novel.
The Question Mark is undeniably an interesting if imperfect novel of ideas: featuring Guy Martin as an Everyman figure, a representative “guy” playing the role of fish out of water, he’s like a rebel angel confronted by a dichotomy – whether to choose to be a Normal or an Intellectual – while naturally partaking of both states. Yet we feel for him, knowing he can accept neither Ena Wayland’s gauche advances nor John Wayland’s clinical, dispassionate friendship.
Like the evangelical Father Emmanuel who raises expectations of his imminent apotheosis but runs the risk of disappointing his many followers, Guy as the living representative of the twentieth century is liable to fall from the perilous pedestal on which he unwillingly has been placed.
November 19, 2022
Hmmm... yeah... really haven't made my mind up about this one and not entirely sure what to think. It was written in the 1920s, so essentially 100 years old now. And it's a dystopian future sci fi kind of a thing. Guy Martin is a disgruntled office clerk, not happy with his lot in life and the way London society is. He goes to bed, then wakes up 200 years in the future. At first it appears he has come to the utopia future society he always dreamed of... or has he? Or rather, is perfection possible, or will human nature always get in the way? Although some of the people seem so divorced from emotion and empathy, they seem to be well on the way to becoming robots. I suppose it's a kind of thought experiment in novel form. But with unlikeable and annoying characters. And all ending a bit randomly and off the wall.
Money and the need to grow up and get a job have disappeared. Everyone has what they need. Everyone can go and get as much education for free as they want. But it's not all perfection. The new society division is intellectualism, creating a sneering intellectual upper class, versus "the normals" who have no aspiration to university, suffer from emotions and are there to be looked down on and do menial jobs - although as technology constantly improves, menial jobs are disappearing. Just take this comment about a "normal" for an example:
"She can't help it, anymore than a pig can help grunting..." (p 136)
Guy's own disgruntled arrogance continues, but in the end he seems to be disgusted by all classes, and by what the world has become. But there's no escaping it, despite his wierd dreams.
Even beyond that, the society is not pleasant, with suicide openly helped and allowed with no interest in support, counselling or rehabilitation. And creepy references to eugenics..
"You can't have many lunatics now?" --- "We still have them," he said, "even though they are never allowed to breed..." (p 142)
On thing that always depresses me about these old (as in written at some point in the 1900s) future tales, is that no matter what wierd and wonderful technology, society, living arrangements etc etc they can imagine, they can never imagine women being treated seriously, as equals, and in fact, just being equal. Even in this world they are silly hysterical emotional things,
"Nonsense," he said, "You know better than to take a girl's hysterics seriously. Women are liable to these little brain-storms, you know..." (p 88)
I read the introduction afterwards. Interesting to read that Muriel was a Yorkshire lass, who was one of the first women to recieve a degree from Oxford.
Money and the need to grow up and get a job have disappeared. Everyone has what they need. Everyone can go and get as much education for free as they want. But it's not all perfection. The new society division is intellectualism, creating a sneering intellectual upper class, versus "the normals" who have no aspiration to university, suffer from emotions and are there to be looked down on and do menial jobs - although as technology constantly improves, menial jobs are disappearing. Just take this comment about a "normal" for an example:
"She can't help it, anymore than a pig can help grunting..." (p 136)
Guy's own disgruntled arrogance continues, but in the end he seems to be disgusted by all classes, and by what the world has become. But there's no escaping it, despite his wierd dreams.
Even beyond that, the society is not pleasant, with suicide openly helped and allowed with no interest in support, counselling or rehabilitation. And creepy references to eugenics..
"You can't have many lunatics now?" --- "We still have them," he said, "even though they are never allowed to breed..." (p 142)
On thing that always depresses me about these old (as in written at some point in the 1900s) future tales, is that no matter what wierd and wonderful technology, society, living arrangements etc etc they can imagine, they can never imagine women being treated seriously, as equals, and in fact, just being equal. Even in this world they are silly hysterical emotional things,
"Nonsense," he said, "You know better than to take a girl's hysterics seriously. Women are liable to these little brain-storms, you know..." (p 88)
I read the introduction afterwards. Interesting to read that Muriel was a Yorkshire lass, who was one of the first women to recieve a degree from Oxford.
April 23, 2020
One of my fave classics is Brave New World, so when I realised that The Question Mark pre-dates and possibly inspired Aldous Huxley, I had to give it a go.
TQM is a precursor to modern-day dystopian novels. Rather than the gritty, authoritarian societies we've come to expect, this novel instead shows us an apparent utopia, a future London that's simultaneously technologically advanced and bucolic. Poverty, disease and hunger are no more. But even in a perfect world, will people behave perfectly?
The protagonist is an accidental time traveler from the 1920s - an unlikeable malcontent meant to represent the everyman. Through his tour of the future, we discover the ever-expanding gulf between two new social classes - the intellectuals and the 'normals' - and realise that it is human nature which stops us from achieving true utopia.
