Customer Reviews

Utopia (Penguin Classics)

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There were utopias before this book that Thomas More wrote in the early 1500s, including Plato's Republic. This, however, is the book that gives us the word 'Utopia.' The book is brief, barely over 100 pages, and only 60-some describe the place itself. That is enough, and makes me nostalgic for the habit of writing briefly and to the point.

It's easy to sum up More's heaven-on-earth in a few words. It portrays a communal, democratic society. It is paradoxically unregulated and tightly regulated - overwhelmingly, More's citizens just want to do what is best for their society, and that covers a remarkably narrow range of possibilities. There are, of course, some who break the laws of the land, and More deals with them harshly. "Harsh" is a relative term, though, and his punishments were hardly harsh in a day when it was a hanging offense to steal a loaf of bread for your starving family. (That's actually the introductory topic, the one that leads up to the description of Utopia.)

It's also a strongly religious society. Religious tolerance is a matter of law, a novelty by the standards of More's day and the standard of his own behavior. 'Tolerance', however, meant tolerance of any monotheism that wasn't too animistic, and certainly didn't tolerate the unreligious.

This translation from More's original Latin is modern and smoothly readable. Even so, I wonder how another translator would have handled some of More's neologistic names, like the unpleasant 'Venalians' who are the Utopians' neighbors. No answer is right, but other renderings may convey more and grate less. Those are quibbles, though. It's a good book as well as being a Great Book, and casts an interesting shadow into modern communism, theocracy, and ideas of the good life. I recommend it highly.

//wiredweird

Thomas More, executed by Henry VIII (one of his best friends) for treason, led an illustrious career of politics and letters. Under his friend the King, he served in many capacities - Speaker of the House of Commons, Master of Requests, Privy Councillor, etc. - culminating with the trust of the position of Lord Chancellor, a position in those days matching the prominence (if not the definition) of Prime Minister in these days. More's strong integrity and resolute mind caught the attention of scholars, political and church leaders internationally; it was this same integrity that most likely was his undoing, refusing to assent to the King's divorce and severance of ties binding the English Church with the Roman overlordship of the Pope. Indeed, More was, if not the actual ghostwriter, then certainly an inspiration and editorial aide to the document produced by King Henry VIII against the continental protestants, earning for Henry (and his heirs ever after) the title of Defender of the Faith (historical irony is that this title, most likely not intended to be hereditary, now declares the defense of a faith separated from the one for which the title was bestowed).

While an Ambassador to Flanders, More spent spare time writing this book, 'Utopia'. The very title is a still a by-word in the English language (as well as others) of a state of bliss and peace; it is often used with the context of being unrealistic. 'Utopia' is More's response to and development from Plato's 'Republic', in that it is a framework for a perfect society, or at least perfect according to More's ideas of the time. Penned originally in Latin, 'Utopia' has been translated widely; one of the better translations is by H.V.S. Ogden, in 1949, still reprinted in various editions to this day. Originally published in Latin in 1516, the first English version appeared in 1551, some 16 years after More's death.

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Utopia
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Thomas More writes this as if he were traveling, and meets his friend Peter Giles, who introduces him to Raphael Hythloday, a scholar/traveler with tales to tell.

Hythloday made friends with a prince who outfitted him for a journey. He traveled through deserts and fertile lands. He proceeds to give an account to Giles and More. In an ironic twist, given More's own attachment to Henry VIII, Hythloday states that he doesn't give his information in advice of kings or princes, for to be beholden to them is not a wise thing. He quotes Plato, in saying that unless kings were themselves philosophers, they should never appreciate philosophers.

More argues for public service, which Hythloday rejects as something that other place-seekers will use to bolster their own positions. Then Hythloday makes the startling pronouncement with regard to how a society should be constituted: 'As long as there is property, and while money is the standard of all things, I cannot think that a nation can be governed either justly or happily; not justly, because the best things will fall to the share of the worst men; nor happily, because all things will be divided among a few (and even these are not in all respects happy), the rest being left to the absolutely miserable.'

Hythloday proceeds to give an account of the life of Utopia, where, he says, there are so few laws and so much liberty and equality that virtue is always rewarded, and each person has what he or she needs. He talks about this under the following headings:

Of Their Towns, Particularly of Amaurot
Of Their Magistrates
Of Their Trades, and Manner of Life
Of Their Traffic
Of the Travelling of the Utopians
Of Their Slaves, and of Their Marriages
Of Their Military Discipline
Of the Religions of the Utopians

'Utopia' is a radical document. It anticipates the modern idea of communism, with private property at a minimum; it is generations ahead in the idea of equality of the sexes and freedom of religion. This may seem a remarkable statement from someone who will go to his death supporting the Roman hierarchy, but in historical irony, had religious freedom been respected in England at the time, More would have had nothing to fear.

