They put him into a hypnotic trance in a sealed room to cure him. Then the house burnt down and he was forgotten Until he awoke forty years later and could not - dared not - believe what he saw . . .
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Looking Backward From the Year 2000
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This review is from: Looking backward, from the year 2000 (Paperback)
There is a tide in the affairs of men and in the works of writers. After a period of time in the 1950s and 1960s when the dystopian novel became well-developed, there was a return by writers in the 1970s to the utopian novel. One reason for this change, I think, was that authors were not satisfied with simply warning readers about possible hells of the future. There was a feeling that writers should grapple with solutions to social problems-- ways of avoiding those future hells. Most utopian writers of the seventies were either feminists (like Ursula K. Le Guin and Joanna Russ) or ecological activists (like Ernest Callenbach and Ray Nelson).
But Mack Reynolds began to experiment with utopian novels that were more broadly political and social. It was a bold move. In the past, Reynolds had dealt with serious economic and political issues, but his ideas had always been sugar coated in an action-adventure format. Straight utopian novels were less marketable, and it took a while for any of them to sell. _Looking Backward, From the Year 2000_ is Reynolds's most ambitious utopian novel, a direct retelling of Edward Bellamy's classic, _Looking Backward_. In Bellamy's novel, his hero, Julian West, goes to sleep in 1887 and awakes in 2000 to a socialistic utopia with a steam engine technology and an urban society. Reynolds's Julian West has a heart condition, goes into suspended animation in the 1970s, and awakes in a more technically advanced but less urban world. The novel is divided into scenes labeled _Then_ and _Now_. The _Then_ scenes are mostly nightmares that Julian has of the 1960s: the Vietnam war, the Chicago riots, political corruption, crime in the streets, police on the take, the Kitty Genovese murder, ruthless business pressures, and the like. The _Now_ scenes are those of the twenty-first century. What are some of the characteristics of this future world? First, it is not a static utopia. It is a society that evolved (there was no single revolution that formed it) from a past society and which will in time change into something else. Cities have vanished. Most people live in high rise apartments scattered across the country. Most of the country has been "reforested"; that is, restored to its original, natural state. Factories and transportation systems are underground. Cars are speedy but clean; they are electric powered. Newspapers are gone, but news and other writing appear on computers. (Here, Reynolds accurately predicted the internet-- and so, for that matter, this critical review.) Money has been replaced by a plastic-and- computer system of economics. Every citizen automatically receives a certain minimum share of basic stock and uses a credit card to pay for goods. Farming is largely automated, and farm machines can be operated from hundreds of miles away. Automated doctors can treat diseases or injuries at home, or (if needed) can call the appropriate medical specialist. Drug addiction and juvenile delinquency have been eliminated. There is no more marriage or divorce. There is equality of the sexes. There is no more war. Medicine has become highly advanced. Education is an ongoing, lifelong process-- a matter of keeping up with constantly exploding knowledge. One's work is partly a matter of what you are interested in and partly a matter of your personal skills. David Pringle (1987) has stated that a weakness of the novel is that it does not give adequate attention to how the society came to exist. But in fact, Reynolds gives a lot of attention to its history: There weren't two clearcut sides. Everything blended into a conglomerate of interests. It was to the interest of the big corporations to become still bigger and to exert more pressure on the government to obtain super-contracts with profits guaranteed. It was to the interest of the government to exert more control over the super corporations and the cosmocorps. It was to the interest of the employees to work for a super- corporation with the security and good pay involved. It was to the interest of the aged, the poor and the unemployed to receive a guaranteed annual income and to the interest of all that they receive such a stipend, so as to keep them from revolt and retain them as consumers. Extremists to the right and extremists to the left and crackpots in general ranted and raved but it was to the interest of the overwhelming majority to establish a new society-- and it was established. (167) How successful is Reynolds's utopian novel? Well, it doesn't have the literary polish of Ursula K. Le Guin's _The Dispossessed_ or Joanna Russ's _The Female Man_. But it is well crafted. And it deserves points for its originality, breadth, and richness of ideas. _Note_: I have one small cavil that the potential reader should consider. The Ace edition is riddled with typos and misspellings. It seems a shame that a book this good should be marred by bad proofing-- but there you have it.
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