Play Book Tag discussion

Sometimes this book was so funny I was laughing out loud--sometimes where More no doubt intended it to be funny, and sometimes where I'm not so sure if it was supposed to be funny or not.

It is evident that he is pointing out many inane and wrong things about the society he lived in and societies of the world at large--those things haven't changed as significantly as I would like to think they would have by now. There is some controversy on whether or not he believed in communism as there are writings that indicated he didn't. I can't say for sure, but there were many times were it certainly appeared he was satirizing that as well--if not some of the things he described the Utopians as doing or living were brilliantly funny, particularly when it came to child raising and how Utopians manage to stay uncorrupted (like a sort of cousin to John Locke's noble savage, although Locke was born well after More was executed). This book is rather sexist, of course, which really isn't surprising.

However, given More's personal ethics, which were very strong, it's hard to say how much of this he actually believed based solely on reading this book. So often I read Book 2 (the narrative about Utopia) with a tone that was NOT serious in the least. Regardless, it was often a fun read for me, something I could not actually take too seriously most of the time as an actual solution (other than the sadly too true points about the corruption of people in power, etc).

I read this back in high school when I though I was so smart and and questioned everything. I am vague on most of the details of the book now but I remember being so intellectualized by this book, like I know hold the keys to some secret the rest of you don't. Yeah, I was that guy. sad. I really need to read this again.