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News from Nowhere and Other Writings
Poet, pattern-designer, anarchist socialist and maker of fine books, William Morris (1834-96) was also a committed socialist and visionary writer, obsessively concerned with the struggle to achieve a perfect society on earth. News From Nowhere, one of the most significant English works on the theme of utopia, is the tale of William Guest, a Victorian who wakes one morning to find himself in the year 2102 and discovers a society that has changed beyond recognition into a pastoral paradise, in which all people live in blissful equality and contentment. A socialist masterpiece, News From Nowhere is a vision of a future free from capitalism, isolation and industrialisation. This volume also contains a wide selection of Morris's writings, lectures, journalism and letters, which expand upon the key themes of News From Nowhere.
430 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1890
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2938 people want to read
About the author
William Morris
1,688 books496 followersWilliam Morris was an English architect, furniture and textile designer, artist, writer, socialist and Marxist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the English Arts and Crafts Movement. Morris wrote and published poetry, fiction, and translations of ancient and medieval texts throughout his life. His best-known works include The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems (1858), The Earthly Paradise (1868–1870), A Dream of John Ball and the utopian News from Nowhere. He was an important figure in the emergence of socialism in Britain, founding the Socialist League in 1884, but breaking with the movement over goals and methods by the end of that decade. He devoted much of the rest of his life to the Kelmscott Press, which he founded in 1891. The 1896 Kelmscott edition of the Works of Geoffrey Chaucer is considered a masterpiece of book design.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 93 reviews
September 12, 2011
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.
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.
October 16, 2019
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.
December 22, 2024
News From Nowhere is a novel written in 1890 by William Morris. It was first published in serial form in the Commonweal journal beginning on January 11, 1890. Morris was a British textile designer, artist, writer, and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts movement. He probably didn't have much free time after all that. He was a major contributor to the revival of traditional British textile arts and methods of production. I don't know what that is, but he revived it. His literary contributions helped to establish the modern fantasy genre, while he helped win acceptance of socialism in Great Britain. In 1861, Morris founded the Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. decorative arts firm which became highly fashionable and much in demand. The firm profoundly influenced interior decoration throughout the Victorian period, with Morris designing tapestries, wallpaper, fabrics, furniture, and stained glass windows. That sounds like fun. Not as fun as reading, playing piano, or getting ready for Christmas, but still fun. In 1875 he assumed total control of the company and renamed it Morris & Co. I wonder who the Co. was.
Morris achieved success with the publication of his epic poems and novels, namely The Earthly Paradise written from 1868–1870, A Dream of John Ball written in 1888, the Utopian News from Nowhere in 1890, and the fantasy romance The Well at the World's End in 1896. In 1877, he founded the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings to campaign against the damage caused by architectural restoration. I would think architectural restoration would help ancient buildings not hurt them, but I wasn't there. He was influenced by anarchism in the 1880s and became a committed revolutionary socialist activist. He founded the Socialist League in 1884 after an involvement in the Social Democratic Federation (SDF), but he broke with that organization in 1890. In 1891, he founded the Kelmscott Press to publish limited-edition, illuminated-style print books, a cause to which he devoted his final years. This guy has to sit down for awhile.
Morris is recognized as one of the most significant cultural figures of Victorian Britain. He was best known in his lifetime as a poet, none of which I've read, although he posthumously became better known for his designs, none of which I've seen. Many of the buildings associated with his life are open to visitors, much of his work can be found in art galleries and museums, and his designs are still in production.
And now on to News from Nowhere and since I'm already getting tired of talking about William Norris I'm not sure how long this will be. Perhaps rather short. In the novel, the narrator, William Guest, falls asleep after returning from a meeting of the Socialist League and awakes to find himself in a future society based on common ownership and democratic control of the means of production. This is the second book I've read lately when someone falls asleep and wakes up years later. In this society there is no private property, no big cities, no authority, no monetary system, no marriage or divorce, no courts, no prisons, and no class systems. This agrarian society functions, simply because the people find pleasure in nature, and also they find pleasure in their work. I cannot imagine this would work.
Okay, there is no government, there are no prisons, there are no schools - how anyone is learning to read I'm not sure, you can't own a house, although since all the houses look the same I don't know why you'd want to anyway, there is no marriage, no work. Sounds kind of boring. The only reason there is no work is because everyone loves their work so much it isn't like working it's like playing. Collecting the garbage, cleaning public toilets, getting road kill off the highways, telemarketer, it doesn't matter, you are so happy you can't wait to get to your job every morning.
Many people I know confuse me when they talk about the wonderful future coming, or the good old days. When I was a kid in the 60s my father would talk about the "good old days" of the 1930s. Then in his home town was an opera house, a movie theater, a ball room, three hotels, on and on. Now there are none of those, they were all gone by the 60s already. They were the good old days. By the time we got to the 70s the 50s were the good old days. Church picnics, town baseball games, weekly family gatherings, every Sunday church service. But now we get to the 80s and the 60s were the good times, ice creams shops where the teenagers would hang out, community swimming pools, town carnivals. On and on, only they weren't the good old days when we were in them. Then there are the future days, everything will be wonderful, we will all be happy, there will be no rich people, there will be no poor people, the earth will be filled with flowers, pure water, white sand beaches. Only by the time we get there we will be looking back to the "good old days" that we are in. It's silly. And I am now tired of the entire thing, so I'm moving on to the next book. I don't want to live where there are flowers and white sand all over the place anyway.
Morris achieved success with the publication of his epic poems and novels, namely The Earthly Paradise written from 1868–1870, A Dream of John Ball written in 1888, the Utopian News from Nowhere in 1890, and the fantasy romance The Well at the World's End in 1896. In 1877, he founded the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings to campaign against the damage caused by architectural restoration. I would think architectural restoration would help ancient buildings not hurt them, but I wasn't there. He was influenced by anarchism in the 1880s and became a committed revolutionary socialist activist. He founded the Socialist League in 1884 after an involvement in the Social Democratic Federation (SDF), but he broke with that organization in 1890. In 1891, he founded the Kelmscott Press to publish limited-edition, illuminated-style print books, a cause to which he devoted his final years. This guy has to sit down for awhile.