The idea that innate intellect might be the last divider of humanity reminded me of Brave New World (where varying oxygen levels in the womb influence people's intelligence). But while TQM explores interesting concepts and is worthy of consideration for its role in shaping dystopian literature, it's not a great novel. It lacks plot and the characters are flat.
I was also disappointed by the portrayal of women as possessions: there's the unhappy mother, the innocent daughter, and the intellectual fiance who strikes that impossible balance between purity and sexuality. While this representation reflects attitudes of the time, I (irrationally, unfairly) expect better from a woman author.
Read this if... You enjoy discovering lesser-known, literary scifi or are interested in the origins of dystopian literature.
TQM is a precursor to modern-day dystopian novels. Rather than the gritty, authoritarian societies we've come to expect, this novel instead shows us an apparent utopia, a future London that's simultaneously technologically advanced and bucolic. Poverty, disease and hunger are no more. But even in a perfect world, will people behave perfectly?
The protagonist is an accidental time traveler from the 1920s - an unlikeable malcontent meant to represent the everyman. Through his tour of the future, we discover the ever-expanding gulf between two new social classes - the intellectuals and the 'normals' - and realise that it is human nature which stops us from achieving true utopia.
The idea that innate intellect might be the last divider of humanity reminded me of Brave New World (where varying oxygen levels in the womb influence people's intelligence). But while TQM explores interesting concepts and is worthy of consideration for its role in shaping dystopian literature, it's not a great novel. It lacks plot and the characters are flat.
I was also disappointed by the portrayal of women as possessions: there's the unhappy mother, the innocent daughter, and the intellectual fiance who strikes that impossible balance between purity and sexuality. While this representation reflects attitudes of the time, I (irrationally, unfairly) expect better from a woman author.
Read this if... You enjoy discovering lesser-known, literary scifi or are interested in the origins of dystopian literature.
November 24, 2019
I couldn't resist buying my first British science fiction classic this fall, especially one written by a woman in the 1920s who became dissatisfied with the utopian literature being written because she found human beings in these future worlds unrecognizable. I think she rightly observes that no matter how many advances we make in society and technology and government, people are still people.
I chose this book because of the copy on the back mentioning that everyone had a "personal 'power box' granting access to communication, transportation and entertainment." It sounded pretty close to home.
I chose this book because of the copy on the back mentioning that everyone had a "personal 'power box' granting access to communication, transportation and entertainment." It sounded pretty close to home.
March 13, 2020
This was such a weird, weird book. Less a work of fiction and more a collection of ideas, like an exploratory essay of what-ifs - it's a dystopia presented as an utopia but the utopia has a sinister undercurrent that raises more questions than it answers. The prose oscillated between being blunt and obscure; Guy's horrified reactions to 22nd century philosophies, ideals, and society hammering home the point that this is Not Good, and at times I felt I lacked the context or background knowledge to fully understand what so or so was in reference to.
That said, some if the most horrifying elements of this dystopia were throwaway lines that Guy didn't pick up on (no reaction at all), such as the fact that when people (intellectuals) get fancies to be carried around like they're Egyptian royalty or whatnot, the people carrying them will "naturally be supplied"...who supplies them, how, and who are the people being forced to perform this task? Why is this a matter of course and not a horrifying implication of slavery?
What struck me also was the new class division in this future society between intellectuals and normals (smart people and stupid people) and how this is framed by the intellectuals (through the character John) as Just The Way It Is, those people are naturally stupid and have no ambition, etc, how inter-class marriages are frowned upon by intellectuals as children by mixed classes turn out normals...and how any "normal" characters are subdued by this oppression, driven to believe they are stupid, that their intellectual friends are all right actually because they're kind... it's so very condescending, patronising, abusive, gaslighting... and it bothers me that in the introduction the character of Ena is reduced to a silly girl, when she actually is the most powerful symbol of this dystopia: she is a "normal" girl, locked into a set of behaviours by society she doesn't want to perform and rebels against by, well, performing the expected behaviours (in this case, emotional outburst), and when at the end of the novel she seeks out Guy, he misinterprets what she wants as guidance for his to live (he's not entirely wrong, but it is not the essence of her desires) when what she truly wants us to break free of the oppressive class system and be treated like an equal, not a "normal", and to her Guy represents that. Unfortunately for her, Guy brought his early 20th century patriarchal trappings with him (remember that the novel starts with him being friendzoned and in response he forces his own soul out of his body? The implication is that he died from it, to later be resurrected by Ena's father) which leads to him rejecting her utterly. Despite his misgivings about and horror at the 22nd century society he finds himself in, it was all too easy for him to accept *some* of its philosophies, and by the end he...well, ends up perpetuating it. The very end of the book which has been described by others as intentionally vague (hence the title "the question mark" reads to me like the end of a horror story - this is a dystopian SFF novel, sure, but I would argue this book has more in common with horror. After all, as Guy succinctly points out, there is no hope.
ETA: because I'm apparently not done thinking about this book.
