Customer Reviews

The Plato Papers: A Novel

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

The reviewers so far have missed the point of Ackroyd's somewhat slight but rather enjoyable satire of our age. A recommendation: re-read The Republic again, esp. books 6-8, and then return to Ackroyd's novella if it leaves you cold on the first read. And note: this is not a work of science fiction--it is a work of literary and philosophical whimsy. The point is not to present some sort of full-fledged world, nor a detailed vision of the future. The point is to gently mock the elements of our age which lie hidden from our view; hidden, because we never think to consider their peculiarity. (As an aside to a previous reviewer: it is not that the inhabitants of this "future" London do not distinguish between genders; it is, however, the case that their gender is not a part of their self-identity.) It is, in the end, a satire of knowledge, which to be sure sets us free, but also makes us its slaves.

Maybe the cover blurb's announcement of a "timeless literary masterpiece" inflated my expectations, but Ackroyd's "prophesy" isn't much more than a little funny and occasionally thought-provoking.

Not only is the book wildly implausible--our descendents somehow inhabit many dimensions at once, live in a layer of reality situated above our own, yet for all that aren't allowed to leave London--but it's annoyingly inconsistent, too. If people in the future have no concept of linear time (they strain to understand how "watches" could have "made" time), how do they know that the "present" is the year 3799? If they think it strange that their ancestors divided the human race into just two genders, why do they keep talking about him, her, his daughter, and so on?

The book has some good passages. Plato's reading of The Origin of Species as the great novel of the 19th century and Freud as a comic genius are both very clever, and the latter-day lexicon of contemporary (to us) English is quite funny.

But on the whole, the book is weighed down by too much murky philosophizing. This would be fine if Ackroyd offered some brilliant, fantastic vision of the future or stunning insight into our age, but he doesn't. An amusing page-turner, to be sure, but hardly our own Gulliver's Travels.

What a tour-de-force! funny, thought-provoking, muscular. Neither philosophy nor sci-fi: rather a multi-dimensional mirror held up to our faces, ostensibly from the year 3700. There are discrepancies - one reader mentioned time and sexes - but these do not mar the thinking, nor the action. Perhaps it is rather geared towards the English reader. Being one of those, I recognised several more specifically English, or even London references, jokes and quizzes, which, as a recently departed Londoner, I relished. All the same, even if you've never set foot in England you can find enjoyment in this book. It reminded me of a well-risen soufflé: light, seemingly insubstantial, rather clever, rarely perfect, becoming more rich in the middle, and at the end of it, you are full and smiling with pleasure, and thinking widely.

This book leads you through many layers: satire of "clever dons", of the New Age movement's wilder claims, it touches also, with fun and ultimate compassion, on our relationship with the past, with place, with ourselves...Read it slowly enough to discover them, and fast enough to keep the pace and enjoy the wit.

Just a note: Plato's wild speculations in the first half of the book remind me of my old Greek tutor at Oxford, who would go on similar flights of fancy about the Athenian past ("let's decide, for one moment, there was an Athenian league...". It was fun, it developed the imagination and different ways of thinking and looking at reality, and it made us realise that, really, we probably understand very little of our ancestors. The Plato Papers does much the same.

I won't extend too much time to the appallingly personal crits I read here ("pompous british biographer"; "odd little book"- funny, that's exactly what Dr Johnson said about Tristram Shandy. No-one reads Dr Johnson these days but plenty read Tristram Shandy)- everyone is entitled to his opinion, even if it is xenophobic and unexplained. Enough to say- give it a try, you might loathe it or love it - I hope you will find as much to think about after reading it as I did.

Oh, and it'll send you straight back to your Plato, if you had squeezed it out of your bedside table. Some readers deplored it was too short: Plato wrote very short books and packed them. Long does not always mean more substantial.

I will start by saying that for me The Plato Papers" were an enjoyment and I really read the book in one go, sometimes laughing, sometimes stopping to think about it.

At first, I was confused by the beginning, with all the fictional quotations which make sense only later (but they do!). Indeed, this book is not a novel, but a mingle of Plato's orations and dialogues between his contemporaries.

Plato is one of the spirits inhabiting the other plane of what is London in the year AD 3700. He is the society's most talented orator and philosopher, attracting crowds to his speeches. He talks a lot about history (the past ages, including Mouldwarp, easily recognizables as the world we live in nowadays), archeological discoveries and their interpretations (which are hilarious and pathetic at the same time, leaving the reader wondering about our own, human efforts to reconstruct the past). In between his speeches, we are given the comments on them in form of dialogues (as, maybe, we ourselves are commenting on what we hear or read) and Plato's discussions with his soul. The real laugh is the sampling of Plato's encyclopedia of terms from the past.

Plato is the real philosopher - he contantly asks difficult questions and searches for answer within himself and in the outer world, which leads him to the amazing discovery of a parallel, human world in a cave (Plato's cave...) and, subsequently, to the complete change in his thinking, which brings to him a disaster.

I liked " The Plato Papers", for infinite number of cultural and literary allusions (and the whole starting point - the book is based on Plato's belief that there is a world of perfect, unflawed forms, spirits, which we cannot in any way enter and can see only as shadows on the wall of our cave...) and satyrical attitude, as well as for its uninterrupted flow and form.

Rather than argue with other reviewers, I would suggest that the reader of The Plato Papers relax, and read this work, not as a novel (which in the classic sense it is not, conforming neither to plot nor character development) but a poet experience akin to the best in modern dance. The work is evocative, and summons, rather then explicates. A few pages a night refreshes, and provokes thought. I recommend it.

