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gringoley's review against another edition
4.0
I got lucky, right from one of the first crazy quotes: “Reading is the subtle and thorough sharing of ideas and feelings by underhanded means. It is a gross invasion of Privacy and a direct violation of the Constitutions of the Third, Fourth, and Fifth ages. The Teaching of Reading is equally a crime against Privacy and Personhood."
I wanted to read a special book since it would be my 600th (that I've finished and can remember the titles to at least). The problem is I've read a lot of the so-called greats and some of those just didn't hit me right I guess. So I was lucky.
This book is a great book. It's quite simple, easy to read, but also quite profound. A man and a woman learn what life and humanity is all about at the tail-end of society from a robot that only wants to end the artificial, factional, "life" it was created with. These childlike adults were the only two beings that could read and the world opened up to them from there; thus requiring them to see it at face value for the first time; discovering history, religion, and their societal failure to see beyond self-gratification. I like a good end-of-the-world tale but I like it more with a dash a hope rather than pure doom and gloom but perhaps I'm just a hopeless humanist-optimist. It had a fair share of great quotes as well:
What do you mean by ‘love’?” He did not reply for a long time. Then he said, “Flutterings in the stomach. And about the heart. Wishing for your being happy. An obsession with you, with the way your chin tilts and your eyes at times stare. The way your hand holds that coffee cup. Hearing you snoring at night while I sit here.”
But we women from the Plain are Christian.” I did not know what to make of it. I knew the word “Christian”; it was used for people who believed that Jesus was a God. But Jesus, as far as I could understand what I had read about him in the Bible, had seemed very tolerant of sexual behavior. I remembered some people called “scribes” and “Pharisees” who had wanted to punish women who had committed adultery. But Jesus had disagreed with them.
I think that to know what those words said required an attention and a devotion that none of them—except perhaps old Edgar—possessed. They were willing to accept their stringent piety, and silence, and sexual restraints, all unthinkingly, along with a few platitudes about Jesus and Moses and Noah; they were overwhelmed, however, at the effort it would require to understand the literature that was the real source of their religion.
I was lonely. I was painfully lonely, and hadn’t even known it. I sat up in my bed. My God! It was so simple. I was beginning to be angry. What difference did it make if I had my Privacy and my Self-reliance and my Freedom if I felt like this? I was in a state of yearning, and I had been for years. I was not happy—had almost never been happy.
I wanted to read a special book since it would be my 600th (that I've finished and can remember the titles to at least). The problem is I've read a lot of the so-called greats and some of those just didn't hit me right I guess. So I was lucky.
This book is a great book. It's quite simple, easy to read, but also quite profound. A man and a woman learn what life and humanity is all about at the tail-end of society from a robot that only wants to end the artificial, factional, "life" it was created with. These childlike adults were the only two beings that could read and the world opened up to them from there; thus requiring them to see it at face value for the first time; discovering history, religion, and their societal failure to see beyond self-gratification. I like a good end-of-the-world tale but I like it more with a dash a hope rather than pure doom and gloom but perhaps I'm just a hopeless humanist-optimist. It had a fair share of great quotes as well:
What do you mean by ‘love’?” He did not reply for a long time. Then he said, “Flutterings in the stomach. And about the heart. Wishing for your being happy. An obsession with you, with the way your chin tilts and your eyes at times stare. The way your hand holds that coffee cup. Hearing you snoring at night while I sit here.”
But we women from the Plain are Christian.” I did not know what to make of it. I knew the word “Christian”; it was used for people who believed that Jesus was a God. But Jesus, as far as I could understand what I had read about him in the Bible, had seemed very tolerant of sexual behavior. I remembered some people called “scribes” and “Pharisees” who had wanted to punish women who had committed adultery. But Jesus had disagreed with them.
I think that to know what those words said required an attention and a devotion that none of them—except perhaps old Edgar—possessed. They were willing to accept their stringent piety, and silence, and sexual restraints, all unthinkingly, along with a few platitudes about Jesus and Moses and Noah; they were overwhelmed, however, at the effort it would require to understand the literature that was the real source of their religion.