I thought yesterday when I finished reading that the whole friar Emmanuel plot was a weird detour and I dismissed it as bad writing, or at very least the sort of thing I as an editor would've had a serious conversation about with the writer. But it struck me that the scene at the end where Ena begs Guy to be with him (not as a lover, as a companion/friend) was very similar to how the masses of "normals" flocked to Emmanuel for guidance, and that this could account for Guy's misinterpretation of Ena's desires - and his rejection of her is linked to his own mediocrity. He can't or doesn't want to be a guide to her! But at the same time, there's a very uncomfortable message in the Emmanuel plot, which is that these "normals" who get caught up in the religious fervour of his followings, are too stupid to not fall for it. John, as the avatar for what's wrong with the 22nd century, treats them dismissively if not outright cruelly, and says that this kind of thing happens all the time, and that intellectuals of course are too smart to get involved...but they observe it for sport and for laughs.
I don't know if it's the author's intention to portray religion (Christianity especially?) as I enlightened and like opiates for the (stupid) masses, but given how much it is exaggerated in this 22nd century where everyone has more leisure....coupled with the fact that the only crime that still exists is crimes of passion, committed only by "normals"? I feel like it rather shows the author's own opinions on people.
Another thing I've been thinking about a lot is that Guy was set up in the beginning as incredibly mediocre and bland - not stupid, but not clever either, and with the unfortunate character flaw that when he didn't get what he wanted he deemed it the fault of external forces, not his own (basically, he comes across as an incel). When he wakes up in the 22nd century where the class divide has nothing to do with income or aristocracy (on the surface anyway - the intellectuals certainly like to flaunt their superiority and they do it by modelling historical aristocracy) but brains, where everyone has been sorted into either the smart box or the stupid box, he seems to be the only true mediocre person who is neither.
There are throwaway lines that show that isn't true - Agatha, Ena's mother and extremely subdued day by her "normal" class asks the question "there are different kinds of intelligence aren't there?" and so on and so forth - the intellectuals seem made up exclusively of book smart people, with everyone else relegated to stupid. But given the society structure everyone in the stupid class is oppressed to the point of believing it and following those norms....so when Guy comes along and breaks that structure by the fact of his existence, is it any wonder that Ena latches on to him as an alternative to the oppression she's known her whole life?
This book could have been about a fight to dismantle this class system - Guy could've been the hero to do it - but this isn't that book, because this is a horror story. There is no hope.
A cautionary tale, perhaps, of what can happen...personally I don't think this is what will happen if we wind up with a nearly automated system where everyone is fed and cared for and there's leisure for all, but it's food for thought.
That said, some if the most horrifying elements of this dystopia were throwaway lines that Guy didn't pick up on (no reaction at all), such as the fact that when people (intellectuals) get fancies to be carried around like they're Egyptian royalty or whatnot, the people carrying them will "naturally be supplied"...who supplies them, how, and who are the people being forced to perform this task? Why is this a matter of course and not a horrifying implication of slavery?
What struck me also was the new class division in this future society between intellectuals and normals (smart people and stupid people) and how this is framed by the intellectuals (through the character John) as Just The Way It Is, those people are naturally stupid and have no ambition, etc, how inter-class marriages are frowned upon by intellectuals as children by mixed classes turn out normals...and how any "normal" characters are subdued by this oppression, driven to believe they are stupid, that their intellectual friends are all right actually because they're kind... it's so very condescending, patronising, abusive, gaslighting... and it bothers me that in the introduction the character of Ena is reduced to a silly girl, when she actually is the most powerful symbol of this dystopia: she is a "normal" girl, locked into a set of behaviours by society she doesn't want to perform and rebels against by, well, performing the expected behaviours (in this case, emotional outburst), and when at the end of the novel she seeks out Guy, he misinterprets what she wants as guidance for his to live (he's not entirely wrong, but it is not the essence of her desires) when what she truly wants us to break free of the oppressive class system and be treated like an equal, not a "normal", and to her Guy represents that. Unfortunately for her, Guy brought his early 20th century patriarchal trappings with him (remember that the novel starts with him being friendzoned and in response he forces his own soul out of his body? The implication is that he died from it, to later be resurrected by Ena's father) which leads to him rejecting her utterly. Despite his misgivings about and horror at the 22nd century society he finds himself in, it was all too easy for him to accept *some* of its philosophies, and by the end he...well, ends up perpetuating it. The very end of the book which has been described by others as intentionally vague (hence the title "the question mark" reads to me like the end of a horror story - this is a dystopian SFF novel, sure, but I would argue this book has more in common with horror. After all, as Guy succinctly points out, there is no hope.
ETA: because I'm apparently not done thinking about this book.