Morris is recognized as one of the most significant cultural figures of Victorian Britain. He was best known in his lifetime as a poet, none of which I've read, although he posthumously became better known for his designs, none of which I've seen. Many of the buildings associated with his life are open to visitors, much of his work can be found in art galleries and museums, and his designs are still in production.
And now on to News from Nowhere and since I'm already getting tired of talking about William Norris I'm not sure how long this will be. Perhaps rather short. In the novel, the narrator, William Guest, falls asleep after returning from a meeting of the Socialist League and awakes to find himself in a future society based on common ownership and democratic control of the means of production. This is the second book I've read lately when someone falls asleep and wakes up years later. In this society there is no private property, no big cities, no authority, no monetary system, no marriage or divorce, no courts, no prisons, and no class systems. This agrarian society functions, simply because the people find pleasure in nature, and also they find pleasure in their work. I cannot imagine this would work.
Okay, there is no government, there are no prisons, there are no schools - how anyone is learning to read I'm not sure, you can't own a house, although since all the houses look the same I don't know why you'd want to anyway, there is no marriage, no work. Sounds kind of boring. The only reason there is no work is because everyone loves their work so much it isn't like working it's like playing. Collecting the garbage, cleaning public toilets, getting road kill off the highways, telemarketer, it doesn't matter, you are so happy you can't wait to get to your job every morning.
Many people I know confuse me when they talk about the wonderful future coming, or the good old days. When I was a kid in the 60s my father would talk about the "good old days" of the 1930s. Then in his home town was an opera house, a movie theater, a ball room, three hotels, on and on. Now there are none of those, they were all gone by the 60s already. They were the good old days. By the time we got to the 70s the 50s were the good old days. Church picnics, town baseball games, weekly family gatherings, every Sunday church service. But now we get to the 80s and the 60s were the good times, ice creams shops where the teenagers would hang out, community swimming pools, town carnivals. On and on, only they weren't the good old days when we were in them. Then there are the future days, everything will be wonderful, we will all be happy, there will be no rich people, there will be no poor people, the earth will be filled with flowers, pure water, white sand beaches. Only by the time we get there we will be looking back to the "good old days" that we are in. It's silly. And I am now tired of the entire thing, so I'm moving on to the next book. I don't want to live where there are flowers and white sand all over the place anyway.
June 6, 2008
I go back to this book "News from Nowhere, or an Epoch of Rest", again and again to remember how the world might be if sanity prevailed. The book was set in 1950 in a world where a socialist-anarchist revolution had taken place in the 19th century. It presupposes a source of clean energy has been discovered, and that people choose their productive and creative work based on what they love rather than the disasters they fear. The book is the inspiration for Leon Rosselson's song "Bringing the News from Nowhere", which celebrates Morris's work generally. The book was written in response to another powerful utopian socialist novel, the American Edward Bellamy's "Looking Backwards", which foresaw a more authoritarian socialism arising out of corporatocracy. Morris's "A Dream of John Ball" is another exposition of the same ideas, using the past rather than the future as the easel.
January 5, 2026
The pros of William Morris's medievalist utopian world:
- it's vaguely socialist
- the Thames is not polluted and people seem to respect nature
- everyone is dressed in the most camp outfits possible -- colourful, velvet, satin, embroidered, 'effeminate' is the new black
- nobody is depressed (but hmm really?)
- people continue education throughout life
- prisons are abolished
- the Houses of Parliament are filled with faeces (full of shit, quite literally) instead of reclining Etonians
The cons:
- women exist purely for domestic tasks and child-bearing; their objectification is glowingly promoted
- reading and bookishness are suddenly considered idle and morally suspect...? (hmmm, so what is this thing you're writing, William?)
- the distant past is magically much better than the grim present (never a good sign)
- English culture is dominant and good (sounds like a nightmare to me)
- labour is fun because it's fun because it's pretty because we make pretty things (unconvincing)
A more comprehensive list would require some more serious engagement with the very odd concept that is News From Nowhere, the longest text within this volume. Overall I found it a bit dull; it probably would have been better as a lecture or philosophical dialogue rather than attempting a utopian romance narrative which drags on and on.
Some of Morris's lectures (also in this volume) were quite fascinating to me though -- and so much more coherent than the utopia -- especially his discussion of pattern-designing and imaginative crafts.
- it's vaguely socialist
- the Thames is not polluted and people seem to respect nature
- everyone is dressed in the most camp outfits possible -- colourful, velvet, satin, embroidered, 'effeminate' is the new black
- nobody is depressed (but hmm really?)
- people continue education throughout life
- prisons are abolished
- the Houses of Parliament are filled with faeces (full of shit, quite literally) instead of reclining Etonians
The cons:
- women exist purely for domestic tasks and child-bearing; their objectification is glowingly promoted
- reading and bookishness are suddenly considered idle and morally suspect...? (hmmm, so what is this thing you're writing, William?)
- the distant past is magically much better than the grim present (never a good sign)
- English culture is dominant and good (sounds like a nightmare to me)
- labour is fun because it's fun because it's pretty because we make pretty things (unconvincing)
A more comprehensive list would require some more serious engagement with the very odd concept that is News From Nowhere, the longest text within this volume. Overall I found it a bit dull; it probably would have been better as a lecture or philosophical dialogue rather than attempting a utopian romance narrative which drags on and on.
Some of Morris's lectures (also in this volume) were quite fascinating to me though -- and so much more coherent than the utopia -- especially his discussion of pattern-designing and imaginative crafts.
June 27, 2020
Decided to DNF this for now. I generally like Morris but I'm struggling to get through this. I get that his socialism is based on a very idealised view of Medieval times, there's just a lot about this vision of society that bothers me. Namely:
People live longer and look beautiful just because they're now happy, not because of any increase in medicine. There's some bits which seem to link ugliness with being morally bankrupt, which is troubling, along with eradication of diseases like leprosy, again because people just lead morally better lives now. I strongly dislike this implication that health is somehow linked to moral goodness.
