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Young West: A sequel to Edward Bellamy's celebrated novel "Looking backward"
This book was digitized and reprinted from the collections of the University of California Libraries. It was produced from digital images created through the libraries’ mass digitization efforts. The digital images were cleaned and prepared for printing through automated processes. Despite the cleaning process, occasional flaws may still be present that were part of the original work itself, or introduced during digitization. This book and hundreds of thousands of others can be found online in the HathiTrust Digital Library at www.hathitrust.org.
283 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1894
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March 22, 2019
This book was intended to expand upon Edward Bellamy's utopian novel Looking Backward. The title character is the son of Julian West, Bellamy's protagonist who woke up after 100+ years to find himself in a socialistic society. In this book, an elderly "Young West" gives an autobiographic narrative. The first 100+ pages tell about his school years (nursery to high school.) We learn much about their childhood.
Let me note one aspect. During his school years, he lives away at school, only seeing his mother occasionally. At one point, someone says that parents may influence a child to aim for career goals which wouldn't be most satisfying to the student. Aside from this reference, sending a child away to school doesn't seems to be treated as a new concept which needs to be explained. This, and some other bits here and there made me ask if this was molded by 19th century upper middle class lifestyles (including boarding schools.)
Contrary to that guess about affluent perspective, as the book progresses, Young West tells how he was more inclined to physical work and studied in that path. While an important part of his job involved "chemistry" (for working in the sewer department), he tells us he also liked to help out with a pickaxe.
Compared to his school years, the parts about his travels, career, marriage and children, etc. seem brief.
Near the end of the book, they find something Julian West wrote saying that while he knew intellectually this new society was better, he couldn't entirely accept it because of the assumptions of the old society which had been the norm during his earlier years. They conclude from this that activists who establish a new society will never be entirely at home in the new society, because they were shaped by the old society. It's an interesting question how we will bridge the gap from today's society to a better society while all the people (activists and average folks) have learned their social behavior based on the conditions which existed before the change. Considering the crises today's society is creating and expanding, we have to make something better, but we also need to think about preparing for factors such as this.
Some readers may find it of interest that "Young West's" life story tells us a great accomplishment of his life was finding a method to turn raw sewage into disease-free fertilizer for farms. This allowed them to end the practice of dumping sewage into the oceans or other waters. I was impressed that back in 2894 some people were already concerned about such an issue.
Let me note one aspect. During his school years, he lives away at school, only seeing his mother occasionally. At one point, someone says that parents may influence a child to aim for career goals which wouldn't be most satisfying to the student. Aside from this reference, sending a child away to school doesn't seems to be treated as a new concept which needs to be explained. This, and some other bits here and there made me ask if this was molded by 19th century upper middle class lifestyles (including boarding schools.)
Contrary to that guess about affluent perspective, as the book progresses, Young West tells how he was more inclined to physical work and studied in that path. While an important part of his job involved "chemistry" (for working in the sewer department), he tells us he also liked to help out with a pickaxe.
Compared to his school years, the parts about his travels, career, marriage and children, etc. seem brief.
Near the end of the book, they find something Julian West wrote saying that while he knew intellectually this new society was better, he couldn't entirely accept it because of the assumptions of the old society which had been the norm during his earlier years. They conclude from this that activists who establish a new society will never be entirely at home in the new society, because they were shaped by the old society. It's an interesting question how we will bridge the gap from today's society to a better society while all the people (activists and average folks) have learned their social behavior based on the conditions which existed before the change. Considering the crises today's society is creating and expanding, we have to make something better, but we also need to think about preparing for factors such as this.
Some readers may find it of interest that "Young West's" life story tells us a great accomplishment of his life was finding a method to turn raw sewage into disease-free fertilizer for farms. This allowed them to end the practice of dumping sewage into the oceans or other waters. I was impressed that back in 2894 some people were already concerned about such an issue.
Displaying 1 of 1 review