Looking Backward: 2000 - 1887
Edward Bellamy
Blackstone Audio
Fiction, Sci-Fi
Themes: Classics, Time Travel, Urban Tales
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Description
In late 19th century Boston, a moderately moneyed gentleman named Julian West looks forward to marrying the love of
his life, as soon as he can finish building the house in which they'll live... construction delayed time and again by
inconvenient labor strikes. Like many in his social circles, he may feel some distant twinge of sympathy over the
plight of the workers, but is far more dismayed with how their disobedience inconveniences him and his plans; a man's
first and foremost concern, naturally, should be himself, and if him having more means others have to make do with less,
well, that's the way it's always been and always shall be. Stress over the delays has led to chronic insomnia, to the
point where he's had to construct a soundproof subterranean sleeping chamber in his own home, and occasionally resort
to the services of a mesmerist to enable rest. Some worry about the possible drawbacks of mesmerism, but West has never
had anything go wrong... until now.
He wakes one morning in a strange room, with no sign of his manservant or his things, and a man - Doctor Leete -
telling him impossible absurdities. How could Julian have fallen asleep in 1887 and woken in the year 2000? What kind
of cruel practical joke is being played at his expense? But it is no joke, as he learns all too soon. The Boston he
knows is almost entirely gone. In its place is a society so strange as to seem alien, a world in which the maxim that
governed his age - dog eat dog - has been rendered utterly obsolete. As Julian learns more of this utopian future and
experiences its wonders, he starts to see his own era in a new light.
Review
Though very popular and heavily influential in its time (first published in 1888), Looking Backward is another classic that hasn't aged particularly well, save as a quaint-seeming relic of lost hopes for a future that would never be. It's not really so much about the characters or the plot, but more about Bellamy using both as mouthpieces and structures by which to lay out (at tedious length) his grand vision of a future free from greed and want and artificial class divisions/warfare, a clear hope that the violent strikes and unrest he saw erupting all around him would result in some lasting positive change for society (a change that, as we know all too well in 2023, never came to pass). It's unfortunately a "utopia" with some glaring flaws and holes, particularly related to its idealized vision of human nature, and the nature of the very class of people one would have to go through in order to reach anything like its utopia. That said, Bellamy put a considerable amount of thought into creating his future society, even if some elements are handwaved or glossed over. He even allows some place for women at the newly rounded table of opportunity and prosperity, for all that the relationship depicted in the (thin) plot could come straight out of Bellamy's own time. Some "wonders" are notably predictive: a "credit card", goods distributed through massive centralized warehouses, even 24/7 home entertainment via "wires" and telephone (a primitive vision of radio or the internet, without the spam or conspiracy rabbit holes). On the whole, while it deserves some credit for its vision and influence, Looking Backward today is less a call to action and more a wistful dream of a more optimistic yesteryear, when it seemed something better must be just over the horizon.