Women are apparently emancipated but they just happen to be always in a housekeeper role because they just love that. Also men are useless and cannot look after a house without a woman? Also choosing not to have children is "folly" that has been abandoned now that everything is just peachy.
There's a weird anti-reading thing running throughout this, which is especially odd given that Morris was an intellectual and published books? Like, how are children somehow supposed to just pick up reading from having books lying around...
There are things I liked about this, but I think I'm just gonna leave it for the time being. There's always been a contradiction at the heart of William Morris to me. An idealistic socialist who makes all his money from selling luxury wallpaper/furniture etc to rich middle class people. A lot of women in the circle were directly involved in the work created, especially embroidery (including his wife Janey and his daughter May) and yet in this socialist utopia they're still expected to fulfil a housekeeper role. There's a lot of stuff I like about the arts and crafts movement and about Morris, I'm always in awe of how many things he put his hand to! But this just doesn't feel like the work for me.
People live longer and look beautiful just because they're now happy, not because of any increase in medicine. There's some bits which seem to link ugliness with being morally bankrupt, which is troubling, along with eradication of diseases like leprosy, again because people just lead morally better lives now. I strongly dislike this implication that health is somehow linked to moral goodness.
Women are apparently emancipated but they just happen to be always in a housekeeper role because they just love that. Also men are useless and cannot look after a house without a woman? Also choosing not to have children is "folly" that has been abandoned now that everything is just peachy.
There's a weird anti-reading thing running throughout this, which is especially odd given that Morris was an intellectual and published books? Like, how are children somehow supposed to just pick up reading from having books lying around...
There are things I liked about this, but I think I'm just gonna leave it for the time being. There's always been a contradiction at the heart of William Morris to me. An idealistic socialist who makes all his money from selling luxury wallpaper/furniture etc to rich middle class people. A lot of women in the circle were directly involved in the work created, especially embroidery (including his wife Janey and his daughter May) and yet in this socialist utopia they're still expected to fulfil a housekeeper role. There's a lot of stuff I like about the arts and crafts movement and about Morris, I'm always in awe of how many things he put his hand to! But this just doesn't feel like the work for me.
February 22, 2024
Iron bridges 🤮
February 18, 2018
تبدأ رواية «أخبار من لا مكان» مع بطلها وراويها، وليام غيست (ضيف) الذي لن يطول بنا الأمر قبل أن ندرك انه ليس سوى الأنا/ الآخر للكاتب نفسه، وقد غرق ذات يوم في سبات عميق يفيق بعده في زمن آخر غير زمنه. في زمن تبدلت أحواله وأضحى مجتمعاً اشتراكياً تدار فيه وسائط الإنتاج إدارة ديموقراطية لصالح الخير العام. وهذا المجتمع الذي يحلم به غيست بعد عودته من اجتماع عقدته رابطة للاشتراكيين ينتمي إليها، سيتبين للراوي أن ليس فيه ملكية خاصة ولا منظومة نقدية ولا مدن كبرى ولا سلطة حاكمة ولا محاكم ولا طلاق ولا سجون وبالتالي لا تراتبية طبقية على الإطلاق. إنه كما سوف يكتشف غيست، بالتدريج، المجتمع المثالي الذي حلم به كل المفكرين المثاليين في التاريخ. ولكن مع فارق أساسيّ سوف يتوقف الراوي عنده طويلاً.
فإذا كان مؤلفو الكتب اليوتوبية، بل كذلك منظّرو المجتمعات الاشتراكية وصولا إلى كارل ماركس وفريدريك إنغلز، قد اعتبروا العمل ضريبة لا بد للإنسان من دفعها مقابل حياته الرغيدة، مع السعي دائماً للتقليص من زمن العمل لصالح أزمنة الفراغ واللهو وساعات الكسل -وهو ما وصل إلى ذروته في الكتيّب الذي وضعه بول لافارج أحد أصهرة ماركس بعنوان «الحق في الكسل»-، فإن ما يميّز «أطروحة» وليام موريس، هو ذلك الإيمان المطلق بفضائل العمل. فالعمل بالنسبة إلى بطل روايته متعة لا ضريبة. وإذا كان المجتمع الزراعي، ذو الحظوة في ذلك التنظيم الاقتصادي المهيمن على الكتاب وعلى أفكاره، يعمل بشكل جيّد إلى درجة إلغائه الصراعات والبؤس وكل ضروب الحاجة، فما هذا إلا لأن أفراد هذا المجتمع يجدون لذّتهم القصوى في العمل وبؤسهم كلّ البؤس في الكسل.