The philosopher Alfred North Whitehead described the history of Western Philosophy as a series of footnotes to Plato. This great thinker is both revered and parodied in Ackroyd's short, puzzling novel.

This book takes place in London, 3700 AD. Plato is an orator who lectures and studies the past. There are quirks, satires, and which in some instances are clever, in others just silly. There are discussions of Darwin's Origins of the Species( attributed to C. Dickens) the works of Edgar Allen Poe, and Freud which rescue the book from triviality. Also discussions between Plato and his soul and between Plato and his colleagues which recreate in part the form of the Ancient Platonic dialogue.

Plato discusses the past ages of civilization, which are given ugly and irrelevant sci-fi names, as the ages of love, belief, materialism. In the climax of the book, Plato descends into his famous cave, as his namesake did in book VII of the Republic to see contemporary London in all its obsession with technology, and sex, but a place worth reflecting on, nonetheless. Plato reflects on the difficulty of one age knowing another (a point of the Darwin-Dickens mix up and of other similar incidents in the book) and of the need for a spiritual rather than a materialistic means of understanding.

The book ends with a trial similar to that of Socrates in the Apology. Plato is acquitted but leaves London and becomes a wanderer.

London in 3700 is a cramped place with little individuality. Maybe like the Greek Polis? Our modern world has its attractions for all its flaws in its celebration of individuality.

There is a lot of silliness in this book and a lot of value. In some ways it is like its great namesake, who is truly one of the great people of the west. The ancients by our lights didn't know much about fact or about technology. They were remarkably primitive. In understanding human behavior and spirituality, they, and Plato, remain with much to teach us. Inexhaustible. Although cast through the irritating light of science fiction and futurism, the book invites us to try to see our world through Plato's eyes.

This book aspires to cleverness by having a character from the future named "Plato" whose life bears some similarities to the lives of the historical Plato and Socrates: "Plato" is an orator prone to confusing his audience who urges each person to "know thyself," he's put on trial for corrupting the young, etc. Yet Ackroyd's "Plato" lacks personality and philosophical depth. Unlike the Socrates of Plato's dialogs, whose wit, intelligence, and force of personality grab you immediately, this "Plato" gives us only ponderous and pretentious twaddle. And unlike Plato's dialogs, the dreary dialogs in this novel go nowhere and involve indistinguishable people with names like "Sparkler" and "Madrigal."

The future world of this novel never comes to life -- a distinct drawback for a fantasy novel.

Part of the humor of the novel is supposed to be "Plato's" mistaken interpretations of our age, based upon his examination of the archeological record, but Ackroyd overreaches by often making "Plato" give far-fetched interpretations when more plausible ones easily are at hand. (He even misinterprets what a bird in a film is. What, they don't have birds in the 38th century?) There are times when the misinterpretations are humorous (as in attributing The Origin of the Species to Charles Dickens), which is what saves this novel from one-star status.

One further point: don't let the length fool you. If this were an average hardback and didn't start every chapter (some of which are only a few lines long) on a new page, this "novel" might run to 35 pages.

I, too, picked up this book because its concept showed potential brilliance. I should have spent two more minutes browsing the pages. For such a short book, it was a long, slow, unredeemed ride. It is not funny, it is not intelligent (it seemed barely literate), and it is not entertaining. I'll admit that it showed moments of cleverness and wit, but it was always a superficial wit. This superficiality was typical of the novel. The satire (if that was the intent) had no depth at all. Philosophically speaking, it was an illogical, garbled mess, filled with sloppy speculation and half-developed thoughts that tended to be contradicted or forgotten two pages later. It really is the worst of sci-fi and popular "philosophy" tossed together. The author imagined a world based on preposterous premises (non-linear time, conversational souls multi-dimensionality, and angels--with wings!), but then failed to draw the conclusions. The world of the book is always abstract, never concrete, never readily available to the imagination. It also contained one of the worst sentences I've read in ages: "I sensed the smell of that which was neither living nor dead." Look, if you want fantasy, read Borges. If you want prophecy, read Blake, or maybe even Orwell. Or go ahead and read the real Plato's version of the trial and death of Socrates. That story is more witty, more erudite, more entertaining than The Plato Papers. I suspect the Apology might even be a more accurate portrait of the 21st Century!

At last! A decent reader fray is found in this jungle of otherwise mind-numbing five-star sameness. Leave it to the English and their word-wise sense of humor. Leave it to Plato and his oh-so-serious Forms. Leave it to we who dwell in the Cave and see only the shadows to which we must ascribe reality. Peter Ackroyd speaks through Plato as Plato spoke through Socrates. But Socrates' point of view was from earth-bound reality heavenward. Plato speaks from the light outside the Cave, in a timeless world of perfections and essences, from heaven itself. Ackroyd's point, which he makes with Swiftian persuasion, is (to me) that, when you go the other way around, you get it wrong, way wrong - to the infinite amusement of me and a few other readers below. In other words, forget perfect, get real! This is a good book, not great, but worth the effort.

I read a review about this book in The Economist magazine which was very positive, and so bought it as soon as it came out. I didn't find it very thought provoking, though it was a quick read (it is a very short book and took me about three hours to read, and I'm not a speed reader) Also, I didn't find it particularly witty or humorous. This is possibly because some of the references in the book refer to London and perhaps would be better understood by those familiar with that city. I do recommend Plato's (The Greek one) Apology and other dialogues of Socrates, which this book mimics in form. And Plato's works are available free on the net.