'Utopia' was a place of education and free inquiry. Again, More's own life models this - travelers from as far away as Constantinople and Venice, visiting More's home in Chelsea, remarked on the incredible sense of knowledge and respect for reason and learning, not just for the men, but also for the women of the household (More's own daughter once impressed Henry VIII with her Latin training so much he was at pains to find something at which he excelled that he could best her at).

At different points throughout the text, More (speaking through Hythloday) jabs in witty and insightful manner the habits of the day - that kings are often more concerned to fill their own coffers than increasing the general wealth of the nation; that courts are designed to be self-serving and self-perpetuating; that liberties are curtailed not for just and reasonable causes, but often for petty personal reasons.

Some of the ideas, however, are not as modern or enlightened as they might seem at first glance. Utopians' freedom of religion exists only in very narrow bounds of reason - they are all monotheists, and while they might identify this deity with the sun or moon or a good person who died long ago, they are not permitted to speak or attempt to convert others to this idea, without risking bondage or death. Not too Utopian after all...

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More was beatified by Leo XIII in 1886 and canonised by Pius XI in 1935 (it is significant to note that Anglican-Roman relations were at a strained point during these times, and the raising of an English saint who rejected the Anglican construct served at least minor political points, something More would have been able to appreciate, if not approve). The official feast day is July 9.

More exhibits intellectual creativity in the classic Utopia, originally written in Latin. It is a narrative on a non-existent, ideal society. The book Utopia includes the Utopian alphabet, a poem in Utopian and then translated into English, lines on the island of Utopia by the poet laureate, More's letters to Peter Gilles, Gilles's letter to Busleiden, Book 1, and Book 2.

The alphabet and poems at the beginning immediately display the creative and structured thought of More, introduce the island of Utopia, and display the humorous wit of More that will continue to make you chuckle throughout the course of the book.

The letters serve as the background to the authoring of books 1 and 2. It adds a sense of reality to them by describing where the subject matter for the books comes from and creating a pretend internal debate about whether or not a book on Utopia should be written by More at all. More's considerations in that staged internal debate are highly enjoyable to any avid reader.

The real fun to this book is how More uses plays on words, he comments on or uses writings of other classic authors, and he parallels or completely contradicts happenings and/or beliefs his own real life holds. For instance, book 1 weaves together completely fictional characters and situations together with real people, situations, and history that have impacted him in reality (This is the same concept of adding truth to falsehood to make falsehood more believable as is displayed in The DaVinci Code). More's talent is further displayed as he is able to discuss social governance issues in the entertaining and more relatable format of dialogue.

Book 2 describes in depth the structure of the Utopian society. It handles everything from governance within Utopia and relations with societies outside of Utopia to the handling of religion and the growth of morals in society members. While More presents some thought provoking concepts and ideas in this book, he clearly states that they are all based on the assumption that there's no such thing as greed, fear of want, or vanity in Utopia (pg 61).

This particular edition of Utopia comes with a short bio of both author and translator. It also includes a time line of More's life, a helpful introduction, further reading suggestions, a note on the text and translation, an appendix, a glossary, and a multitude of footnotes. If you are not already well versed in Latin, the writings of Greek and Latin philosophers, and English history, than I highly recommend you soak in all this added information from the translator and book editor that is included in this edition both before and while you read Utopia.

My only complaint of this edition is that I don't like flipping back and forth between the text of the novel and the notes in the back. I wish they had put the notes at the bottom of the page. Other than that, I really enjoyed this edition of Utopia and applaud More's witty creativity.

This semester the bookstore accidently ordered the Paul Turner Penguin translation of Thomas More's Utopia, and while I thought I loved everything Penguin did, this is the exception. It is almost unusable, especially in line with more traditional translations. Rather than just footnote and explain More's many Greek and Latin puns in More's fantasy place names, Turner comes up with his own words "Air City," etc. so that no one can relate it to the proper names everyone else uses (Amaurot, Anydis, etc.). Then, when More is talking about court jesters and fools (more' --a Latin pun on More's own name) Turner translates it in the politically correct, "mentally deficient" which again misleads. This translation is the least helpful I've experienced. Sad to report this, o beloved Penguin! I mean "waddling booker."

I first read this book in my impressionable and idealistic youth (some time in the second half of the last century). I've read it a couple of times since then and still enjoy the way that the book can be read as either a satire (my current preferred reading) or as a description of an ideal society.

