Reviews for News from Nowhere and Other Writings

The average rating for News from Nowhere and Other Writings based on 2 reviews is 2.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2009-07-03 00:00:00 Marcus Arianas There is something I mistrust in a man who hates his own time, who sees in it only folly and wrong-headedness, and who lives in a dreamed-of world in his head, a world of he has invented from the Glorious Past'and which he expects in the Glorious Future to come'but which never actually existed, and never will. Every period has had its share of ignorance, of brutality, of waste, and of mismanagement. History is vivid with error. So, when a man looks at his own time and declares it worthless, saying that 'things were better before', it is only his own poor recollection and need to believe in something pleasant, whether or not it is true. All periods have been troubled, and pretending yours is worse is just a way to create a false sense of importance. Preachers have always claimed that these are the End Times, since they so clearly see how far we have fallen. People have claimed that radio would kill books, then television, then the internet, despite the fact that more books are written and published every year. Many look at the world around them, seeing all the flaws, and feel that if things are this bad, something is wrong. So they invent a 'Golden Age' when everything was better, so they have something to identify with (since they are clearly too good for this messy little world). Whether it's the mythical 50's of the baby boomers, the 'Reagan Era' for neocons, or the Courtly Medieval for Victorians, many people are too pessimistic to see the admirable or wonderful things in the world around them. So they create an unreachable ideal which they can self-righteously preach to others about. They look at people, systems, and events, and, seeing only flaws and drawbacks, declare them useless, suggesting we replace them with some ill-defined, impossible dream. It is all so easy for them to see, it is all so clear that they can hardly understand why they would need to explain it to anyone else; to them it seems so obvious that any fool should immediately comprehend what they are getting at. Yet others don't understand, or won't understand, but that's alright: it's just another proof that the world is bad. Any time something doesn't fit, it can be lumped in with the 'bad' and ignored. That's what makes me feel uncomfortable: idealism is so ultimately self-serving, and in the end, it contains no route to compromise or understanding, because ideals are distant, inflexible, and have little in common with the real world, with real world people, or their problems. Fundamentally, it is pessimistic, and like any pessimism, it leads to a shut-down. My Chekhov professor once expressed confusion when a student asked him why Chekhov was so pessimistic. He asked the student why she thought he was, and she pointed to the fact that his stories often showed people suffering and trying to get through hardship. "But isn't that a real part of life?" "Well, yes" "Then it wouldn't be Pessimism, which is seeing the world as worse than it is, it would be Realism." "Hmm" "And doesn't he show people persevering through their problems, finding ways to get along, finding little moments of humor, of satisfaction?" "Yeah." "Well, I'd say an author who depicts people going through personal hardships but retaining a positive attitude despite their suffering would be an Optimist." But to any idealist, a world which has hardship, inequality, ignorance, and suffering is a pessimistic world, because to them, the only world they will believe in is the fantastical one which they personally inhabit. And it is just such a world that Morris constructs for himself. He is primed for it, undoubtedly, possessing a vast enough fortune that he never need worry for himself, never need suffer physically. But he also went through trauma: the early death of his father. Like C.S. Lewis, he saw a world which was fundamentally flawed and needed an escape, so he created one. Morris' escape is socialism, though not on economic principle'as he tells us in an essay, he enjoyed Marx's rhetoric, but was unable to comprehend the theories involved. Despite his lack of comprehension, he dedicated himself to the cause of his downtrodden fellow man (whom he read about in journals, talked about with his wealthy friends, and wrote of as being very ugly in many of his stories'which undoubtedly, they were). There is a pain in reading the work of the idealist, who does not back up his arguments fully because they already make sense to him. But to read the moralizing, instructional tone of a wealthy man who developed his theories while gabbing with his wealthy friends in their private club is yet more unpleasant. All revolutions start with the educated bourgeois, and when they are over, that is who profits from them. Morris, himself, admits as much, but doesn't see how his could fall into the same trap. The benefits of following an ideal blindly are that you will keep fighting, and will never be borne down with the difficulties that crop up in achieving it. The drawback is that you won't know, if it were achieved, whether it would be any better than what you fought so hard against. Indeed, it might be worse. The early pieces in this collection are interesting: small works of fantasy with a strict aesthetic sense, borrowing the repetition of the Eddas and the Greek myths to create a lulling, magical dreamworld. I sought Morris out chiefly because he is a contemporary of Dunsany, whose fantasy work is excellent, but this collection is disappointingly light on the fantasy. We then move on to The Main Event, which is The News From Nowhere, a political tract dolled up as a bit of semi-fantastical fiction. Unfortunately, it does not have the dreamlike, unusual quality of the early stories, though it is rather vague and nebulous. Neither does it have the conciseness of some of the essays in the next section. My full review is here, suffice it to say that it is an idealist's view, looking backwards and forwards at the same time but unable to see that mankind always lives in the present, and always has. The following lectures are likewise vague, and repetitious, constantly reminding us of things we have already been told, because Morris realizes he has not effectively established the facts, but not seeing a way to do so, has nothing to do but repeat them. His muddled sense of Marx is evident in these passages, with strong opinions on many topics, but little rhetoric to back them up. Then we reach The Hopes of Civilization, another lecture, but one which is so remarkably lucid, well-argued, full of rhetoric, showing a comprehension of Marx and Ruskin, and which is damn-near convincing, and certainly comprehensible'especially since it was written years before his other works'that I cannot reconcile it with the sluggish, moralizing, idealistic Morris who shows through everywhere else. Perhaps this is a glimpse of Morris the master bookbinder, the greatest textiles designer since the Middle Ages, who rediscovered half a dozen lost arts, a polymath who changed the direction of art. Until now, I had been seeking him in vain. And now I get another chance to bring up The Turpentine Effect: if you are a skilled, innovative artist constantly working on perfecting your physical craft, you probably don't have the time to devote to a serious study of critical theory. Like actors waxing on about their political theories, it's clear that talent in one field is in no way related to your abilities in any other field. And Morris spent a lot of his time on his art. He could afford to, and it pleased him to do so. Most of the hardship he had, he made for himself, because, despite reviling the world as unpleasant and inadequate, he didn't really have to deal with it. He got to do what he wanted, but even then, he looked around and thought 'this isn't good enough'. It wasn't hard for him to imagine a world where work was play, because he lived it. There's something insulting about a man who lived a busy, happy, privileged life and then decided he needed a vague, idealistic fantasy to inhabit'one where he knew the obvious 'truth' lost on everyone else. Where he, due to his special understanding of the past and future, didn't really have to live in the dirty modern age, but merely skimmed through it, as a traveler from the superior past (or future), which is precisely how Morris depicts himself in his political fantasies. But I'd still like to check out some of his longer fantasy work, because he's clearly a weird, obsessive dude who is always sure of himself and who liked to passionately (and vicariously) indulge in the suffering of others. At least, it sounds like a better setup for fantasy writing than political theory. I mean, hell, this guy literally lived in a fantasy world of his own making and that still wasn't enough fantasy for him, so he went out and wrote some up about other people. That's a commitment to fantasy.

Review # 2 was written on 2019-10-16 00:00:00 Alec Elias I would say News from Nowhere is more interesting than enjoyable. It's a fascinating look at a possible society, but there isn't much of a plot or characterisation. It's not precisely a novel, but it's certainly worth a read.