Product Description

Setting out to make his fortune in a far-off country, a young traveller discovers the remote and beautiful land of Erewhon, and is given a home among its extraordinarily handsome citizens. But their visitor soon discovers that this seemingly ideal community has its faults - here crime is treated indulgently as a malady to be cured, while illness, poverty and misfortune are cruelly punished, and all machines have been superstitiously destroyed after a bizarre prophecy. Can he survive in a world where morality is turned upside down? Inspired by Samuel Butler's years in colonial New Zealand, and by his reading of Darwin's "Origin of Species", Erewhon (1872) is a highly original, irreverent and humorous satire on conventional virtues, religious hypocrisy and the unthinking acceptance of beliefs.

Product Details

• Published on: 1970-06-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback

Customer Reviews

The most brilliant satire of the 19th Century
I have just reread Samuel Butler's Erewhon, a book described by Lewis Mumford as having 'a sunny malice'. Personally I don't find anything malicious in this tale. He does stand just about every taken for granted convention of Victorian society (and the world still) on its head, and has great fun doing it, but the end result is to force the reader to think long and hard about much that is usually accepted without thinking.

In Erewhon, criminals are considered to be ill and are 'treated' by 'straightners' who make them well, whereas those who have physical illnesses (or suffer bad luck) are considered criminal and are tried and punished. Thus an embezzler will be treated for his 'illness' and the party who was robbed will be tried in the Court of Misplaced Confidence. The consistency with which Butler carries through with this conceit is impressive and consistently entertaining, and this is only one of the 'curious' conventions of Erewhonian society.

My favorite part of the novel is the section that purports to be a classic text from the College of Unreason, 'The Book of the Machines'. Modeled on Darwin's writings, this text explains how machines are on an evolutionary track that will surpass and then come to dominate their human creators. The detail of the argument is impressive (the discussion of 'vestigial organs' in machines is hysterical and accurate), and no matter how far fetched it must have seemed in 1872 when the book was published, it seems much less a satire and more a serious fear today.

This is a book of great intelligence and wicked humor. As a simultaneous mind stretching exercise and laugh generating experience I can think of few novels of any age that are its peer.

Nowhere in particular
Samuel Butler does a neat balancing act with "Erewhon," a novel that is equal parts fictitious travelogue, philosophical tract, social/political/religious satire, and adventure story complete with a romantic subplot. The protagonist, a young Englishman named Higgs who is unsatisfied with employment prospects in his home country, moves to a distant colonized land where he takes a job as a shepherd. Beyond a mountain range there lie some mysterious lands that he would like to explore, and, setting out one day with a timid guide who later abandons him, he eventually gets to the other side of the peaks and finds himself in an isolated country named Erewhon.

One of the first things Higgs notes is that Erewhon is a few hundred years behind the times technologically. They have no modern mechanical conveniences, and when Higgs is discovered to own a watch, it is confiscated and he is put in prison. Later released and placed into the custody of a rich man named Mr. Nosnibor, Higgs learns all about the bizarre customs and beliefs of the Erewhonians.

In Erewhon, sickness is punishable by law and criminal acts are treated medically by people called "straighteners"; so, stealing a pair of socks is analogous to feeling a bit under the weather. The Erewhon banking system is a facade, as their money is worthless. The Erewhonians believe in an ethereal prenatal world where babies are given the (preferred) option not to be born into the mortal world. Their institutions of higher education, the Colleges of Unreason, teach conformity and resist originality and progress. Most importantly, they condemn technological advancement because of the fear that machines will continue evolving so rapidly that they will eventually develop a consciousness, out-evolve man, and take control of the world. Imagine how the Erewhonians would have despaired over the realization of artificial intelligence!

How have the Erewhonians arrived at all of these beliefs? Higgs concludes that their belief system is a result of gullibility -- they tend to put their faith in anybody who comes up with a convincing argument for whatever agenda he's trying to push. They don't analyze, question, or challenge; they just accept the status quo until somebody with a big mouth (but not necessarily a big brain) decides the status quo needs to be changed. In this way, one man who thinks killing animals is wrong convinces the people to become vegetarians; another man who likes meat convinces the people that killing plants is an even greater sin.

This book has a lot of targets, some not all that obvious, but I think Butler was prophesying a world in which demagoguery takes the place of common sense and reason, a world through which he was satirizing organized religion, sentimental notions of familial sanctity, and the complacency of the Victorian middle class. I've also read "The Way of All Flesh," but I find "Erewhon" to be a better representative of Butler's skewering cynicism and sly humor.

A forgotten gem
I felt honour-bound to review this Victorian English Book as it surely must have been an inspiration to later authors such as Kafka and Orwell. A 'gulliver-esque' tale is told wherein a traveller chances upon a strange world where the conventional rules of our society are turned upon their head - the ill are sent to prison and criminals are given pity & understanding. Despite the age of the book, it is not a difficult read, and is very underrated (or perhaps just overlooked?)