Book Review: Paradise Now
I finished Chris Jennings' Paradise Now: The Story of American Utopianism, and I think I was far too harsh in my earlier criticism of it. The problem with the book is not that Jennings is a boring writer; it's that he's bored by the Shakers, or possibly is drawing his chapter on the Shakers from a very thin source base, so it's not as interesting as his other chapters.
I can see why he started with the Shakers nonetheless, because the success of their communitarian experiment was (as John Humphrey Noyes, the founder of the Oneida Community, put it) "money in the bank" for other communitarian experimenters: they could point to the Shakers and say "See, they've been doing this for decades! It works!" But all the same, he seems considerably more interested in the other communes, so it might have been better to shorten the Shaker section or make it part of the introduction or otherwise mitigate its comparative weakness.
Jennings is much more at home among the other communitarians, who were much more literarily prolific. Jennings' has a particular eye for a good quote, like William Dean Howells' "famous three-word review of James's The Secret of Swedenborg: 'He kept it.'" (Howells was not himself a communitarian reformer, but he lived close to the movement: his wife was John Humphrey Noyes' niece, on the respectable, non-Oneida side of the family. I am continually amazed by just how small and interconnected the upper crust of nineteenth-century American society was.)
He is also blessed in that many of these reformers were delightfully quirky. Take, for instance, Fourier, who believed that his social theories would reform not only human society but the entire earth. Mosquitoes would die out, because mosquitoes have no place in a perfect world! (Who can argue with that?) Also giraffes, because giraffes are clearly too funny-looking to exist in utopia. The polar ice caps will melt, and their boreal fluid will make the sea potable, and give it the delicious tang of lemonade!
This sort of thing is easy to make fun of, and Jennings certainly has a dry sense of humor about it. But he's also at pains to try to show the reader what contemporaries found appealing about these movements, which I respect, although honestly I think he gives Fourier in particular too much credit for foresight (probably to counteract the fact that Fourier is by far the most bonkers). Sure, Fourier may have been right that the polar ice caps will melt, but he was wrong about the lemonade thing, and in any case anyone who writes thousands and thousands of pages of nonsense is bound to be right about something eventually.
I kind of want to go through chapter by chapter and share the greatest hits, because there's so much in this book that is fascinating or hilarious or poignant. But it's probably better just to recommend the book.
Just maybe skip the chapter about the Shakers.
I can see why he started with the Shakers nonetheless, because the success of their communitarian experiment was (as John Humphrey Noyes, the founder of the Oneida Community, put it) "money in the bank" for other communitarian experimenters: they could point to the Shakers and say "See, they've been doing this for decades! It works!" But all the same, he seems considerably more interested in the other communes, so it might have been better to shorten the Shaker section or make it part of the introduction or otherwise mitigate its comparative weakness.
Jennings is much more at home among the other communitarians, who were much more literarily prolific. Jennings' has a particular eye for a good quote, like William Dean Howells' "famous three-word review of James's The Secret of Swedenborg: 'He kept it.'" (Howells was not himself a communitarian reformer, but he lived close to the movement: his wife was John Humphrey Noyes' niece, on the respectable, non-Oneida side of the family. I am continually amazed by just how small and interconnected the upper crust of nineteenth-century American society was.)
He is also blessed in that many of these reformers were delightfully quirky. Take, for instance, Fourier, who believed that his social theories would reform not only human society but the entire earth. Mosquitoes would die out, because mosquitoes have no place in a perfect world! (Who can argue with that?) Also giraffes, because giraffes are clearly too funny-looking to exist in utopia. The polar ice caps will melt, and their boreal fluid will make the sea potable, and give it the delicious tang of lemonade!
This sort of thing is easy to make fun of, and Jennings certainly has a dry sense of humor about it. But he's also at pains to try to show the reader what contemporaries found appealing about these movements, which I respect, although honestly I think he gives Fourier in particular too much credit for foresight (probably to counteract the fact that Fourier is by far the most bonkers). Sure, Fourier may have been right that the polar ice caps will melt, but he was wrong about the lemonade thing, and in any case anyone who writes thousands and thousands of pages of nonsense is bound to be right about something eventually.
I kind of want to go through chapter by chapter and share the greatest hits, because there's so much in this book that is fascinating or hilarious or poignant. But it's probably better just to recommend the book.
Just maybe skip the chapter about the Shakers.