I thought yesterday when I finished reading that the whole friar Emmanuel plot was a weird detour and I dismissed it as bad writing, or at very least the sort of thing I as an editor would've had a serious conversation about with the writer. But it struck me that the scene at the end where Ena begs Guy to be with him (not as a lover, as a companion/friend) was very similar to how the masses of "normals" flocked to Emmanuel for guidance, and that this could account for Guy's misinterpretation of Ena's desires - and his rejection of her is linked to his own mediocrity. He can't or doesn't want to be a guide to her! But at the same time, there's a very uncomfortable message in the Emmanuel plot, which is that these "normals" who get caught up in the religious fervour of his followings, are too stupid to not fall for it. John, as the avatar for what's wrong with the 22nd century, treats them dismissively if not outright cruelly, and says that this kind of thing happens all the time, and that intellectuals of course are too smart to get involved...but they observe it for sport and for laughs.
I don't know if it's the author's intention to portray religion (Christianity especially?) as I enlightened and like opiates for the (stupid) masses, but given how much it is exaggerated in this 22nd century where everyone has more leisure....coupled with the fact that the only crime that still exists is crimes of passion, committed only by "normals"? I feel like it rather shows the author's own opinions on people.
Another thing I've been thinking about a lot is that Guy was set up in the beginning as incredibly mediocre and bland - not stupid, but not clever either, and with the unfortunate character flaw that when he didn't get what he wanted he deemed it the fault of external forces, not his own (basically, he comes across as an incel). When he wakes up in the 22nd century where the class divide has nothing to do with income or aristocracy (on the surface anyway - the intellectuals certainly like to flaunt their superiority and they do it by modelling historical aristocracy) but brains, where everyone has been sorted into either the smart box or the stupid box, he seems to be the only true mediocre person who is neither.
There are throwaway lines that show that isn't true - Agatha, Ena's mother and extremely subdued day by her "normal" class asks the question "there are different kinds of intelligence aren't there?" and so on and so forth - the intellectuals seem made up exclusively of book smart people, with everyone else relegated to stupid. But given the society structure everyone in the stupid class is oppressed to the point of believing it and following those norms....so when Guy comes along and breaks that structure by the fact of his existence, is it any wonder that Ena latches on to him as an alternative to the oppression she's known her whole life?
This book could have been about a fight to dismantle this class system - Guy could've been the hero to do it - but this isn't that book, because this is a horror story. There is no hope.
A cautionary tale, perhaps, of what can happen...personally I don't think this is what will happen if we wind up with a nearly automated system where everyone is fed and cared for and there's leisure for all, but it's food for thought.
February 22, 2024
1.75
I'll just say that it was cool to read a science fiction story that was written in the 20s, when socialism was still in its infancy. Jaeger tried to paint an image of humanity's tendency for ugliness even when society is a utopia.
Aside from that cool factor, this book was pretty bland and uninteresting. The story was told very much like an essay, except for the end, which got a little abstract. Nothing that was attempted here really landed for me; Not the message, the world, or the conversations. Half the time, I wasn't even sure what theme or issue the author was trying to tackle, or what anyone's motives were, if they even had any. The characters were all unlikeable, which I guess was the point but seriously, the main character is an incredibly frustrating person to follow.
The society of the 22nd century that Jaeger envisioned here was somewhat interesting, especially considering when this was written, but most of the time it actually felt a little oversimplified. I think this world wasn't very detailed or well explored, but had the potential to be really cool even if a little unoriginal by today's standards...
Only read this if you're interested in its historic importance to the genre, but if you're looking for a book with a memorable story or important ideas, I don't think you'll really find them here.
I'll just say that it was cool to read a science fiction story that was written in the 20s, when socialism was still in its infancy. Jaeger tried to paint an image of humanity's tendency for ugliness even when society is a utopia.
Aside from that cool factor, this book was pretty bland and uninteresting. The story was told very much like an essay, except for the end, which got a little abstract. Nothing that was attempted here really landed for me; Not the message, the world, or the conversations. Half the time, I wasn't even sure what theme or issue the author was trying to tackle, or what anyone's motives were, if they even had any. The characters were all unlikeable, which I guess was the point but seriously, the main character is an incredibly frustrating person to follow.
The society of the 22nd century that Jaeger envisioned here was somewhat interesting, especially considering when this was written, but most of the time it actually felt a little oversimplified. I think this world wasn't very detailed or well explored, but had the potential to be really cool even if a little unoriginal by today's standards...
Only read this if you're interested in its historic importance to the genre, but if you're looking for a book with a memorable story or important ideas, I don't think you'll really find them here.
June 27, 2025
This is the second book in the British Library Science Fiction Classics series. Similarly to the first book, Wild Harbour by Ian MacPherson, I’m not sure what the writers intention was in writing the book. This was written in 1926 and Muriel Jaeger seems to have been friendly with Dorothy L Sayers and Virginia Woolf, two names that you don’t often put in the same sentence.
The protagonist in this book, the introduction called Guy Martin the hero as does the author herself in her own introduction, starts in London in 1925 and then finds himself in the 22nd Century. There’s no detailed discussion about how this happens, there’s a throwaway line or two that about 3/4 of the way through the book, but no real explanation.