تلكم عناصر أساسية في هذه الرواية، لكنها عناصرها الفكرية التي تمثل واحداً من وجوهها فقط. وذلك لأن موريس سرعان ما يعيدنا إلى واقع أننا هنا في صدد عمل روائي له أحداثه وشخوصه وعلاقاته وحبكاته. وحتى، هنا، إذا كان هذا الجانب «الروائي» يبدو أقل قوة من الجانب الفكري لـ «أخبار من لا مكان» فإن ثمة في سرد الحكاية نفسها ما يبدو ممتعاً حقاً. وذلك بالنظر إلى أن الحكاية في ما هو وراء بعدها الفكري، تنقلنا إلى عالم يبدو بعيداً جداً عن العالم الفيكتوري الذي كان عالم إنكلترا في ذلك الحين. فنحن هنا في عالم المستقبل الذي سيبدو من فوره للقارئ الحصيف نقيضاً تاماً للعالم الذي كانت تحكمه الملكة فكتوريا، فهنا يحاول موريس، وبنجاح لا بأس به، أن يمزج بين النزعة الرومانطيقية وبين الفكر الماركسي «الحقيقي» كما كان قد تجلى لدى ماركس، في المجالين الاقتصادي والفلسفي، طالما أن المثل الأعلى السياسي كان متحققاً بالفعل، من قبل استيقاظ وليام غيست في المستقبل. ومن هنا، فإن غيست ليس مضطراً للنضال لتحقيق عالم جديد كان في يقظته يسعى إليه. هذا العالم تحقق وها هو العجوز هاموند يقوده من يده في تجوال فيه يشرح له ما حدث من تطورات، لكنه يعلمه في الوقت نفسه كيف يتعايش مع إنسانيته الجديدة التي تقوم على الحب. وفي هذا السياق يلعب الزوجان الشابان ديك وكلارا اللذان يلتقيهما غيست في تجواله، دوراً أساسياً في إدخاله الحياة العاطفية التي لا ينبغي أن تنفصم عن الحياة السياسية. ترى أفلا يخيّل إلينا أمام كل هذه العوالم التي تبدو بالفعل كأحسن العوالم الممكنة
فإذا كان مؤلفو الكتب اليوتوبية، بل كذلك منظّرو المجتمعات الاشتراكية وصولا إلى كارل ماركس وفريدريك إنغلز، قد اعتبروا العمل ضريبة لا بد للإنسان من دفعها مقابل حياته الرغيدة، مع السعي دائماً للتقليص من زمن العمل لصالح أزمنة الفراغ واللهو وساعات الكسل -وهو ما وصل إلى ذروته في الكتيّب الذي وضعه بول لافارج أحد أصهرة ماركس بعنوان «الحق في الكسل»-، فإن ما يميّز «أطروحة» وليام موريس، هو ذلك الإيمان المطلق بفضائل العمل. فالعمل بالنسبة إلى بطل روايته متعة لا ضريبة. وإذا كان المجتمع الزراعي، ذو الحظوة في ذلك التنظيم الاقتصادي المهيمن على الكتاب وعلى أفكاره، يعمل بشكل جيّد إلى درجة إلغائه الصراعات والبؤس وكل ضروب الحاجة، فما هذا إلا لأن أفراد هذا المجتمع يجدون لذّتهم القصوى في العمل وبؤسهم كلّ البؤس في الكسل.
تلكم عناصر أساسية في هذه الرواية، لكنها عناصرها الفكرية التي تمثل واحداً من وجوهها فقط. وذلك لأن موريس سرعان ما يعيدنا إلى واقع أننا هنا في صدد عمل روائي له أحداثه وشخوصه وعلاقاته وحبكاته. وحتى، هنا، إذا كان هذا الجانب «الروائي» يبدو أقل قوة من الجانب الفكري لـ «أخبار من لا مكان» فإن ثمة في سرد الحكاية نفسها ما يبدو ممتعاً حقاً. وذلك بالنظر إلى أن الحكاية في ما هو وراء بعدها الفكري، تنقلنا إلى عالم يبدو بعيداً جداً عن العالم الفيكتوري الذي كان عالم إنكلترا في ذلك الحين. فنحن هنا في عالم المستقبل الذي سيبدو من فوره للقارئ الحصيف نقيضاً تاماً للعالم الذي كانت تحكمه الملكة فكتوريا، فهنا يحاول موريس، وبنجاح لا بأس به، أن يمزج بين النزعة الرومانطيقية وبين الفكر الماركسي «الحقيقي» كما كان قد تجلى لدى ماركس، في المجالين الاقتصادي والفلسفي، طالما أن المثل الأعلى السياسي كان متحققاً بالفعل، من قبل استيقاظ وليام غيست في المستقبل. ومن هنا، فإن غيست ليس مضطراً للنضال لتحقيق عالم جديد كان في يقظته يسعى إليه. هذا العالم تحقق وها هو العجوز هاموند يقوده من يده في تجوال فيه يشرح له ما حدث من تطورات، لكنه يعلمه في الوقت نفسه كيف يتعايش مع إنسانيته الجديدة التي تقوم على الحب. وفي هذا السياق يلعب الزوجان الشابان ديك وكلارا اللذان يلتقيهما غيست في تجواله، دوراً أساسياً في إدخاله الحياة العاطفية التي لا ينبغي أن تنفصم عن الحياة السياسية. ترى أفلا يخيّل إلينا أمام كل هذه العوالم التي تبدو بالفعل كأحسن العوالم الممكنة
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December 20, 2024News from Nowhere is somewhat overly long, and occasionally repetitive and tedious. I would say it’s frequently interesting rather than continuously entertaining. The idea(l)s it presents are nonetheless valuable in spite of its sentimentalism. I have other critiques, like Morris’s clear disdain for actual workers and the world’s occasional fall into dangerous levels of aestheticism but it’s still worth reading.
Morris’s lecture Useful Work vs Useless Toil elucidates similar ideas on work. This is really good and I would recommend reading this, and if you feel you want more then proceed to News from Nowhere. The point that work should be above all enjoyable and not just a four or six or eight hour daily void (the time-amount is really irrelevant to the point, no matter how short) to be reduced or annihilated by progress is refreshing and somehow completely absent from modern discourse on work. How many socialists today do you see arguing that work must be overcome, as opposed to the much better aspiration that it could instead become a fulfilling and life-affirming activity helpful for our self-actualisation?
Gothic Architecture is also a great essay (well, lecture transcript), and so is The Lesser Arts. His prose and letters are really of very niche interest but his prefaces to More’s Utopia and Ruskin’s The Nature of Gothic are nice. His other fiction than News from Nowhere is probably not worth bothering with.
So, everyone should read the lectures, many would gain something from News from Nowhere, I wouldn’t recommend spending much time on the rest.
Morris’s lecture Useful Work vs Useless Toil elucidates similar ideas on work. This is really good and I would recommend reading this, and if you feel you want more then proceed to News from Nowhere. The point that work should be above all enjoyable and not just a four or six or eight hour daily void (the time-amount is really irrelevant to the point, no matter how short) to be reduced or annihilated by progress is refreshing and somehow completely absent from modern discourse on work. How many socialists today do you see arguing that work must be overcome, as opposed to the much better aspiration that it could instead become a fulfilling and life-affirming activity helpful for our self-actualisation?