I was lonely. I was painfully lonely, and hadn’t even known it. I sat up in my bed. My God! It was so simple. I was beginning to be angry. What difference did it make if I had my Privacy and my Self-reliance and my Freedom if I felt like this? I was in a state of yearning, and I had been for years. I was not happy—had almost never been happy.
micros128's review against another edition
5.0
4.5 prison part is slow but still the whole is a great science fiction book
abisko's review against another edition
4.0
Good fun. Tevis is always an interesting read. This one being very different than others that I've rread by him, but he is reliably entertaining and this holds to that ! It's weird, it's out there and I enjoyed it. Need say no more - 4 stars
charles__'s review against another edition
3.0
40-year old adult dystopic story where robots convey a stupefied future human population into extinction.
My dead tree edition was a modest 250 pages. It had a first US copyright of 1980.
Walter Tevis was an American science fiction and fiction author. He was the author of six (6) novels and many short stories. He passed in 1984. This is the first novel of his I’ve read, although I’ve seen all of his novels adapted to film.
This book has been on my Read the SF Classics List for awhile. It finally made it to the top.
All aspects of society were under the control of an technologically advanced robotic authority. Human’s were living in narcotized and behaviorally conditioned tranquility. They’d lost their independence, including the ability to relate to each other, recall their past and even the ability to read and write. Over decades as errors accumulate in the robot-controlled utopia, it started to breakdown—and humanity doesn’t notice.
The three POVs: Spofforth, Paul Bently, and Mary Lou (no last name) were well handled. Spofforth is one of the last manager robots (actually an android). He’s managing the gentle decline and dying-off of humanity in one of the few barely functioning cities: New York. Bently is what passes for a human academic. He can read at about a third-grade level. Mary Lou is the result of a systematic glitch—a highly intelligent, independent spirit who has detoxed herself.
Spofforth wanted to explore vestiges of humanity in his android make-up. He enlisted Bently to voice-over a recently found cache of silent-era films. (All modern films were long ago destroyed, and Spofforth can’t read.) Bently meets Mary Lou living interstitially in the city. They fall in love. She teaches him independence and detoxes him. He teaches her how to read. Spofforth decides Mary Lou is a better vehicle for his explorations. He frames and exiles Bently to a labor camp somewhere in the American ex-Carolinas. Spofforth takes Mary Lou as his kept woman. Bently escapes prison and journeys back to NYC across the decayed landscape. He re-invents himself along the way. Meanwhile Mary Lou suborns Spofforth into crashing the system of robot authority.
Tevis was a good writer. The multiple POVs was an early science fiction use and a very effective choice for his story. (Modern science fiction writers appear to use it to increase their word count.) Spofforth and Bently are the strongest characters. Mary Lou started out strong, but doesn't finish well in comparison to Bently, despite her more important role in the story.
This was an old-fashioned dystopian story with the zeitgeist of the late 1970’s. Despite being written on the cusp of more modern science fiction, it had more in common with the old style of classic 1950s science fiction: [a:Heinlein|205|Robert A. Heinlein|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1192826560p2/205.jpg]-[a:Clarke|8842|Susanna Clarke|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1453496946p2/8842.jpg]-[a:Asimov|16667|Isaac Asimov|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1341965730p2/16667.jpg] with some [a:Philip K. Dick|4764|Philip K. Dick|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1633698608p2/4764.jpg]. The author has clearly wanted to write a book like the previous decade’s [b:Brave New World|5129|Brave New World|Aldous Huxley|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1575509280l/5129._SY75_.jpg|3204877], [b:Fahrenheit 451|13079982|Fahrenheit 451|Ray Bradbury|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1383718290l/13079982._SY75_.jpg|1272463] or [b:1984|40961427|1984|George Orwell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1532714506l/40961427._SX50_.jpg|153313]. He borrowed from them all. However, you can see that the author had moved past the 70’s fear of atomic war and was focusing on that decades: religious fundamentalism, over population (without concern for the environment), narcissism, and suspicion of technology. This story was too much a product of its time to be popular today. (It didn’t age well.) However, its of historical value. It’s a good example of the cynical, dystopian fiction written at the time.
My dead tree edition was a modest 250 pages. It had a first US copyright of 1980.
Walter Tevis was an American science fiction and fiction author. He was the author of six (6) novels and many short stories. He passed in 1984. This is the first novel of his I’ve read, although I’ve seen all of his novels adapted to film.
This book has been on my Read the SF Classics List for awhile. It finally made it to the top.
