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wincher2031's review
3.0
Owen Gregory's outline and warning of a coming authoritarian state holds great historical interest; it lays down another brick in the path of later dystopian works which would circulate within the samizdat during the 20th century. Soviet dissidents such as Yevgeny Zamyatin and Mikhail Bulgakov would later expand upon Meccania's core structure with elements of surrealist satire and absurd humour in 'We' and 'Heart of a Dog' respectively. Aldous Huxley's 'Brave New World' expounds upon the colour coded class system with its Alphas, Betas and Gammas etc.
Karin Boye's 'Kallocain' further humanises the enforcers of the regime with internal monologues, a surface somewhat scratched by Ming Yuen-hwuy's ongoing dialogue with Sub-conductor of Foreign Observers Sheep. Room 101 from George Orwell's '1984' bares a staggering resemblance to Room 415 in 'Meccania', in which re-education is managed by Professor Proser-Toady.
The list of plays performed on Meccania's stage goes on and as a product of its time it's fascinating, though more as a historical document than as a novel.
The characters, pacing and plot all suffer from their sparsity. While it's far from being the first dystopian novel, there's no doubt Meccania pioneers Modernist dystopia resulting from the then ongoing horrors of The Great War. An impact only exalted in hindsight of the rest of 20th century history. It's influence and place in history, then, are of more intrigue than the story itself, nevertheless recommendable for hardcore fans of the genre are sure to find plenty of uncut gems to sink their teeth into with this one.
Karin Boye's 'Kallocain' further humanises the enforcers of the regime with internal monologues, a surface somewhat scratched by Ming Yuen-hwuy's ongoing dialogue with Sub-conductor of Foreign Observers Sheep. Room 101 from George Orwell's '1984' bares a staggering resemblance to Room 415 in 'Meccania', in which re-education is managed by Professor Proser-Toady.
The list of plays performed on Meccania's stage goes on and as a product of its time it's fascinating, though more as a historical document than as a novel.
The characters, pacing and plot all suffer from their sparsity. While it's far from being the first dystopian novel, there's no doubt Meccania pioneers Modernist dystopia resulting from the then ongoing horrors of The Great War. An impact only exalted in hindsight of the rest of 20th century history. It's influence and place in history, then, are of more intrigue than the story itself, nevertheless recommendable for hardcore fans of the genre are sure to find plenty of uncut gems to sink their teeth into with this one.
cjelli's review against another edition
3.0
Framed as a travelogue, it (purposefully) lacks for both plot and character, but largely makes up for that in (now terribly dated) imagination: an interesting piece of dystopian fiction that reveals as much about the fears, tribulations, and biases of 1918 Europe as it does about the thinly-disguised future state of the (then) far-future 1970's Definitely Not Germany. Fascinating mostly -- at this far remove from its publication -- as a lens to how the present looked from the past.
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