Gothic Architecture is also a great essay (well, lecture transcript), and so is The Lesser Arts. His prose and letters are really of very niche interest but his prefaces to More’s Utopia and Ruskin’s The Nature of Gothic are nice. His other fiction than News from Nowhere is probably not worth bothering with.
So, everyone should read the lectures, many would gain something from News from Nowhere, I wouldn’t recommend spending much time on the rest.
September 2, 2021
Similar to Looking Backward in structure, though the ending leaves things a bit more ambiguous about whether it happened or not. Thinking about age and what role age plays in work and health and appearance. The way that these utopian books are mostly just finding excuses for people to have Q&A sessions is funny. I wonder what they’d be like if they were more narrative driven (Le Guinn does some of this I think much later than Morris). Definitely fun to see what sorts of things constitute a utopian vision—work as pleasure, diminishing the importance of literary/academic folks, and all sorts of other things.
February 28, 2022
I'm sad to say that reading this book felt similar to the experience of walking around a museum or art gallery: I start off really interested and engaged, reading every caption and having deep thoughts about each exhibition; but then as the hours pass by I get disillusioned, maybe even bored, my walking speed picks up, and all I start to focus on is where I'm going for lunch afterwards. About halfway through News From Nowhere I was just looking forward to finishing the book - which is a big disappointment because I have a lot of respect for William Morris and his work.
I enjoyed Morris's fictional works the most, and definitely appreciated the thought and research that went into News From Nowhere, but after a point I felt like I was simply being lectured to about a utopian society that just seems totally unrealistic to me. I'm sure that says more about me than Morris of course...
I definitely hope to read this work again later in my life when I can give it more thought... But I also hope to find more fascination in Morris's works to do with his travels in Iceland!
I enjoyed Morris's fictional works the most, and definitely appreciated the thought and research that went into News From Nowhere, but after a point I felt like I was simply being lectured to about a utopian society that just seems totally unrealistic to me. I'm sure that says more about me than Morris of course...
I definitely hope to read this work again later in my life when I can give it more thought... But I also hope to find more fascination in Morris's works to do with his travels in Iceland!
May 7, 2020
“You think that enough?” said I.
“Yes,” said he, “and moreover it is all that we can do. If in addition we torture the man, we turn his grief into anger, and the humiliation he would otherwise feel for his wrong-doing is swallowed up by a hope of revenge for our wrong-doing to him.”
“Yes,” said he, “and moreover it is all that we can do. If in addition we torture the man, we turn his grief into anger, and the humiliation he would otherwise feel for his wrong-doing is swallowed up by a hope of revenge for our wrong-doing to him.”
March 12, 2019
Got to love some fictional politics
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November 4, 2024though it took me a bit to get into, i actually did enjoy news from nowhere🌸🌸
September 11, 2015
This is one of the best editions of "News from Nowhere" in my opinion, and that only on Clive Wilmer's account. His introduction to Morris' life, work and thought was both insightful and informative, thoroughly unbiased and very well-documented.
As William Morris himself said it, the only “safe way of reading an utopia is to consider it as the expression of the temperament of its author” (see his review of Bellamy’s “Looking Backward”).
Yes, Morris was a romantic and a dreamer, but he was also, in my opinion, a practical dreamer, one who desperately undertook the task of bringing his dream, his ideal, his vision of the future, into contact with people. He was also a craftsman and a poet (not an economist, much to his own displeasure) and his utopia is very true to that romantic, yet practical and overwhelming character of his.
“News from Nowhere” is not to be held as a novel. What Morris strove to do, I find, was to regenerate a dying medium already – the romance. In doing so, he attempted to construe a learning device also: “News for Nowhere” is not a blueprint to be used in the future; it is more of a very much denied possibility that Morris puts forward in order to allow for a new conception of History to be born (one that his future generation chose to ignore completely).
He understood that present-history was of no real significance as long as modern societies undermined the noblest values of times past, values he himself found in the middle ages and in Norse Mythology - companionship and love of nature, strength of character and faith in man, to name a few – and these, he understood, were to be found in the future also, if humanity was taught to see past the division of things (man vs. nature; art vs. science; man vs. man; labour vs. wealth). He believed in Socialism, but he believed in Socialism with a History.
Finally, he wanted to rebut Bellamy’s own vision of Socialism: a society Morris proved would be all but a centralized capitalist one, where money would not cease to be a source of legal, social disparities, each man a slave to the whimsical judging of another’s understanding of the world.
“News from Nowhere” remains, today, a beautifully crafted document that will either testify to humanity’s greatest genius or utter idiocy in the future to come. Then again, as Morris himself put it:
“True, it is a dream, but dreams have before now come about of things so good and necessary to us, that we scarcely think of them more than of the daylight, though once people had to live without them, without even the hope of them” (The Lesser Arts)
As William Morris himself said it, the only “safe way of reading an utopia is to consider it as the expression of the temperament of its author” (see his review of Bellamy’s “Looking Backward”).
Yes, Morris was a romantic and a dreamer, but he was also, in my opinion, a practical dreamer, one who desperately undertook the task of bringing his dream, his ideal, his vision of the future, into contact with people. He was also a craftsman and a poet (not an economist, much to his own displeasure) and his utopia is very true to that romantic, yet practical and overwhelming character of his.
“News from Nowhere” is not to be held as a novel. What Morris strove to do, I find, was to regenerate a dying medium already – the romance. In doing so, he attempted to construe a learning device also: “News for Nowhere” is not a blueprint to be used in the future; it is more of a very much denied possibility that Morris puts forward in order to allow for a new conception of History to be born (one that his future generation chose to ignore completely).
He understood that present-history was of no real significance as long as modern societies undermined the noblest values of times past, values he himself found in the middle ages and in Norse Mythology - companionship and love of nature, strength of character and faith in man, to name a few – and these, he understood, were to be found in the future also, if humanity was taught to see past the division of things (man vs. nature; art vs. science; man vs. man; labour vs. wealth). He believed in Socialism, but he believed in Socialism with a History.