Is the book Muriel Jaeger saying be careful what you wish for? Is she saying that human happiness is impossible? Whatever she’s saying, and her interests and views are discussed in the introductions, her “hero” doesn’t, to me, come across well. He’s not happy in 1925 and he’s not happy in then22nd century and it’s not clear what he intends to do about it.
An interesting book to read, well written, mostly, but I came away just wanting to slap the hero very hard.
The protagonist in this book, the introduction called Guy Martin the hero as does the author herself in her own introduction, starts in London in 1925 and then finds himself in the 22nd Century. There’s no detailed discussion about how this happens, there’s a throwaway line or two that about 3/4 of the way through the book, but no real explanation.
Is the book Muriel Jaeger saying be careful what you wish for? Is she saying that human happiness is impossible? Whatever she’s saying, and her interests and views are discussed in the introductions, her “hero” doesn’t, to me, come across well. He’s not happy in 1925 and he’s not happy in then22nd century and it’s not clear what he intends to do about it.
An interesting book to read, well written, mostly, but I came away just wanting to slap the hero very hard.
May 6, 2022
2.5 stars
I was pleasantly surprised to discover this existed, as a fan of dystopian novels I have read and heard so much about 1984, brave new world, Fahrenheit 451 and was curious to read a precursor to them, written by a woman in the 1920s, I felt insulted that I had never heard of it before.
In terms of ideas it really does live up to the others and was surprisingly readable for a classic but it loses stars for not really being an interesting "novel". It is very interesting this idea that if there was a perfect socialist society it would never be perfect because we would find ways to differentiate and make superior groups and find a way to subjugate. It's interesting this idea that a lack of a struggle to earn and live is perceived as almost more admirable and moral. I liked this book as a thought experiment for sure, glad I read it.
I was pleasantly surprised to discover this existed, as a fan of dystopian novels I have read and heard so much about 1984, brave new world, Fahrenheit 451 and was curious to read a precursor to them, written by a woman in the 1920s, I felt insulted that I had never heard of it before.
In terms of ideas it really does live up to the others and was surprisingly readable for a classic but it loses stars for not really being an interesting "novel". It is very interesting this idea that if there was a perfect socialist society it would never be perfect because we would find ways to differentiate and make superior groups and find a way to subjugate. It's interesting this idea that a lack of a struggle to earn and live is perceived as almost more admirable and moral. I liked this book as a thought experiment for sure, glad I read it.
July 15, 2023
A young, disgruntled bank clerk living in 1920s London contemplates suicide, but then wakes up 200 years later in what seems to be a utopia. London is now apparently free of class, hunger, poverty and disease and the population has been controlled so that everywhere appears bucolic. What lurks beneath the placid surface? Well, not much to be honest. The 'hero' is wetter than a lake and the characters are all one dimensional. Woman are treated as second class citizens and it's more about concepts than technologies. There's no real plot to speak of and I struggled to finish it. It is interesting in parts , but is far from being a sci-fi classic.
January 5, 2022
An odd book. I may have given it 4 stars if I'd read it when it was written (1926), but now the themes are tired and have been done so much better. The characters were very two dimensional and the storyline was disjointed.
February 19, 2022
A futuristic book for its time, I found I had to concentrate quite hard to understand the story.
February 22, 2020
Fun to read how an author from 100 years ago imagined the time 100 years from now! The introduction provided some more context for the work which came out in a time when it was popular to write about future Utopias, and this book certainly explores some more Dystopian sides of a future world, touching on aspects like a post-work society even in the case where humanity has figured out a way to distribute wealth and supplies in a fair way, if not "purpose".
The story doesn't really wrap up in any way; or doesn't have a happy ending. Various characters are introduced and none of them are really that likeable, although one can identify with the protagonist, Guy Martin, who isn't malicious, but half observer, half anti-hero.
Miscellaneous notes:
- There is an anti-aphantasic paragraph near the start where Guy thinks of his experience between seemingly falling into a trance in the 1920s and waking up in the 22nd century that underlines that while the experience didn't relate to the senses, Guy represents it to himself in visuals "since in no other way can normal human thought occur".
- Nothing particularly resembling digital machines exists in this world, although aerocycles seem to have collision avoidance programs and autopilot. The book doesn't comment on whether long-distance communication is instant, but apparently news still come in the form of newspapers. People do not carry communication devices.
- London of the 22nd century is not represented as ethnically diverse; there is a scene in which people of different colours are congregated together, but it's specified that many of them had arrived from abroad.
- People still smoke, and the capital punishment is a thing. Transport has moved towards individual vehicles – specifically red buses are said to have disappeared! There is a class system between the "intellectuals" and the (not really all that) "normals".
- The world appears to have some form of basic income system. Euthanasia is legal. Birthrates are down because contraception is common.
The story doesn't really wrap up in any way; or doesn't have a happy ending. Various characters are introduced and none of them are really that likeable, although one can identify with the protagonist, Guy Martin, who isn't malicious, but half observer, half anti-hero.
