An anonymous novel by Edward Bulwer-Lytton about a utopian race found beneath the Earth.
Basics
- Genre: Science fiction, manifesto, utopia, satire, hollow earth
- Protagonist: Unnamed American aristocratic man exploring a mine
- Antagonist: No one so far besides some reptilian. Probably something cringy like "the limitations of man" or "society" or whatever.
- Setting: the recesses of the __ mine in the year 18__
- Theme: Politics, society
- Recommend?: No. This novel is all repetitive, rambling exposition without a guiding narrative or organizing idea to it beyond how perfect the Vril-ya people are. And...I don't want to be crude or hyperbolic, but the ideas behind this book are stupid and embarrassing. On the surface, it's just way too dry and not very funny to me, and as satire, it is embarrassingly fixated on gender and dating. I'm taken aback that this could be taken as serious truth by anyone. Maybe it gets better later (I'm at Chapter 16 and may not continue haha).
Structure
There was a narrative for first few chapters, even if the dialogues were an excuse for lengthy infodumps. His prose was even so pleasant, I thought his literary infamy was vastly exaggerated. No, the poor writing was only just beginning. By chapter 10, the narrative is nowhere to be seen, and the narrator rambles about a topic per chapter. Chapter 12 was all about the conlang with all the genitive case and declension of nouns. I've never seen an exposition dump like this that spans multiple chapters, doesn't even have a moment of narrative, and that takes place before we have any reason to care about this world or people. It's beyond boring. I thought nothing happened in The Smoky God. Oh no, that plot was riveting in retrospect!
Chapter 15 suggests the narrative will resume as it opens with a mention of some characters, "Kind to me as I found all in this household, the young daughter of my host was the most considerate and thoughtful in her kindness." Aph-lin and his daughter dress him and take him out to town, but the narrative disappears again in that moment into descriptions of pets typical of the Vril-ya, the typical age of shopkeepers, and other walls of text. When he begins rambling about Vril baths, he says, "I once tried the effect of the vril bath." Is this a moment he will take an aside and describe a short memory? No! He goes on and on about random topics in this unusually long and unusually loosely organized chapter. I am so bored by the distant, disjointed descriptions of this underground people that I was disappointed we didn't get a brief story about him doing something so mundane as taking a bath! It at least would have been something happening. Then Chapter 16 begins with, "I have spoken so much of the Vril Staff that my reader may expect me to describe it." !!! You think I want more exposition?
Ideas
This was apparently a commercial success and influenced sci-fi, mysticism or occult or whatever, and conspiracy theorists for generations to come, so I am at a loss. I refuse to believe thousands of words of exposition and no plot is enjoyable for anyone, but whatever. I am at least confused what is so compelling and believable about his ideas. The main character is an American in America as written by an English guy, so he romanticizes his gun worship and his racism against n-words. It's maybe like if I wrote an English utopia about how they achieved peace through everyone voluntarily turning in their kitchen knives to the state and issuing licenses to everyone. The political commentary is very shallow. Maybe it was fresh back then, but gun control is the most over discussed topic in politics and I've already seen every jab at the NRA by every political cartoonist under the sun.
In line with its bizarre American gun ownership worship, the entire basis for their peaceful society is that it is also the most heavily armed society: vril is a power that can instantly kill anything and is usable even by babies. Their society as a consequence is so peaceful that they mention extermination of barbaric people groups every other chapter.
He keeps going back to the idea that exclusively women occupy the highest echelons of academia and obscure fields of science and philosophy in both his fictional society and in the real world because men have very poor interest and ability in them. Both feminists and their detractors agree women do not dominate any STEM or philosophy field, especially in the Victorian Age. I can't name very many female figures in these fields we were taught about in school and only a few more from my own studies. Suddenly being confronted with the opposite is supposed to be jarring, I guess.
He also suggests men find it unduly difficult to find a girl to accept a date, and men's primary pressure to get a job and excel in his personal hobbies is just to get a date. It's made worse by the fact men think very little about romance, and that only women care about that in the first place. In the Vril-ya society, women ask the men out, so men no longer have pressure to outperform women in the workplace and become famous painters or poets, etc.
It's just...pathetic? Even as a joke, praising women's reasoning and logic to the insult of men is cringy. On the other hand, suggesting gender equality as an absurdity is anachronistic to the point of losing all context in modern society. Plus, the women in STEM push is an exhausting topic. The only outright wacky point he manages to make is his insistence women are by far the most vicious and violent sex and that's why they exclusively deploy female toddlers against giant monsters, while young boys are very pleasant and work as the shopkeepers in town. ...Okay?
In lieu of a story, the book is just full of these really stupid ideas. No finite being can comprehend God, so everyone just agrees he exists but also agrees to never have any speculations or concepts of him beyond the vague concept of social progress, and this ideal of social progress was so compelling, it ended crime and punishment forever? What am I supposed to say? "Wow, this is so brilliant I will base theosophy and the Nazi party off this! I totally believe in Reptilians now!" Or, "Wow, what absurd social commentary. As if you can stop people from endless arguments about God haha!" Or what? Humor (or incredible esoteric knowledge?) is subjective, but this never connects with me.
Conclusion
The girl Vril-ya keeps saying her people will go up on the surface and exterminate everyone. Yes, please, gladly. If the surface world is all people like him, couldn't happen to a group of nicer guys.