Finally, he wanted to rebut Bellamy’s own vision of Socialism: a society Morris proved would be all but a centralized capitalist one, where money would not cease to be a source of legal, social disparities, each man a slave to the whimsical judging of another’s understanding of the world.
“News from Nowhere” remains, today, a beautifully crafted document that will either testify to humanity’s greatest genius or utter idiocy in the future to come. Then again, as Morris himself put it:
“True, it is a dream, but dreams have before now come about of things so good and necessary to us, that we scarcely think of them more than of the daylight, though once people had to live without them, without even the hope of them” (The Lesser Arts)
August 16, 2008
I first read this book years ago in a Utopian lit class (really fabulous class with a great teacher), so I remembered some of it, but as usual, my leaky memory meant that a second read through revealed far more stuff than the first time around.
One thing I'd forgotten that I found interesting this time was the construction of the narrative so that the book is very specifically written about 'a friend' and isn't the narrator's experience directly. Since the book takes the form of a dream anyway, I'm not sure why the second distancing effect of the story of a 'friend' was necessary. I suppose it reflects the social position of the Socialists in Victorian England - obviously they weren't too reputable. Perhaps it's akin to writing a book about communism during the McCarthy era.
The premise is a simple one, that socialist reforms of the Victorian age give rise to a kindler, gentler, less polluted, less densely populated England in the future (early twenty-first century). It's an idyllic vision,and as a reader at the beginning of the twenty-first century, a bit hard to swallow sometimes - not the socialism, but the population. In the book, the population of Victorian England is spread out across the country in small communities, which means everyone has lots of room to roam (especially the kids), but given the kind of population growth the Victorians were experiencing, it's hard to imagine why Morris thought it would remain stable (unless this was an unspoken assumption of socialism). With all these little villages too, it makes it difficult to imagine what international relations might be like, since there's no centralized (or even just plain central) place in which trade might take place. But it's a lovely fantasy nonetheless.
One thing I'd forgotten that I found interesting this time was the construction of the narrative so that the book is very specifically written about 'a friend' and isn't the narrator's experience directly. Since the book takes the form of a dream anyway, I'm not sure why the second distancing effect of the story of a 'friend' was necessary. I suppose it reflects the social position of the Socialists in Victorian England - obviously they weren't too reputable. Perhaps it's akin to writing a book about communism during the McCarthy era.
The premise is a simple one, that socialist reforms of the Victorian age give rise to a kindler, gentler, less polluted, less densely populated England in the future (early twenty-first century). It's an idyllic vision,and as a reader at the beginning of the twenty-first century, a bit hard to swallow sometimes - not the socialism, but the population. In the book, the population of Victorian England is spread out across the country in small communities, which means everyone has lots of room to roam (especially the kids), but given the kind of population growth the Victorians were experiencing, it's hard to imagine why Morris thought it would remain stable (unless this was an unspoken assumption of socialism). With all these little villages too, it makes it difficult to imagine what international relations might be like, since there's no centralized (or even just plain central) place in which trade might take place. But it's a lovely fantasy nonetheless.
November 11, 2020
A description of the capitalist past from a socialist future: "Why, then, since they had forced themselves to stagger along under this horrible burden of unnecessary production, it became impossible for them to look upon labor and its results from any other point of view than one -- to wit, the ceaseless endeavor to expend the least possible amount of labor on any article made, and yet at the same time to make as many articles as possible. To this "cheapening of production", as it was called, everything was sacrificed: the happiness of the workman at his work, nay his most elementary comfort and bare health, his food, his clothes, his dwelling, his leisure, his amusement, his education -- his life, in short -- did not weigh a grain of sand in the balance against this dire necessity of "cheap production" of things, a great part of which were not worth producing at all. Nay, we are told, and we must believe it, so overwhelming is the evidence, though many of our people scarcely can believe it, that even rich and powerful men, the masters of the poor devils aforesaid, submitted to live amidst sights and sounds and smells which it is in the very nature of man to abhor and flee from, in order that their riches might bolster up this supreme folly. The whole community, in fact, was cast into the jaws of this ravening monster, "the cheap production" forced upon it by the World-Market."
July 17, 2011
Pretty good, as far as 19th Century socialist utopian fiction is concerned.
It's greatest virtue is that the process whereby Communism arrives isn't by virtue of benevolence on the part of the capitalist class, as in Bellamy's Looking Backwards, but rather through violent, class struggle and upheavals of the state apparatus. This adds an element of realism to Morris's vision, which is lacking in so much of the genre. It is also a point, which Morris had given a lot of thought to and is probably the most fleshed out part of his utopian history.
That being said, it suffers from many of the same deficiencies that other utopian fiction has. The plot is clunky, and the dialogue forced, uninterested, and mechanical.
Morris is at his best when his characters from the Communist future are relaying in poetic terms the beauty of their world, rather than describing in painful detail this or that way they organize this or that part of their society, or explaining in excruciatingly paternalistic detail how horrible 19th Century capitalism was, as if anyone reading this novel (and clearly the protagonist) isn't already painfully aware of this.
That said, Morris's poetic vision makes the book definitely worth reading, and this book's importance in the utopian genre also makes it a must read for anyone interested in 19th Century socialist thought.
It's greatest virtue is that the process whereby Communism arrives isn't by virtue of benevolence on the part of the capitalist class, as in Bellamy's Looking Backwards, but rather through violent, class struggle and upheavals of the state apparatus. This adds an element of realism to Morris's vision, which is lacking in so much of the genre. It is also a point, which Morris had given a lot of thought to and is probably the most fleshed out part of his utopian history.
That being said, it suffers from many of the same deficiencies that other utopian fiction has. The plot is clunky, and the dialogue forced, uninterested, and mechanical.
Morris is at his best when his characters from the Communist future are relaying in poetic terms the beauty of their world, rather than describing in painful detail this or that way they organize this or that part of their society, or explaining in excruciatingly paternalistic detail how horrible 19th Century capitalism was, as if anyone reading this novel (and clearly the protagonist) isn't already painfully aware of this.
