“Looking Backward,” stuffed full of glowing monologues like the world’s most intense timeshare presentation, is a sort of updated Socratic dialogue with bowler hats. “Looking Backward” makes it the entire story.īellamy wrote with great imagination and conviction, but he lacked the wisdom and powers of observation of a great writer, that ability to truly understand humanity. It occurs in the first few explanatory scenes before something happens. This is a familiar plot device in fiction. The entire plot (and how it is plot) is essentially a carnival ride, where a baffled stranger enters a strange land, and gets to marvel at how said strange land is way better than his own while another guy answers his questions. While a world without conflict is a lovely thought, it makes for turgid reading. “Looking Backward” is not a good novel in the ways one normally measures what makes a novel good, such as memorable characters, compelling story or moving writing. “National Clubs” organized by self-named “Bellamyites,” held weekly meetings, brainstorming ways of realizing Bellamy’s progressive vision in their own society. A political movement inspired by the book’s ideals rapidly emerged, confusingly named “Nationalism” but bearing much of the hallmarks of scientific socialism. You probably have never read “Looking Backward” or even heard of it, but it enraptured much of the nation’s middle class in the 1890s.
It is basically what Disneyland wishes you'd think it was. There is no money, only government credit. Nobody does jury duty because there are no more juries, because the judges are always right. People start working at 21 and retire by 45. There are no politicians, professional athletes, lawyers, soldiers or merchants. A non-violent revolution, the good doc explains, brought forth a world without war, taxes, crime and corruption. Leete, he discovers the world has changed. “Looking Backward” tells the story of Julian West, a 19th century capitalist who falls asleep for 113 years. The book, “Looking Backward: 2000-1887” by Massachusetts writer Edward Bellamy, gathered considerable steam and, in its second printing, sold more than 400,000 copies in the United States in less than a decade, only behind “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” and “Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ” in sales. In 1888, a utopian novel from a Massachusetts writer was published, first to modest sales and acclaim.
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