New York : Signet Classics, [2009]
xvii, 236 p. ; 18 cm.
I'm glad I finally got around to reading this 19th century Utopian novel. Looking Backward is really a wonderful artifact of 19th century Utopian hopes and philosophy.
I have to say that reading it now, was in some ways depressing - not because it naively overlooks the dangers of totalitarianism - as this old 1988 NYT review claims, but because of how little progress has been made toward eliminating the savage greed, violence, mercilessness and competition that undergird the market economy that Bellamy was critiquing and under which we still live in the 21st century.
The novel's weakest points are it's narrative dullness and drab characters. In many ways the literary and narrative quality of the novel takes a back seat to the economic and humanistic philosophy of the novel. The plot is really a device to serve up Bellamy's Utopian thinking, but as Eliot Fintushel exclaims in the afterword, what a lovely Utopia it is that Bellamy has dreamed up. It's hard not to enjoy shimmering dream that we get in Looking Backward.
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