That said, Morris's poetic vision makes the book definitely worth reading, and this book's importance in the utopian genre also makes it a must read for anyone interested in 19th Century socialist thought.
November 19, 2013
A Communist Utopian fantasy, written in the depths of the Victorian age when the gulf between the rich and poor was probably as wide as it ever has been. Morris imagines a future of around 2013 when government, police, aristocracy, mass production, money and crime have fallen out of use, education is optional, slums have been cleared, London has been reforested and arts and crafts reign supreme.
Some of Morris' concepts are naïve, others just plain daft. In under 150 years, all envy, malice, greed, sloth have apparently been entirely bred out of the population. Morris' journey up the Thames is an entertaining read, and I have a great respect for anyone who has the desire to create a better world, but this desire for a better future is itself an ambition and in Morris' future the British people have lost ambition, as well as drive, competitiveness, curiosity and settled for a contented life of bucolic simplicity. While these aggressive characteristics may lead to inequality, Morris' vision - his version of Utopia - seems to me to be a life of empty fatuous futility.
Some of Morris' concepts are naïve, others just plain daft. In under 150 years, all envy, malice, greed, sloth have apparently been entirely bred out of the population. Morris' journey up the Thames is an entertaining read, and I have a great respect for anyone who has the desire to create a better world, but this desire for a better future is itself an ambition and in Morris' future the British people have lost ambition, as well as drive, competitiveness, curiosity and settled for a contented life of bucolic simplicity. While these aggressive characteristics may lead to inequality, Morris' vision - his version of Utopia - seems to me to be a life of empty fatuous futility.
April 19, 2022
The Arts & Crafts Movement has been a huge influence over American culture and aesthetics since the 60s. I can't think of any recent 'back to the land', off-grid, DIY, urge without its influence in the A&C.
So it was about time I read Morris' brief biography and other works included in this collection. Particularly, I was interested in "News from Nowhere" as Utopian literature after having read Huxley's "Island", Butler's "Erewhon", and Skinner's "Walden II".
It would be too easy to dismiss Morris' vision as literally a midievalist's daydream. Morris was a staunch Socialist. And I wonder if his influence contributed to its success or failure.
So I'll simply say that his choice to end his utopian daydream in his own home is moving. Its his recognition that if we want to change the world, we start with ourselves and how we live.
So it was about time I read Morris' brief biography and other works included in this collection. Particularly, I was interested in "News from Nowhere" as Utopian literature after having read Huxley's "Island", Butler's "Erewhon", and Skinner's "Walden II".
It would be too easy to dismiss Morris' vision as literally a midievalist's daydream. Morris was a staunch Socialist. And I wonder if his influence contributed to its success or failure.
So I'll simply say that his choice to end his utopian daydream in his own home is moving. Its his recognition that if we want to change the world, we start with ourselves and how we live.
August 31, 2007
An interesting take on the future - Morris' view of what the world might be like in a hundred years, Utopian-style story telling mixed with a lot of philosophical dabate. Deep Reading. Hey, I should add that category to my bookshelves...
June 16, 2014
Still love it - staggering how many bells it still rings in 2014.
December 22, 2019
I would have loved to have given this 5 stars - William Morris is something of a hero to me in many respects. His socialist views, his wonderful designs, his affinity to the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood being partly why I admire him. His quote to his wife Jane on his painting La Belle Iseult - 'I cannot paint you but I love you' seems to sum up what I feel about Morris' writing. He is earnest and wants to do justice, but somehow falls short. What he is trying to convey is wonderful - a beautiful and just world where people are appreciated for what they can offer and are valued for their offerings - but the execution is rather tedious and 'stuffy' in the way it is written.
I have always found Morris a bit of a contradiction - born into a wealthy family, privileged and wanting for nothing, but with good intentions of bettering the working classes. Trying to get rid of mass production, but in so doing making his fine designs unaffordable for the people he wanted to better. And today his prints are one of the most mass produced things around - so he fell short in his aspirations of stopping mass production, even though he was brilliant at what he did and was obviously a caring and thoughtful man.
I have on and off tried to finish this book, but so far haven't quite succeeded - there are so many more appealing things I want to read. I will try to actually finish the book and may even eat my words, who knows?
I have always found Morris a bit of a contradiction - born into a wealthy family, privileged and wanting for nothing, but with good intentions of bettering the working classes. Trying to get rid of mass production, but in so doing making his fine designs unaffordable for the people he wanted to better. And today his prints are one of the most mass produced things around - so he fell short in his aspirations of stopping mass production, even though he was brilliant at what he did and was obviously a caring and thoughtful man.
I have on and off tried to finish this book, but so far haven't quite succeeded - there are so many more appealing things I want to read. I will try to actually finish the book and may even eat my words, who knows?
December 15, 2024
The late nineteenth century saw a plethora of utopian novels, including some set on Mars. News from Nowhere fits comfortably in this category, and displays all the positives and negatives of the genre.
It features one William Guest, who awakens one morning to find himself in a future England of pastoral delight, stripped of smoke-belching factories, where folks paddle gently on the rivers to visit communal dining-halls and converse with endlessly content farm workers.
Like most utopias I've read, News from Nowhere soon becomes practically unbearably dull. Long, didactic descriptions of future customs don't much engage, especially in a plot so thin you can see through it, a diaphanous veil that fails to disguise the narrative defects. Morris was a socialist and wanted to tout here the advantages of a socialist society, but for me, anyway, he only succeeded in depicting a tedium without relief. Part of the problem is that instead of learning about his future society as his characters run through an engaging plot, we are treated to treatises and descriptions that don't really connect with Guest or his new future friends. Curiously, it's dystopias, like the magnificent We, that do a far, far better job.
It features one William Guest, who awakens one morning to find himself in a future England of pastoral delight, stripped of smoke-belching factories, where folks paddle gently on the rivers to visit communal dining-halls and converse with endlessly content farm workers.