This is a very short book and well worth reading - even for those of us without Latin who can only read it in translation.

Recommended.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

More finished Utopia in 1516 against the backdrop of an uncharted New World and an Old World awash with petty rivalries, injustice, greed and corruption, arrogant privileged opulence, hopeless poverty and institutionalized human degradation. More wrote in Latin, the language of the schooled intellectual for so many centuries. When one reads Utopia he cannot help but be struck with the fact that it was clearly the blueprint for twentieth century Communism. In fact, the reader will probably be impressed with how little creativity entered the thought processes of the framers of modern Communism. Utopians happily did not own property, happily wore uniform clothing, disdained wealth, lived in communities strictly regulated even as to minimum and maximum population, ate identical meals, each periodically spent time working the state owned farms, were officially ostracized for not working or otherwise abiding by the uniform social codes, were criminalized for traveling beyond their immediate environs without official state sanction. Certain intellectual pursuits and careers were available only as the state might select individuals for them, seeing this and all social regulation of the individual as being in the best interest of the general citizenry. The state is incorruptible, bribery is virtually impossible, justice is uniformly applied, neighboring states so benefit from the Utopian ways that they are brought under Utopian influence. The desire for political power is understood as mere narcissism, and to seek political power is to at once become ineligible for such power. Given the many straightforward adoptions, twentieth century Communist movements did demand a few glaring omissions from More's communism, which permitted no standing army, for example, and which, underwritten by a broadminded and charitable monotheistic philosophy, protected religious diversity and guaranteed religious tolerance.

Utopians, when informed of western philosophy, technology, science, and religion, are quick to adopt certain aspects and improve on them, not being bound by Old World strictures and myopia. Given More's Christian beliefs, is Utopia, borrowing the words of his Raphael, "considerably affected by the information that Christ prescribed of His own disciples a communist way of life?" Certainly yes, but spell communism with a small 'c'. More was [probably] not dogmatically prescribing the ideal state, let alone a new world order, he was having great fun with an elaborate fantasy of 'Nowhereland'. While using the narrative to offer a great deal of cutting social and political commentary, he finds that such a society is "in many cases perfectly ridiculous" and yet there is no doubt that More finds the Utopian Republic far superior in terms of justice and respect for human dignity and welfare to any of the states of Europe to that point in history. More seems to have thought his state to be a significant advancement from Plato's and his small book is an intriguing and entertaining curiosity.

The Utopian society More advocates is actually a form of bureaucratic communism with slavery and acceptance of religions added.

He keeps saying that there aren't many laws but his every description is another law. True, if kept to the level described it probably is less laws than most modern nations but it is still burdensome and the lack of laws is countered by having every triviality brought before judges.

He describes the land not having lawyers as a good thing, but I'm not so sure. For one thing, it lends itself to self incrimination and makes the playing field perchance uneven between two parties who many not be able to relate their case with equal verbosity and clarity.

One point that I did find interesting, due to the time at which it was written, was that he advocates euthanasia for the old, saying :

"But if any have torturing, lingering pain, without hope of recovery or ease, the priests and magistrates repair to them and exhort them, since they are unable to proceed with the business of life, are become a burden to themselves and all about them, and have in reality outlived themselves, they should no longer cherish a rooted disease, but choose to die since they cannot live but in great misery; being persuaded, if they thus deliver themselves from torture, or allow others to do it, they shall be happy after death. Since they forfeit none of the pleasures, but only the troubles of life by this, they think they not only act reasonably, but consistently with religion; for they follow the advice of their priests, the expounders of God's will."

The main problem, however, with this "Utopia" is that there is no diversification of labor. Each person does everything with no specification. Without this ability, a modern society cannot function. No innovations will be made, and instead of doing a few things well they will do most things poorly. Yet, supposedly, they all have much free time. Let's count some of the things mentioned that they do each day: Practice war skills, men and women (even though they try never go to war); make their own clothes; collect and make their own food; sew their own clothes; make their own houses; go to court. It just doesn't seem realistic back then and today would be ludicrous.

Speaking of war, Utopians don't utilize gold (money) internally in their own culture. When it comes to war, however, they put up huge bounties on many external foes in gold, silver, and land. All of a sudden they value it again. As they also do when they lend money to other nations and then draw on their soldiers during war times. It seems more practical that the other nations would just shuck off their debts and relieve the Utopians of their hoard that they don't want anyway.

More's Utopia is not a perfect land, but rather, outopos, because it would never exist anywhere but be crushed out of existence.

