Forward into the past
By Peter Sykes
Some of the most popular writers of a century ago envisaged futures in which poverty and oppression had been eliminated and people led simple lives, working together in peace and harmony for the betterment of all.
The term "science fiction" had yet to be coined in 1888 when Edward Bellamy's famous socialist utopian novel Looking Backward was published. Nevertheless, Bellamy's Looking Backward, William Morris' News from Nowhere (1891) and Jack London's The Iron Heel (1907) are regarded as classics of the genre.
All were written with the same purpose in mind — to right the wrongs of the industrial revolution and set humanity on the path to a better way. These authors saw socialism as the answer and set about harnessing their considerable writing talents to help it along.
By creating futures in which socialists eventually win the day, each writer found an effective form in which to comment on the injustices brought on by the rapid technological and social change accompanying industrialisation. The idealised utopian societies they depicted never came to pass and perhaps prophecy was never intended. Rather than blueprint the future, we are encouraged to dream it for ourselves.
Novelist and social reformer Edward Bellamy (1850-98) is almost singularly famous for Looking Backward. The book was a best-seller, trailing only Ben Hur and Uncle Tom's Cabin in popularity at the turn of the century. In separate surveys conducted in the mid-1930s, noted thinkers John Dewey, Charles Beard and Edward Weeks listed it as second only to Karl Marx's Das Kapital as the most influential book published since 1885.
Looking Backward tells the story of Julian West, a wealthy late-19th century man living in the United States, who, while spending an evening at home with his fiancee Edith, finds he has trouble getting to sleep. His doctor prescribes hypnosis and West awakens to find himself catapulted 113 years into the future to the year 2000. Here he falls in love with Edith's great-granddaughter (also named Edith) and hopes he never has to return to 1887 to explain himself. Young Edith takes West on a tour of the socialist "cooperative commonwealth" which has come into existence.
In Bellamy's utopia, people work for the good of society and are economically secure. Morality and cultural pursuits are highly valued and crime is virtually non-existent. Countries are told if they "regulate for the common good" the earth will bloom and all our needs will be satisfied.
Such was the influence of Looking Backward that by 1891 there were more than 160 Bellamy Clubs in the US advocating the nationalisation of public services, eventually giving rise to the socialist Populist Party.
Bellamy was reliant on his writing for a living and occasionally sacrificed philosophy for popularity. Many modern readers will agree with criticisms that his cooperative commonwealth is undemocratic, overly bureaucratic, stagnant and materialistic.
William Morris (1834-95), on the other hand, had already established himself as an important and successful English poet and designer-craftsperson when his intriguing News from Nowhere was published. Morris was well known for his socialist political writings and in News he set out to address what he saw as the soul-less and mechanical visions depicted in Looking Backward and its many imitators.
As leader of the arts and crafts movement he advocated a society in which the dignity of "craftsmanship" was valued over the technology of mass production.
The humorous first chapter of News from Nowhere recounts a meeting of "the League" (presumably the Socialist League which Morris helped to establish) and gives a complicated explanation of who is narrating the story. Set sometime after 2003, the story begins with the narrator going to sleep for more than 100 years and waking up in a society of the future.
London's slums have disappeared, the Thames is unpolluted, capitalism is a thing of the past and there is not a factory in sight. Morris' utopia is based on the ideals of craftsmanship — people live simple and harmonious lifestyles moved by the appreciation of love and beauty.
While News was originally received as being somewhat retrogressive, Morris had put a great deal of thought into the possible pitfalls of "state socialism" which, he said, "upset the commercial system ... without providing anything really effective in its place".
The book outlines how people might cope with technological change while maintaining their fundamental values and beliefs. If anything, the impact of Morris' message has grown over time. William Morris Societies can be found all over the world and News is a favourite with environmentalists advocating community-based social reform.
Morris took his cue from popular writers Charles Dickens and Oscar Wilde in an attempt to write News from Nowhere in a style that would appeal to the masses. Readers unfamiliar with Victorian prose may find News grammatically awkward in places, but overall it is enjoyable fare.
The Iron Heel epitomises the contradiction that is Jack London (1876-1916), as it is simultaneously his greatest intellectual triumph, as well as his most stylistically laboured work. The book advocates a Marxist-style classless society which would appear at odds with the "survival of the fittest" themes of his most popular novels, such as The Call of the Wild (1903) and White Fang (1906). His occasional flirtations with ideas of white supremacy and male domination are buried in a barrage of non-white and female revolutionary heroes. Ironically, The Iron Heel made London one of the most popular writers in the former Soviet Union.
London grew up in poverty and while still in his teens he pursued a life of crime as a San Francisco Bay oyster pirate. After a stint on a sealing ship and unsuccessfully trying his hand in the 1897-98 Alaska gold rush, he was imprisoned in the New York penitentiary on a charge of vagrancy. This dehumanising and degrading experience saw London turn to socialism as a cure for the world's ills and self-education as the remedy for his own.
The Iron Heel is the story of socialist revolutionary Ernest Everhard as told through the manuscript of his wife, Avis. Everhard battles the fascist oligarchy that comes to power in the US in the early 20th century. Throughout the book we are provided with explanatory footnotes from the perspective of 27th century historian Anthony Meredith, eventually learning the details of the three centuries of revolutionary struggle it took to overthrow the "Iron Heel".
It is astonishing how many of the machination of fascism London was able to accurately predict, well before the first of the "Iron Heel" states were established in Europe. As a result, the book was labelled as a plot to overthrow the regime in Mussolini's Italy and banned to all except the "cultured classes". As for capitalism, London left us with the warning that, "Your twenty-four billions of wealth does not give you twenty-five cents' worth of governmental power."
Even though London was the most popular author of his day, the intellectual tone and intrusive footnoting of The Iron Heel prevented it from reaching a mass audience. After two stormy marriages and constant bouts of alcoholism, London committed suicide at the age of 40.
Various editions of all three books are still in print, most of which include extensive introductory notes. Both Looking Backward and News from Nowhere are available through Penguin Books. William Morris and News from Nowhere — A Vision for our Time (1996) is a superb critical work edited by Stephen Coleman and Paddy O'Sullivan available through Chelsea Green Publishing. There are several fine biographies of Jack London currently in print.
Try your luck at SF & Fantasy Book On-Line at <http://www.users.interport.net/~jfreund/sfbooks.html> for free downloads from the net.