Like most utopias I've read, News from Nowhere soon becomes practically unbearably dull. Long, didactic descriptions of future customs don't much engage, especially in a plot so thin you can see through it, a diaphanous veil that fails to disguise the narrative defects. Morris was a socialist and wanted to tout here the advantages of a socialist society, but for me, anyway, he only succeeded in depicting a tedium without relief. Part of the problem is that instead of learning about his future society as his characters run through an engaging plot, we are treated to treatises and descriptions that don't really connect with Guest or his new future friends. Curiously, it's dystopias, like the magnificent We, that do a far, far better job.
January 13, 2025
Boring, unimaginative, uninteresting are some of the words that can be used to describe these writings, and I don't excuse it to the common idea that utopia is inherently boring due to a supposed necessity of being struggle-free or having a moralizing, prescriptive nature as opposed to the descriptive approach that most other genres have. There's no reason why utopia cannot be, in fact, written in an interesting way (and there's no shortage of resources or topics in which this can be achieved), but I suspect the problem lies not in the genre itself but rather in the writers of utopia, which seem to be (saving some sure exceptions unknown by me) a quite naïve bunch, with some serious (almost intentional it seems) lack of imagination when it comes to the spectrum of possible human behavior and what to expect from it: this is true for the most cinereous list of utopian writers that goes from Moore to Marx, but the flowery ones such as Fourier and Aldous Huxley do not escape. William Morris himself doesn't seem to have been a boring person at all, his biography is there to dispel such a thought if ever entertained; but hell was he a naïve chap.
July 28, 2024
What a bore!
Some mildly pleasant poetry. Some long-winded letters/lectures/writings about socialism that were articulate but content-deprived, as he had no real new or unique insight (though I will concede that it’s possible it did at the time). Then, News from Nowhere which was at least intriguing but Morris cannot write an engaging story. Thank god this Penguin classics edition left out most of the final 13 chapters since they couldn’t justify their inclusion.
He’s so preoccupied with forestry and futzing around - when he finally finds somewhere who can tell him how this strange socialist paradise came to be, he changes tone, and his description of massacres and mass death from violence gave me a sense that he was salivating, praying that this his socialist revolution would happen in this violent way. Brother, you’re writing a propaganda piece for your cause — make it seem less horrifying!
The poem about lying down to rest after a long life (53?) was good though, those last 5 lines are great.
Some mildly pleasant poetry. Some long-winded letters/lectures/writings about socialism that were articulate but content-deprived, as he had no real new or unique insight (though I will concede that it’s possible it did at the time). Then, News from Nowhere which was at least intriguing but Morris cannot write an engaging story. Thank god this Penguin classics edition left out most of the final 13 chapters since they couldn’t justify their inclusion.
He’s so preoccupied with forestry and futzing around - when he finally finds somewhere who can tell him how this strange socialist paradise came to be, he changes tone, and his description of massacres and mass death from violence gave me a sense that he was salivating, praying that this his socialist revolution would happen in this violent way. Brother, you’re writing a propaganda piece for your cause — make it seem less horrifying!
The poem about lying down to rest after a long life (53?) was good though, those last 5 lines are great.
July 25, 2023
Fascinating
Insightful
Unique
‘If others can see it as I have seen it, then it may be called a vision rather than a dream.’ Zo eindigt news from nowhere. Een interessant verhaal over een utopia geschreven door iemand uit de 19de eeuw. Het was heel vet om te lezen hoe deze wereld van Morris in elkaar zit en tot stand is gekomen. Ookal mist de vooruitgang van technologie die je zou verwachten bij een verhaal dat zich afspeelt in 2102. Maar dat is duidelijk niet het doel van het verhaal. Na news from nowhere bevat het boek ook lectures van Morris, waarin zijn ideeën uitgelegd worden. Soms lijkt het hierdoor dat je dubbel leest aangezien News from nowhere vol zit mijn zijn opvattingen. Maar dat maakt ze niet minder interessant om te lezen. Het boek zit vol met teksten en verhalen uit de 19de eeuw die nog verassend toepasselijk zijn tegenwoordig.
February 9, 2020
This is a beautiful book with a beautiful ending. I particular enjoy its view toward the prison system: “If in addition, we torture the man, we turn his grief into anger, and the humiliation he would otherwise feel for his wrong-doing is swallowed up by a hope of revenge for our wrong-doing to him. He has paid the legal penalty, and can “go and sin again” with comfort” (115).
Also has a beautiful view toward labor, in which people work because they want to, and cease to produce useless items.
Also there are some issues with the feminist views, I think it does capture the beauty of both genders quite nicely, a reflection of the holistic beauty of the world.
All in all a great book for any environmentalist or otherwise decent person to read.
Also has a beautiful view toward labor, in which people work because they want to, and cease to produce useless items.
Also there are some issues with the feminist views, I think it does capture the beauty of both genders quite nicely, a reflection of the holistic beauty of the world.
All in all a great book for any environmentalist or otherwise decent person to read.
March 19, 2020
I enjoyed News From Nowhere (which constitutes the majority of this edition) immensely. In fact, I would say that it alone was a five-star read. It was witty and original. I enjoyed most of the other writing in this book as well; however, I found myself disagreeing with most of what Morris suggests. His arguments were all very conservative and nostalgic, and it is clear that Morris did not agree with the may the modern world was progressing. Nonetheless, it is clear that Morris was a brilliant writer and an incredible academic. Even if I could not support his ideals fully, I can respect the skill and intelligence he had. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in late-Victorian philosophy, particularly on the subject of socialism.
July 21, 2022
A special and warm specimen of utopian vision. In many ways the real life American Scott Nearing's writings and biography mirror Morris's storyline. Throughout the fictional parable of the good, happy, non-mechanized socialist life, it seems palpable that Morris himself was as happy really as his characters. Although sometimes repetitive, the nature descriptions, the nationalist appreciation of the beauties of England and the connection with the flowing power of the Thames make this a great piece of writing. The societal ills it describes and hopes to correct haven't changed, indeed have become more accurate, destructive and predictable. Thomas More's Utopia is still the better book but this one is also worth reading.
(recommended by one of my goodreads friends)
(recommended by one of my goodreads friends)
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