This is an astonishing work - given that it was written five hundred years ago by Thomas More, a rich Catholic and later Lord Chancellor.

Thomas More begins his tale autobiographically and relates how he meets a traveler called Raphael who is highly educated in Greek language and literature (who is, in other words, a humanist). The rest of the short book consists mainly of Raphael's discourse about the island of Utopia, which is Greek for "no place" (though it might also be a pun for "good place").

Utopia is a country without private ownership and many other features that stood in stark contrast to More's England of the time - and, in fact, to the Catholic Church. In that way the book can be seen as a (sometimes tongue-in-cheek) critique of early 16th-century society. Utopia is truly "no place": a place that does not and will never exist. It is, instead, a literary device for More to challenge his own culture.

These challenges include the way slavery was conducted, the greedy obsession with gold and the oppression of the poor, the complicatedness of the judicial system, religious intolerance, etc. Coming from a rich Catholic lawyer, this truly is astonishing: a satire about the establishment written by someone inside the establishment itself.

Consider this description of religious tolerance, for instance:

"He judged it not fit to determine anything rashly; and seemed to doubt whether those different forms of religion might not all come from God, who might inspire man in a different manner, and be pleased with this variety; he therefore thought it indecent and foolish for any man to threaten and terrify another to make him believe what did not appear to him to be true. And supposing that only one religion was really true, and the rest false, he imagined that the native force of truth would at last break forth and shine bright, if supported only by the strength of argument, and attended to with a gentle and unprejudiced mind; while, on the other hand, if such debates were carried on with violence and tumults, as the most wicked are always the most obstinate, so the best and most holy religion might be choked with superstition, as corn is with briars and thorns; he therefore left men wholly to their liberty, that they might be free to believe as they should see cause."

It should be pointed out, however, that other high churchmen prior to More had voiced similar open-mindedness, such as Nikolaus von Kues (1401-1464). So perhaps such tolerant sentiments were not as astonishing at the time as we might think.

But the method More uses to convey his points is certainly very early for its type. I almost felt that the book anticipated Swift's "Gulliver's Travels," written a bit more than a century later, in which society is likewise being challenged by painting a picture of radically different places.

Which is not to say that "Utopia" is revolutionary on every point. At times the book does affirm a very strict morality, such as state-inflicted punishment for extramarital sex, and it certainly affirms religion as such and obedience to the priesthood. At other times, "Utopia" is quite amusing, such as the following passage about picking one's spouse, with which I shall close this review:

"In choosing their wives they use a method that would appear to us very absurd and ridiculous, but it is constantly observed among them, and is accounted perfectly consistent with wisdom. Before marriage some grave matron presents the bride, naked, whether she is a virgin or a widow, to the bridegroom, and after that some grave man presents the bridegroom, naked, to the bride.

"We, indeed, both laughed at this, and condemned it as very indecent. But they, on the other hand, wondered at the folly of the men of all other nations, who, if they are but to buy a horse of a small value, are so cautious that they will see every part of him, and take off both his saddle and all his other tackle, that there may be no secret ulcer hid under any of them, and that yet in the choice of a wife, on which depends the happiness or unhappiness of the rest of his life, a man should venture upon trust, and only see about a handsbreadth of the face, all the rest of the body being covered, under which may lie hid what may be contagious as well as loathsome.

"All men are not so wise as to choose a woman only for her good qualities, and even wise men consider the body as that which adds not a little to the mind, and it is certain there may be some such deformity covered with clothes as may totally alienate a man from his wife, when it is too late to part with her; if such a thing is discovered after marriage a man has no remedy but patience; they, therefore, think it is reasonable that there should be good provision made against such mischievous frauds."

Short, sweet and still thought provoking is all I can really say. Could a society like this really exist in the present day? Probably not, but it makes you wonder if it is just a mindset to begin with.

I have, of course, heard many things about Thomas More over the years. What I had never heard was how witty and funny and wry he was. Utopia surprised me in many ways - it was snarky, packed with clever one-liners, and despite my Republican tendencies I found things even I agreed with contained within its vaguely communist manifesto-ish pages. I love when a book that is heavily weighted toward political satire and/or social commentary tied to a particular place/time includes footnotes. I know most people do not, but I like reading the annotations and getting a better sense of what made a given book "dangerous" for the author at the time it was written - even if, truth be told, some of the annotations inevitably end up meaningless to me because I lack the larger context. I found some of the descriptions of what would make a society "perfect" to be surprisingly timely given current events; also surprisingly timely and relevant (unfortunately) were many of the criticisms of the political environment at the time. We really do not learn very well from history, do we?