Miscellaneous notes:
- There is an anti-aphantasic paragraph near the start where Guy thinks of his experience between seemingly falling into a trance in the 1920s and waking up in the 22nd century that underlines that while the experience didn't relate to the senses, Guy represents it to himself in visuals "since in no other way can normal human thought occur".
- Nothing particularly resembling digital machines exists in this world, although aerocycles seem to have collision avoidance programs and autopilot. The book doesn't comment on whether long-distance communication is instant, but apparently news still come in the form of newspapers. People do not carry communication devices.
- London of the 22nd century is not represented as ethnically diverse; there is a scene in which people of different colours are congregated together, but it's specified that many of them had arrived from abroad.
- People still smoke, and the capital punishment is a thing. Transport has moved towards individual vehicles – specifically red buses are said to have disappeared! There is a class system between the "intellectuals" and the (not really all that) "normals".
- The world appears to have some form of basic income system. Euthanasia is legal. Birthrates are down because contraception is common.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 6, 2020
This is a strange novel, published by Hogarth Press in the 1920s, that is hailed as an example of dystopian fiction. It presents the reader with an "ideal" society of the future but slowly (and rather indirectly) uncovers its limitations and, eventually, its very severe problems. Guy Martin, the protagonist, is a socialist who works in the finance industry in the City of London who is distraught but the exclusion he feels in relation to his class position. After he puts himself into a sort of trance, he is revived in future Britain that seems to have conquered the problems of social class and economic inequality, but, as it the story unfolds, Martin realizes that there are other perhaps even more entrenched problems that the people of the future face. It's hard to figure out the politics of this novel but it is certainly worth a look. The criticism is perhaps more indirect than one would imagine, and seems to bubble up as Martin becomes increasingly unhappy with the society he beholds.
I would note that the book doesn't seem to have much of a plot, though suspense does build as one reads and waits to learn more about this society and Guy's criticism of it. I'm glad this book is part of the new BL Science Fiction series. It would be good in an early science fiction class but would also be interesting taught alongside some of Woolf's writings given where it was published. Recommended for fans of science fiction and modernist literature.
I would note that the book doesn't seem to have much of a plot, though suspense does build as one reads and waits to learn more about this society and Guy's criticism of it. I'm glad this book is part of the new BL Science Fiction series. It would be good in an early science fiction class but would also be interesting taught alongside some of Woolf's writings given where it was published. Recommended for fans of science fiction and modernist literature.
July 19, 2025
It was quite an interesting book. I found the imagination of a post-capitalistic society to be intriguing, especially with the idea of a class system split by a person’s tendency toward “intellectualism” or emotion. In a society where money and energy are no longer issues for anyone, it opens up opportunities for other types of segregation to occur outside of the ones we know. Being labeled an intellectual or a normal makes sense, but also calls into question whether or not it is human nature to separate themselves based off of some distinction.
However, I found the book’s ending to be a bit inconclusive, and its contents a bit less fleshed out than I would’ve liked them to be. I enjoyed John’s cameo in the ending as someone who would’ve been a very different person during Guy’s original time, but I did not like as much the handling of Guy’s moments of realization, where he sees that the normals are essentially a class of people who are disdained by the intellectual class. I’m glad the parallels were drawn between this situation and the class division between aristocrats and the working class, but I feel as though there should’ve been more.
I also think some background details like the technology and modes of entertainment didn’t have enough imagination behind them, but overall, it was a good and enjoyable read.
However, I found the book’s ending to be a bit inconclusive, and its contents a bit less fleshed out than I would’ve liked them to be. I enjoyed John’s cameo in the ending as someone who would’ve been a very different person during Guy’s original time, but I did not like as much the handling of Guy’s moments of realization, where he sees that the normals are essentially a class of people who are disdained by the intellectual class. I’m glad the parallels were drawn between this situation and the class division between aristocrats and the working class, but I feel as though there should’ve been more.
I also think some background details like the technology and modes of entertainment didn’t have enough imagination behind them, but overall, it was a good and enjoyable read.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 29, 2026
(29 January, 2026)
Bad set-up, bad protagonist, bad story, bad exposition, just bad. Oh, and the writing is barely above passable, no more.
In the future, normals are all frat-boy-level 'smart' and intellectuals are pompous asses - a great opportunity to comment on modern differences but Jaeger says almost nothing about it. Doctors continue to smoke, society is still stratified and the masses follow some dipshit 'cause he says stuff they want to hear.
There isn't much to unpack here anyway. But there are two gems: John's mocking of the past's idea of austerity. The guy's a nutjob because he sees common sense stuff as batshit crazy:
Bad set-up, bad protagonist, bad story, bad exposition, just bad. Oh, and the writing is barely above passable, no more.
In the future, normals are all frat-boy-level 'smart' and intellectuals are pompous asses - a great opportunity to comment on modern differences but Jaeger says almost nothing about it. Doctors continue to smoke, society is still stratified and the masses follow some dipshit 'cause he says stuff they want to hear.
