 First edition cover | |
| Author | Samuel Butler |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Utopian fiction,Satire,Science fiction[1] |
| Publisher | Trübner andBallantyne |
Publication date | 1872 |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
| Pages | 246 |
| OCLC | 2735354 |
| 823.8 | |
| LC Class | PR4349.B7 E7 1872 c. 1 |
| Followed by | Erewhon Revisited |
| Text | Erewhon atWikisource |
Erewhon: or, Over the Range (/ɛrɛhwɒn/[2]) is autopian novel by English writerSamuel Butler, first published in 1872,[3] set in afictional country discovered and explored by the protagonist. The book is a satire onVictorian society.[4]
The first few chapters of the novel dealing with the discovery of Erewhon are based on Butler's own experiences inNew Zealand, where, as a young man, he worked as asheep farmer onMesopotamia Station for four years (1860–1864), exploring parts of the interior of theSouth Island and writing about it inA First Year in Canterbury Settlement (1863).
The novel is one of the first to explore ideas ofartificial intelligence, as influenced byDarwin's recently publishedOn the Origin of Species (1859) and the machines developed out of theIndustrial Revolution (late 18th to early 19th centuries). Specifically, it concerns itself, in the three-chapter "Book of the Machines", with the potentially dangerous ideas ofmachine consciousness andself-replicating machines.
In Erewhon, illness is crime and crime is illness. As a result, citizens are imprisoned for offenses like physical ailments, misfortune, or ugliness while those who commit conventional crimes like fraud or theft are seen more sympathetically as exhibiting symptoms of moral afflictions and prescribed sessions with a "straightener" (essentially a psychologist) for treatment.[5] The lack of compassion for physical sickness is reflected in the role of physicians in Erewhonian society, which is described as something more akin to that of a judge or law enforcement officer than that of a doctor. This system of law and medicine is a satirical inversion of the pattern in western society where crimes are punished and physical illnesses are treated—immorality is a matter of luck beyond one's control while sickness falls into the purview of one's individual autonomy.[6]
The greater part of the book consists of a description of Erewhon.
Butler developed the three chapters ofErewhon that make up "The Book of the Machines" from a number of articles he had contributed toThe Press, which had just begun publication inChristchurch, New Zealand, beginning with "Darwin among the Machines" (1863). Butler was the first to write about the possibility thatmachines might develop consciousness bynatural selection.[7]
In his preface to the second edition Butler wrote, "I regret that reviewers have in some cases been inclined to treat the chapters on Machines as an attempt to reduce Mr Darwin's theory to an absurdity. Nothing could be further from my intention, and few things would be more distasteful to me than any attempt to laugh at Mr Darwin."
In 1873, the reviewer in theDunedin newspaper theOtago Witness declared thatErewhon was the best English satirical fiction sinceGulliver's Travels (1726).[8]
In a 1945 broadcast,George Orwell praised the book and said that when Butler wroteErewhon it needed "imagination of a very high order to see that machinery could be dangerous as well as useful". He recommended the novel, though not its sequel,Erewhon Revisited.[9]
In 2014,New Zealand artistGavin Hipkins released his first feature film, titledErewhon and based on Butler's book. It premiered at theNew Zealand International Film Festival and theEdinburgh Art Festival.[10]
The French philosopherGilles Deleuze used ideas from Butler's book at various points in the development of his philosophy of difference. InDifference and Repetition (1968), Deleuze refers to what he calls "Ideas" as "Erewhon". "Ideas are not concepts", he said, they are "a form of eternally positive differentialmultiplicity, distinguished from the identity of concepts."[11] "Erewhon" refers to the "nomadic distributions" that pertain tosimulacra, which "are notuniversals like thecategories, nor are they thehic et nunc ornowhere, the diversity to which categories apply in representation."[12] "Erewhon", in this reading, is "not only a disguisedno-where but a rearrangednow-here."[13]
In his collaboration withFélix Guattari,Anti-Oedipus (1972), Deleuze draws on Butler's "The Book of the Machines" to "go beyond" the "usual polemic betweenvitalism andmechanism" as it relates to their concept of "desiring-machines":[14]
For one thing, Butler is not content to say that machines extend theorganism, but asserts that they are really limbs and organs lying on thebody without organs of a society, which men will appropriate according to their power and their wealth, and whose poverty deprives them as if they were mutilated organisms. For another, he is not content to say that organisms are machines, but asserts that they contain such an abundance of parts that they must be compared to very different parts of distinct machines, each relating to the others, engendered in combination with the others ... He shatters the vitalist argument by calling in question the specific or personal unity of the organism, and the mechanist argument even more decisively, by calling in question the structural unity of the machine.
