A boy discovers an omnibus into a world of poetic wonders, a man caught up in the race of life makes a startling discovery, an English boy on
vacation abroad is touched by the pagan god of the wilderness... these and more tales await in this collection of short stories by the noted author
E. M. Forster.
Review
Once again, my general lack of education is showing. These stories, aimed quite clearly and directly at the upper-class English reader of
yesteryear, raised on a classical education and steeped in generations of social constraints, by and large deride the human folly of those very social
constraints and attempts to separate oneself from the wonders of the world by thinking true enlightenment can come from bookish education. Yet the
literary backflips Forster employs, the obscure allusions and assumptions about the reader's body of knowledge, can only be fully appreciated by one
raised on a classical education in the traditional upper-class English manner. From my undereducated viewpoint, I found many of the stories lacking a
point, aside from the sledgehammer-subtle Metaphors and admittedly poetic imagery. Like much higher literature, the story itself appears to be an
afterthought, far less important than the play of words and interweaving of Themes. While I enjoyed a couple of the tales in this collection, overall
I found them dull and repetitive.
On an unrelated note, looking at the past few reviews, I've come to the conclusion that I have no literary taste whatseover.
It has been many generations since humanity retreated from an uninhabitable surface to live in the depths of the Earth. Here, in their personal
podlike rooms, the great Machine provides them with everything they could need or want: food, music, video entertainment, lectures to exchange
ideas, contact with friends and family. It's rare that any leave, save when assigned to procreate or relocate to a new room. Vashti is content
with this life, surely the pinnacle of human achievement, but her son Kuno grows restless. He wants to see his mother face to face - a needless
frivolity. He wants to see the surface, even though there's nothing up there but simple plant life anymore. He even longs to look at the stars...
with his own living eyes! Worst of all, he questions the Machine, insisting people are starting to worship it like a god, a line of thinking that
could see him rendered "homeless" (sent to the poisoned air of the surface without a respirator to die). Vashti wants nothing to do with his
heresies. She just wants to enjoy the luxuries of life as provided by the Machine - but every machine, even the greatest in human history, might
skew from its original purpose... and might even someday break down.
Review
This classic short story, a look at a dystopian future where humanity has lost sight of itself and become too enamored with its own creations
to remember its place in the world and its true worth, was first published in 1909, and holds up reasonably well today, a clear inspiration to
later writers. Vashti, like most "modern" people, has grown weak in will and body, impatient, intolerant, and even childish, every whim
perpetually indulged at the press of a button, every idea regurgitated through numerous mouths and generations until original notions are
ultimately abhorrent. Only for the sake of her son does she brave the airship trip to his room, where he unravels a tale of rebellion so
scandalous she recoils in horror from his actions. Later, as the Machine ascends from mere creation to quasi-deity, she loses herself in worship
to try to forget his heretical actions - until the mechanical god (as implied in the title, so not really a spoiler) begins breaking down.
Forster projects a certain romanticism on the wilderness and "wild" men and women as the only true expression of humanity (and the only true
way to know divinity, measuring the world against oneself and oneself against the world), eschewing the softening, sensory- and mind-dulling
conveniences of civilization and industry (and conveniently glossing over questions of how people can ever survive a world as ecologically
degraded as the one in the story). The message may be a bit heavy-handed, but the tragedy of Kuno's doomed rebellion against conformity,
Vashti's embracing of society and willingness to be subsumed, and the ultimate reckoning of a failed civilization that has completely lost its
way come through.