There isn't much to unpack here anyway. But there are two gems: John's mocking of the past's idea of austerity. The guy's a nutjob because he sees common sense stuff as batshit crazy:
"No tobacco, no alcohol, vegetarian diet, no religion…! Did you really think yourselves capable of propagating a race like that? Aren’t you relieved, after all, to find us still so human?"And this:
"...educated, cultured young people, full of enthusiasm for social equality, and eager to show their indifference to class prejudice by making friends with bank clerks, or even with labourers, if such could be found."Fucking priceless! Today's might-be educated but definitely-not-cultured equality-minded young people can make friends with just about anyone... as long as they all think exactly alike. Hilarious!
February 7, 2023
***I am moving to StoryGraph as it seems better than Goodreads. Username: sarracenia. Please follow me there. I'm not sure if I'll stay on Goodreads as well***
I enjoyed this novel and thought it was interesting to see how Jaeger imagined a future 200 years away at the time, and now 100 years to go. She did not foresee mobile phones or the internet, for example, but did see an importance placed on the natural world. I liked her aerocycles. I disliked the social structures described, which seemed overly simplistic. The idea of the Euthanasia Palace was fascinating.
As I had understood this to be a time travel novel I was shocked to discover that Guy would not be able to ever return to the 1920s, as he had actually died then and had been reanimated in the future. After this reveal, the novel felt quite different. Clearly Guy had not given consent for this to be done to him. It was odd that we hear no more from Dr Wayland, the person responsible, after the early part of the book. I didn't particularly like John or Ena as characters.
The novel ends abruptly. I was half expecting some sort of moral or lesson for Guy to learn, and it somehow had vibes of Dickens' A Christmas Carol, but the novel suddenly ended on what seemed like a normal morning.
I enjoyed this novel and thought it was interesting to see how Jaeger imagined a future 200 years away at the time, and now 100 years to go. She did not foresee mobile phones or the internet, for example, but did see an importance placed on the natural world. I liked her aerocycles. I disliked the social structures described, which seemed overly simplistic. The idea of the Euthanasia Palace was fascinating.
As I had understood this to be a time travel novel I was shocked to discover that Guy would not be able to ever return to the 1920s, as he had actually died then and had been reanimated in the future. After this reveal, the novel felt quite different. Clearly Guy had not given consent for this to be done to him. It was odd that we hear no more from Dr Wayland, the person responsible, after the early part of the book. I didn't particularly like John or Ena as characters.
The novel ends abruptly. I was half expecting some sort of moral or lesson for Guy to learn, and it somehow had vibes of Dickens' A Christmas Carol, but the novel suddenly ended on what seemed like a normal morning.
March 7, 2025
I’d never heard of Muriel Jaeger before I came across this book but I think she is a wonderful writer. Fantastic premise, interesting characters and a fascinating dive into humans and society. Dystopian in the sense that, although material needs have been met and opportunities are equal, the same problem of trying to find meaning in life persists, and is, in fact, exacerbated, for the so-called normals. While intellectuals and artists are finally free to happily explore their passions, those without such interests are governed by the whims of their emotions, without the pressing need of providing for themselves and their family to give meaning to their lives. In short, they are just as bitterly unhappy as they were before the advent of this utopia (according to Jaeger). To be honest I find the way in which Jaeger portrays the normals compared to the intellectuals unsettling and derogatory. I hope her point is that society will always exist in divides since people can’t help being people, rather than that people who aren't smart or creative are worth less and are doomed to be miserable. I hope. Either way, it’s a powerful and unnerving novel and, although the plot is more a device for putting across her ideas than anything in its own right, I enjoyed the book.
December 1, 2023
I picked this book up at the British library. I barely skimmed the back page because I'm always interested in science fiction classics.
This book didn't take very long to read. However it wasn't exactly what I expected. There are themes of dystopia/utopian society, time travel, and navigating life in different social structures.
There wasn't a ton of action in this book which I assume is why it has a below 4 star rating. It did touch on some interesting topics. I could see a philosophy class picking apart certain passages and really investigating specific pieces from the book. So I wouldn't define this as a quick beach read, this is one that you will sit back and think about.
Overall a solid work. It always amazes me how authors from 100 years ago have really hit the mark on some of their predictions about society and humanity.
This book didn't take very long to read. However it wasn't exactly what I expected. There are themes of dystopia/utopian society, time travel, and navigating life in different social structures.
There wasn't a ton of action in this book which I assume is why it has a below 4 star rating. It did touch on some interesting topics. I could see a philosophy class picking apart certain passages and really investigating specific pieces from the book. So I wouldn't define this as a quick beach read, this is one that you will sit back and think about.
Overall a solid work. It always amazes me how authors from 100 years ago have really hit the mark on some of their predictions about society and humanity.
October 25, 2022
The question mark is an early example of the utopian/dystopian novel written by Muriel Jaeger. The novel feels very ambiguous, and this theme continues right until the end. A traveller out of time, the protagonist Guy observes the future of humanity through some abstract set pieces after being awakened by a kindly? doctor. These loosely link into a dysregulated chronology that vaguely represents a plot. Interesting from a historical stand point, but maybe that was about it!