Erewhon Station is a high-countrystation in New Zealand'sSouth Island, neighbouring Mesopotamia Station where Samuel Butler lived for several years.[15] Originally named Stronechrubie Station, it was renamed Erewhon Station in 1915 by the then lease-holder, Sidney Pawson, who was a reader of Samuel Butler's books.[16]
Agatha Christie referencesErewhon in her novelDeath on the Nile (1937).
A copy ofErewhon figures inElizabeth Bowen's short story "The Cat Jumps" (1934).
Karl Popper's bookThe Open Society and Its Enemies (1945), includes an epigraph fromErewhon that reads, "It will be seen ... that the Erewhonians are a meek and long-suffering people easily led by the nose, and quick to offer up common sense at the shrine of logic, when a philosopher arises among them who carries them away ... by convincing them that their existing institutions are not based on the strictest principles of morality."[17]
Alan M. Turing referencesErewhon in his posthumously published paper, "Intelligent Machinery, A Heretical Theory" (c. 1951). He writes, "At some stage therefore we should have to expect the machines to take control, in the way that is mentioned in Samuel Butler's Erewhon."[18]
Aldous Huxley alludes toErewhon in his novelsThe Doors of Perception (1954) andIsland (1962).
In his bookA Testament (1957),Frank Lloyd Wright mistakenly attributes the origin of the termUsonia as an alternate name for theUnited States of America to Samuel Butler inErewhon.
The "Butlerian Jihad" is the name of the crusade to wipe out "thinking machines" inFrank Herbert's novel,Dune (1965).[19]
C. S. Lewis alludes toErewhon in his essay, "The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment."[20]
The movieThe Day of the Dolphin (1973) features a boat named the Erewhon.[citation needed]
"Erewhon" is the unofficial name US astronauts give Regan Station, a military space station inDavid Brin's novelEarth (1990).[21]
In 1994, a group of ex-Yugoslavian writers inAmsterdam, who had established thePEN centre of Yugoslav Writers in Exile, published a single issue of the literary journalErewhon.[22]
In the 1997 filmFace/Off, FBI Agent Sean Archer, enters Erehwon Prison, a high-tech prison with severe punishment for any transgressions.
In the graphic novelBye Bye, Earth (2000), Belle's sword is called "Erehwon", and the story makes reference to the novelErewhon.
New Zealand sound art organization, the Audio Foundation, published in 2012 an anthology edited byBruce Russell namedErewhon Calling after Butler's novel.[23]
In "Smile", the second episode of the 2017 season ofDoctor Who, the Doctor and Bill explore a spaceship namedErehwon. Despite the slightly different spelling, the episode writerFrank Cottrell-Boyce confirmed[24] that this was a reference to Butler's novel.
In the 2019Ubisoft video gameTom Clancy's Ghost Recon Breakpoint, "Erewhon" is the name for the world's settler hideout and players' online hub.[25]
A copy of Erewhon figures prominently in the video for "A Barely Lit Path," the lead single fromOneohtrix Point Never's 2023 albumAgain.[26]
Companies
Erewhon Market is the name of an upscale Los Angeles-based natural foods grocery chain originally founded in Boston in 1966.[27] The store’s co-founderAveline Kushi named it after Erewhon because it was the favorite book of her mentor,George Ohsawa.[28]
Erewhon is also the name of an independent speculative fiction publishing company[29] founded in 2018 byLiz Gorinsky.[30]
Erewhon public domain audiobook atLibriVox| International | |
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