All aspects of society were under the control of an technologically advanced robotic authority. Human’s were living in narcotized and behaviorally conditioned tranquility. They’d lost their independence, including the ability to relate to each other, recall their past and even the ability to read and write. Over decades as errors accumulate in the robot-controlled utopia, it started to breakdown—and humanity doesn’t notice.
The three POVs: Spofforth, Paul Bently, and Mary Lou (no last name) were well handled. Spofforth is one of the last manager robots (actually an android). He’s managing the gentle decline and dying-off of humanity in one of the few barely functioning cities: New York. Bently is what passes for a human academic. He can read at about a third-grade level. Mary Lou is the result of a systematic glitch—a highly intelligent, independent spirit who has detoxed herself.
Spofforth wanted to explore vestiges of humanity in his android make-up. He enlisted Bently to voice-over a recently found cache of silent-era films. (All modern films were long ago destroyed, and Spofforth can’t read.) Bently meets Mary Lou living interstitially in the city. They fall in love. She teaches him independence and detoxes him. He teaches her how to read. Spofforth decides Mary Lou is a better vehicle for his explorations. He frames and exiles Bently to a labor camp somewhere in the American ex-Carolinas. Spofforth takes Mary Lou as his kept woman. Bently escapes prison and journeys back to NYC across the decayed landscape. He re-invents himself along the way. Meanwhile Mary Lou suborns Spofforth into crashing the system of robot authority.
Tevis was a good writer. The multiple POVs was an early science fiction use and a very effective choice for his story. (Modern science fiction writers appear to use it to increase their word count.) Spofforth and Bently are the strongest characters. Mary Lou started out strong, but doesn't finish well in comparison to Bently, despite her more important role in the story.
This was an old-fashioned dystopian story with the zeitgeist of the late 1970’s. Despite being written on the cusp of more modern science fiction, it had more in common with the old style of classic 1950s science fiction: [a:Heinlein|205|Robert A. Heinlein|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1192826560p2/205.jpg]-[a:Clarke|8842|Susanna Clarke|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1453496946p2/8842.jpg]-[a:Asimov|16667|Isaac Asimov|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1341965730p2/16667.jpg] with some [a:Philip K. Dick|4764|Philip K. Dick|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1633698608p2/4764.jpg]. The author has clearly wanted to write a book like the previous decade’s [b:Brave New World|5129|Brave New World|Aldous Huxley|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1575509280l/5129._SY75_.jpg|3204877], [b:Fahrenheit 451|13079982|Fahrenheit 451|Ray Bradbury|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1383718290l/13079982._SY75_.jpg|1272463] or [b:1984|40961427|1984|George Orwell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1532714506l/40961427._SX50_.jpg|153313]. He borrowed from them all. However, you can see that the author had moved past the 70’s fear of atomic war and was focusing on that decades: religious fundamentalism, over population (without concern for the environment), narcissism, and suspicion of technology. This story was too much a product of its time to be popular today. (It didn’t age well.) However, its of historical value. It’s a good example of the cynical, dystopian fiction written at the time.
moiragrana's review against another edition
2.0
Tal vez en los 80's hubiera pensado que era una novela aceptable.
La narrativa es bastante plana, llena de clichés y lugares comunes (al menos en la lectura en 2023). No hay nada ahí que realmente sorprenda. Evento tras evento se van presentando en forma de diario o de cambio de personaje. Sin embargo no hay nada en las voces que realmente haga la diferencia.
Pero lo más desagradable, desde mi punto de vista de lectora, es el machismo, el racismo, la gordofobia y el fascismo intelectual, que imperan en los valores del autor. La típica mirada masculina blanca hegemónica sobre el mundo y sus problemas, donde las mujeres apenas somos adornos y pretextos para el personaje principal. No faltan las escenas de sexo completamente centradas en su personaje principal. El placer de las mujeres es inexistente y todo lo que se refiere a ellas es ese cliché espantoso de cómo se supone que las mujeres vivimos la idea de familia, del sexo, de la maternidad... hasta de la lectura. Por otro lado, esta novela bien podría ser un video de campaña contra las adicciones desde una mirada conservadora.