May 12, 2021
Full review here: https://dearstrangethings.substack.co...
November 14, 2021
An odd little book. 2.5 stars rounded up to 3 because I wish it had been in print when I did the Utopias & Dystopias part of my MA. Very much of its time, but of real interest because of that.
April 7, 2023
A good dystopian novel showing the nature of man, very clear to see where Houxley got inspiration from
October 2, 2023
Pretty cool, was high school assigned reading core though
February 12, 2020
Overall a great book and definitely underated considering the attention similar books from the same era have received such as Huxley's "Brave New World". Admittedly it perhaps wasn't quite as creative and ground-breaking as this, but still deserves credit. Big fan of the distopian genre so it's hard to go wrong for me, but this was an enjoyable, quick read.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 3, 2025
A moody but otherwise low-key utopian vision that seemed to want me as an acquaintance, not a lover. So we part friends, but I didn’t have my world rocked.
This novel is from 1926; in it, troubled, thoughtful and slightly disillusioned young Guy Martin goes through a strange process that wakes him up 200 years later, to a different England. No one lacks for anything; socialism has succeeded - scrabbling for a living for around 50 years is right out. Capitalism and money, and degrees of want leading to crime - that’s all history-book stuff. Religion has survived, chiefly Christianity and Buddhism - at least where Guy is, and this surprises him a bit. So do many of the adventures he has going forward. Slowly, Guy develops a dislike for certain aspects of this “stable and content, if not perfect” world of the future. Helpful new friends and mentors never do seem to sell it as Paradise - but maybe as good as it can get.
Guy does not go on to find some vast, shocking conspiracy underbelly that requires him to tear it all down…no, it’s more like, as a sudden arrival with a unique perspective, he can spot the unpleasant stuff that the natives are willing to tolerate because, again, this is as good as it gets for the most people. Some troubling developments involving Ena and her place in the world, plus what happens to Brady - who definitely does not experience the contentedness felt by the vast majority - plus the emergence of Emmanuel whose preaching quickly pulls in an enthusiastic following…well, Guy, and the reader, can decide what it takes to be happy in a world that divides people into types, “Intellectuals”, and “Normals”. What problems does the elimination of want, and working for a living, leave left over? What do people mess up with a life of leisure time…?
I don’t know if I quite understood what it was all about, even with a rundown, in the Introduction provided in my edition, of the more famous proto-SF it was written as a response to. Yes, it did remind me of News From Nowhere, and maybe even Wells’s Men Like Gods. I would even say there’s just the faintest trace of a Philip K. Dick sensibility here…and yet it’s as if someone took a Dick novel and did everything they could to make it not be one, certainly in feel. The religious angle of this future makes me think of a few of PKD’s works, I suppose.
Recommended as a slightly baffling utopian destination that of course doesn’t quite seem like where we really want to end up.
This novel is from 1926; in it, troubled, thoughtful and slightly disillusioned young Guy Martin goes through a strange process that wakes him up 200 years later, to a different England. No one lacks for anything; socialism has succeeded - scrabbling for a living for around 50 years is right out. Capitalism and money, and degrees of want leading to crime - that’s all history-book stuff. Religion has survived, chiefly Christianity and Buddhism - at least where Guy is, and this surprises him a bit. So do many of the adventures he has going forward. Slowly, Guy develops a dislike for certain aspects of this “stable and content, if not perfect” world of the future. Helpful new friends and mentors never do seem to sell it as Paradise - but maybe as good as it can get.
Guy does not go on to find some vast, shocking conspiracy underbelly that requires him to tear it all down…no, it’s more like, as a sudden arrival with a unique perspective, he can spot the unpleasant stuff that the natives are willing to tolerate because, again, this is as good as it gets for the most people. Some troubling developments involving Ena and her place in the world, plus what happens to Brady - who definitely does not experience the contentedness felt by the vast majority - plus the emergence of Emmanuel whose preaching quickly pulls in an enthusiastic following…well, Guy, and the reader, can decide what it takes to be happy in a world that divides people into types, “Intellectuals”, and “Normals”. What problems does the elimination of want, and working for a living, leave left over? What do people mess up with a life of leisure time…?
I don’t know if I quite understood what it was all about, even with a rundown, in the Introduction provided in my edition, of the more famous proto-SF it was written as a response to. Yes, it did remind me of News From Nowhere, and maybe even Wells’s Men Like Gods. I would even say there’s just the faintest trace of a Philip K. Dick sensibility here…and yet it’s as if someone took a Dick novel and did everything they could to make it not be one, certainly in feel. The religious angle of this future makes me think of a few of PKD’s works, I suppose.
Recommended as a slightly baffling utopian destination that of course doesn’t quite seem like where we really want to end up.
March 27, 2021
One of those books that you finish, then wonder what you've read, still enjoyed it, but you're not sure why.
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