Imagine, if you can, a small room, hexagonal in shape, like the cell of a bee. It is lighted neither by window nor by lamp, yet it is filled with a soft radiance. There are no apertures for ventilation, yet the air is fresh. There are no musical instruments, and yet, at the moment that my meditation opens, this room is throbbing with melodious sounds. An armchair is in the centre, by its side a reading-desk - that is all the furniture. And in the armchair there sits a swaddled lump of flesh - a woman, about five feet high, with a face as white as a fungus. It is to her that the little room belongs.
- From The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster
2 comments:
Quite a dystopian tale albeit with a proto-human who tears himself from his machine swaddling and seeks the light of day. The main question seems to be just how far in the wrong direction society can go before it's too far to go back. Written in 1909, it echoes our own experiments in heading in the wrong direction; variations on a theme, only the details differ.
Interested parties may read it for free at
http://archive.ncsa.illinois.edu/prajlich/forster.html
You pick some interesting books to highlight. As always, I appreciate your work.
Jim
Art, swing sets in the rain, "The Machine Stops" vs "The People Start," goofy or divine, your call.
Scratch & Dent Dreams--Slam Poetry
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfTa4B7wQ_8
Jim
Post a Comment