Tevis lloriquea. Plantea la familia tradicional, el culto al cuerpo hegemónico y el miedo a la teconología, como las premisas de un horizonte ideal para evitar la catástrofe. En contraste, su escenario distópico está lleno de personas que tienen sexo casual, nadie tiene (ni quiere, ni sabe lo que es) familia, no nacen más bebés y hay robots que hacen abortos "hasta el noveno mes". El único personaje negro es un robot que tiene toda la culpa de la desgracia humana (claro, creado por humanos, pero eso se obvia). Todo esto, regodeándose en llenar de referencias a películas, lecturas o música que claramente el autor considera "superiores"... todo, obviamente, cultura blanca del norte global. Una novela "boomer" que, en algunos fragmentos, podría haber sido escrita por el tío conservador en un post de facebook.
Lo terminé de leer porque nunca desprecio una historia sobre distopias, pero francamente es un libro que seguramente olvidaré muy pronto.
La narrativa es bastante plana, llena de clichés y lugares comunes (al menos en la lectura en 2023). No hay nada ahí que realmente sorprenda. Evento tras evento se van presentando en forma de diario o de cambio de personaje. Sin embargo no hay nada en las voces que realmente haga la diferencia.
Pero lo más desagradable, desde mi punto de vista de lectora, es el machismo, el racismo, la gordofobia y el fascismo intelectual, que imperan en los valores del autor. La típica mirada masculina blanca hegemónica sobre el mundo y sus problemas, donde las mujeres apenas somos adornos y pretextos para el personaje principal. No faltan las escenas de sexo completamente centradas en su personaje principal. El placer de las mujeres es inexistente y todo lo que se refiere a ellas es ese cliché espantoso de cómo se supone que las mujeres vivimos la idea de familia, del sexo, de la maternidad... hasta de la lectura. Por otro lado, esta novela bien podría ser un video de campaña contra las adicciones desde una mirada conservadora.
Tevis lloriquea. Plantea la familia tradicional, el culto al cuerpo hegemónico y el miedo a la teconología, como las premisas de un horizonte ideal para evitar la catástrofe. En contraste, su escenario distópico está lleno de personas que tienen sexo casual, nadie tiene (ni quiere, ni sabe lo que es) familia, no nacen más bebés y hay robots que hacen abortos "hasta el noveno mes". El único personaje negro es un robot que tiene toda la culpa de la desgracia humana (claro, creado por humanos, pero eso se obvia). Todo esto, regodeándose en llenar de referencias a películas, lecturas o música que claramente el autor considera "superiores"... todo, obviamente, cultura blanca del norte global. Una novela "boomer" que, en algunos fragmentos, podría haber sido escrita por el tío conservador en un post de facebook.
Lo terminé de leer porque nunca desprecio una historia sobre distopias, pero francamente es un libro que seguramente olvidaré muy pronto.
marpomme's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
jingjing_'s review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
lucasperaltam's review against another edition
3.0
A favor:
- Es un libro de 1980 y muchas partes de la temática se sienten actuales o que se empiezan a gestar en nuestra actualidad.
- No es un libro oscuro como pinta la premisa.
En contra:
- Se me hizo largo por momentos, la historia está contada desde la perspectiva de tres personajes. Cada personaje tiene un desarrollo diferente, algunos muy cortos y otros excesivamente descriptivas.
- Después de leer a un personaje, cuesta retomar la historia cuando cambia al siguiente.
PREMISA:
La tecnología avanzó tanto con el objetivo de facilitarle la vida a las personas, que llegó a un punto en el que los humanos no hacen nada. Algo así como WALL-E (película de pixar), pero en lugar de tener personas que no pueden caminar por el sobrepeso, esta historia tiene personas drogradas que se suicidan en grupos (prendiéndose fuego) como escape de esa forma de vida.
¿Lindo futuro, no?
Dato de color
Sinsonte (mockingbird) es el mismo pájaro que mutan en los juegos del hambre.
- Es un libro de 1980 y muchas partes de la temática se sienten actuales o que se empiezan a gestar en nuestra actualidad.
- No es un libro oscuro como pinta la premisa.
En contra:
- Se me hizo largo por momentos, la historia está contada desde la perspectiva de tres personajes. Cada personaje tiene un desarrollo diferente, algunos muy cortos y otros excesivamente descriptivas.
- Después de leer a un personaje, cuesta retomar la historia cuando cambia al siguiente.
PREMISA:
La tecnología avanzó tanto con el objetivo de facilitarle la vida a las personas, que llegó a un punto en el que los humanos no hacen nada. Algo así como WALL-E (película de pixar), pero en lugar de tener personas que no pueden caminar por el sobrepeso, esta historia tiene personas drogradas que se suicidan en grupos (prendiéndose fuego) como escape de esa forma de vida.
