For an android, Spofforth is surprisingly humane and often relatable, especially during such times he is subjected to gloom and suicidal thoughts.
The book was written in the 80's but might as well have been from the fifties. While he finds much of the Bible interesting, the organized religion of the community is not to his taste.“The God they worship is an abstract and ferociously moral thing, like a computer. Intimacy in this case includes confidences and a touch of the arm etc (hide spoiler)]. They spend their days drugged Some dystopias seem worse than others. Reviewed in that context rather than as a scifi novel, it takes on a more interesting turn. To me this book didn't convince me that Walter Tevis was leaving this world a man completely convinced that this world was worth saving. In theme, and some particulars, the book is very reminiscent of 'Brave New World.'
Maybe the character that best portrays Tevis is Spofforth. First of all, don't let the whole christian reading (or non-r I chose not to read this based on an allegorical bent, and instead chose to enjoy the oh so clear voice of the Robot Who Would End Humanity. I actually thought to myself that Tevis is sabotaging his work on purpose. My work involves learning to read, so I watch children as they learn to read, and myself read about learning to read. No male characters have any such issues with intimacy. :)Otherwise, I loved it. I got the point fairly early on and by the end felt as weary as you'd expect after several hours in the company of people with very little emotional experience and limited capacity to express it.
These stories tend to gloss over what happens to the billions of people not affected by this dystopia. :) This is my second Walter Tevis and it was kinda surprising to learn that, since I had read The Man Who Fell to Earth years and years ago and loved it, primarily because I saw the movie with Bowie and loved it, too. Popping happy-pills and letting robots do the dishes for you doesn't sound terribly upsetting to me, but no books?
Like pretty much everything else, we take this to the extreme.
Ma nel complesso ciò che accomuna questi 5 capolavori della letteratura sono l'amore e la libertà.Tornando a "Solo il mimo canta al limitare del bosco", qui l'autore ci ha messo tutto se stesso, tutte le sue emozioni, si sentono proprio ad ogni pagina, sprizza di libertà, di felicità e poi si sente la tristezza per ciò che l'umanità si sta infliggendo da sola e non riesce a capacitarsene.E quindi, per me, Tevis ha scritto questo libro-inno alla vita, per urlare al mondo intero: "Pensiamo e riflettiamo su ciò che stiamo facendo! Lo avevo nella mia wishlist da un po', ma non mi decidevo mai ad ordinarlo online. There are manuals, but no one reads anymore. Unfortunately I think the conversation Mary Lou has with Spofforth sums the book up: `If no one gets born,' I said, `there won't be any more people on the earth.' It's a great sin. Now to me whistling is a very distinctive human trait. One of my favorite scenes is a chapter about a closed system toaster factory where sub-moron robots work. It had nothing to do with the story (view spoiler)[though he did note that no other black person was a robot (hide spoiler)]. Uma fábula que tem tanto de instigante como de pungente. [return][return]The big idea is that after the standard technological misadventures - WWIII, fallout, mass-death, global government - humankind has come to eschew all interaction and individual expression, with people retreating into their inner worlds while being fed, cloth Perhaps I'm losing my taste for dystopias, at least the futuristic kind. Spofforth holds several positions of power and as a Dean of a university, he discovers Paul Bentley who has accidentally discovered a reading tutorial from an old film archive and taught himself to read from there. By this I mean that these novels don’t just portray people oppressed or living under the thumb of a ruling class or technologically-imposed social structure—no, the best dystopian novels create a world in which people are happy, or at least satisfied, with the new status quo.
They are to discover the joys of "Inwardness". A bit of a riff off of the old Battlestar Galactica series where all the books had the corners cut off because...it's the future! Egli scopre tutte le emozioni dell'essere umano: l'amore, la condivisione, la curiosità, il libero arbitrio; ma anche, non meno importanti, il senso della famiglia, l’amicizia, la rabbia, il piacere del cibo e la bellezza di un corpo sano. Tevis had me hooked from the start thanks to the importance he attaches to the written word. Suicide is a regular occurrence. Innumerevoli rimandi al genere distopico "classico". However, the books have not been destroyed, they can be found in storage and shut up libraries, but only two people in the world know how to read them.I knew nothing about Mockingbird prior to reading it, only that it is part of the excellent “SF Masterworks” series and the length (about 250 pages) is just right for me, after finishing the 1000+ pages of Words of Radiance I wanted to read a short sci-fi novel. I don't think this kind of future is anywhere near likely; the human urge to understand how things work and to connect with each other is far too strong to be quelled as completely as in this setting, but it's interesting to see people wake up to a reality that is not what most people think reality is (kind of like The Futurological Congress: From the Memoirs of Ijon Tichy). A few chapters later I felt There are aspects of this book that terrify me. ), writing poetry, learning to paint, and having philosophical discussions about whether the chair and table do really exist. Unfortunately Spofforth has other plans for them, none of them including a new era for mankind.The story was compelling, and some of the imagery very effective. The idea that our civilization could be reduced to drug addicts managed by ill-maintained robots is troubling, but not all that far-fetched.I'm a little confused about where all the people from the developing world are in this book. I actually thought to myself that Tevis is sabotaging his work on purpose.