¿Lindo futuro, no?
Dato de color
Sinsonte (mockingbird) es el mismo pájaro que mutan en los juegos del hambre.
jeleigh16's review against another edition
4.5
I've been thinking about this book off-and-on since I finished it for a small book group, nearly a month ago. If that doesn't say something, I'm not sure what does. Tevis crafts a world in a future where robots are the norm, humans are numb, and reading is illegal. That's not usually a problem though because people don't know how to read anyway...until someone decides to learn how. I really enjoyed watching a character have real curiosity about language, reading, and learning as a whole. It's a time in our lives we don't always remember because we tend to learn relatively young, but that curiosity, that excitement about obtaining the ability to absorb language off a page is just magical and watching the characters in this novel experience that for the first time was beautiful. There are a variety of themes and topics covered in this novel - all highly worth exploring/chatting about - but I do recommend folks check content warnings, if that's your jam, because it does get a bit intense, at times.
sunbean's review against another edition
5.0
I started out thinking I wouldn't like this book, then ended up thinking... this is pretty amazing.
Likes: Imagine a full grown human being seeing the world like a newborn; that's essentially what happens when the main character takes the forbidden fruit of emerging from the drug-induced haze of the future, where no one knows what a book is or how to read, or has any sense of anything but the moment... no past, no future. Among human beings, there's no SHARED experiences; no family, no community, no friendships. Even in large groups, everything is experienced in complete isolation. No one converses, no one reads, no one... anything. If there is any accidental contact or conversation in the book, the characters often take extra drugs to avoid thinking or feeling anything about it. Paul, his first baby steps of experiencing things, does not know how to experience emotion because he's never had experiences that provoke emotion before. He has to learn how to have basic human interaction, how to be HUMAN.
He learns to read. He takes a journey. It's awesome and sad and did I say awesome. The woman, Mary Lou, that he experiences experiences with at first, has her own part in the narrative, as well as Bob the robot. THE robot, the perfection of humanity and robotics, who is, unfortunately, humanity's keeper and maintainer and, also unfortunately, very suicidal.
Dislikes: There is some swearing including the f-word and some sex... it is about human beings, after all. Not so much a dislike as a disclaimer, since I thought they were important to the story and nothing super graphic. I thought it was interesting that porn was ubiquitous in the future world of human isolation; studies have proven that porn strains relationships and changes how the brain thinks about partners. Paul never thinks very much about it, but my thinking from my perspective is that if you were trying to get human beings to not like or want to interact with each other, flooding them with porn would be a great place to start. Porn sex is purely selfish; for the individual viewer's pleasure only. "Quick sex is best;" as in it's the act that matters, not the people or the relationships, which is exactly what porn says.
Likes: Imagine a full grown human being seeing the world like a newborn; that's essentially what happens when the main character takes the forbidden fruit of emerging from the drug-induced haze of the future, where no one knows what a book is or how to read, or has any sense of anything but the moment... no past, no future. Among human beings, there's no SHARED experiences; no family, no community, no friendships. Even in large groups, everything is experienced in complete isolation. No one converses, no one reads, no one... anything. If there is any accidental contact or conversation in the book, the characters often take extra drugs to avoid thinking or feeling anything about it. Paul, his first baby steps of experiencing things, does not know how to experience emotion because he's never had experiences that provoke emotion before. He has to learn how to have basic human interaction, how to be HUMAN.
He learns to read. He takes a journey. It's awesome and sad and did I say awesome. The woman, Mary Lou, that he experiences experiences with at first, has her own part in the narrative, as well as Bob the robot. THE robot, the perfection of humanity and robotics, who is, unfortunately, humanity's keeper and maintainer and, also unfortunately, very suicidal.
Dislikes: There is some swearing including the f-word and some sex... it is about human beings, after all. Not so much a dislike as a disclaimer, since I thought they were important to the story and nothing super graphic. I thought it was interesting that porn was ubiquitous in the future world of human isolation; studies have proven that porn strains relationships and changes how the brain thinks about partners. Paul never thinks very much about it, but my thinking from my perspective is that if you were trying to get human beings to not like or want to interact with each other, flooding them with porn would be a great place to start. Porn sex is purely selfish; for the individual viewer's pleasure only. "Quick sex is best;" as in it's the act that matters, not the people or the relationships, which is exactly what porn says.