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'{{Short description|1872 novel}} {{other uses}} {{redirect|Over the Range|the 1937 book|Over the Range (Idriess book)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=September 2013}} {{Use British English|date=September 2013}} {{Infobox book| |name = Erewhon |title_orig = |translator = |image = Erewhon Cover.jpg |image_size = |caption = First edition cover |author = [[Samuel Butler (novelist)|Samuel Butler]] |illustrator = |cover_artist = |country = [[United Kingdom]] |language = English |series = |genre = [[Satire]] |publisher = [[Nicholas Trübner|Trübner]] and [[John Ballantyne (publisher)|Ballantyne]] |release_date = 1872 |english_release_date = |congress = PR4349.B7 E7 1872 c. 1 |media_type = |pages = 246 |isbn = |oclc = 2735354 |dewey = 823.8 |preceded_by = |followed_by = [[Erewhon Revisited]] }} [[File:Erewhon.map.jpg|thumb|right|400px|Map of part of New Zealand to illustrate ''Erewhon'' and ''[[Erewhon Revisited]]'']] '''''Erewhon: or, Over the Range''''' ({{IPAc-en|ɛ|r|ɛ|ʍ|ɒ|n}}<ref>The title itself is an anagram of the word 'nowhere.' In the preface to the first edition of his book, Butler specified that "The Author wishes it to be understood that Erewhon is pronounced as a word of three syllables, all short—thus, Ĕ-rĕ-whŏn." Nevertheless, the word is occasionally pronounced with two syllables as "air-hwun" or "air-one".</ref>) is a novel by [[Samuel Butler (novelist)|Samuel Butler]] which was first published anonymously in 1872,<ref>{{Cite book |year=1872 |title= Erewhon, or Over the Range |publisher=Trubner & Co. |place=London |edition= 1 |url=https://archive.org/stream/ErewhonOverrang00Butl#page/ii/mode/2up |access-date=5 March 2016 |via= Internet Archive}}</ref> set in a [[fictional country]] discovered and explored by the protagonist. The book is a satire on [[Victorian morality|Victorian]] society.<ref>George Orwell, ''Erewhon'', BBC Home Service, Talks for Schools, 8 June 1945</ref> The first few chapters of the novel dealing with the discovery of Erewhon are in fact based on Butler's own experiences in [[New Zealand]], where, as a young man, he worked as a [[sheep station|sheep farmer]] on [[Mesopotamia Station]] for about four years (1860–64), and explored parts of the interior of the [[South Island]] and which he wrote about in his ''A First Year in Canterbury Settlement'' (1863). The novel is one of the first to explore ideas of [[Artificial intelligence in fiction|artificial intelligence]], as influenced by [[Charles Darwin|Darwin's]] recently published ''[[On the Origin of Species]]'' (1859) and the machines developed out of the [[Industrial Revolution]] (late 18th to early 19th centuries). Specifically, it concerns itself, in the three-chapter "Book of the Machines", with the potentially dangerous ideas of [[Artificial consciousness|machine consciousness]] and [[Self-replicating machines in fiction|self-replicating machines]]. ==Content== The greater part of the book consists of a description of Erewhon. The nature of this nation is intended to be ambiguous. At first glance, Erewhon appears to be a [[Utopia]], yet it soon becomes clear that this is far from the case. Yet for all the failings of Erewhon, it is also clearly not a [[dystopia]], such as that depicted in 1949 in [[George Orwell]]'s ''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four]]''. As a [[satirical]] utopia, ''Erewhon'' has sometimes been compared to ''[[Gulliver's Travels]]'' (1726), a classic novel by [[Jonathan Swift]]; the image of Utopia in this latter case also bears strong parallels with the self-view of the [[British Empire]] at the time. It can also be compared to the [[William Morris]] novel, ''[[News from Nowhere]]'' (1890). ''Erewhon'' satirises various aspects of [[Victorian era|Victorian society]], including criminal punishment, religion and [[anthropocentrism]]. For example, according to Erewhonian law, offenders are treated as if they were ill, whereas ill people are looked upon as criminals. Another feature of Erewhon is the absence of machines; this is due to the widely shared perception by the Erewhonians that they are potentially dangerous. ===The Book of the Machines=== Butler developed the three chapters of ''Erewhon'' that make up "The Book of the Machines" from a number of articles that he had contributed to ''[[The Press]]'', which had just begun publication in [[Christchurch]], New Zealand, beginning with "[[Darwin among the Machines]]" (1863). Butler was the first to write about the possibility that [[Artificial consciousness|machines might develop consciousness]] by [[natural selection]].<ref>''[https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6173 "Darwin among the Machines"], reprinted in the Notebooks of Samuel Butler at [[Project Gutenberg]]</ref> Many dismissed this as a joke; but, in his preface to the second edition, Butler wrote, "I regret that reviewers have in some cases been inclined to treat the chapters on Machines as an attempt to reduce Mr Darwin's theory to an absurdity. Nothing could be further from my intention, and few things would be more distasteful to me than any attempt to laugh at Mr Darwin." ===Characters=== * Higgs—The narrator who informs the reader of the nature of Erewhonian society. * Chowbok (Kahabuka)—Higgs' guide into the mountains; he is a native who greatly fears the Erewhonians. He eventually abandons Higgs. * Yram—The daughter of Higgs' jailer who takes care of him when he first enters Erewhon. Her name is Mary spelled backwards. * Senoj Nosnibor—Higgs' host after he is released from prison; he hopes that Higgs will marry his elder daughter. His name is Robinson Jones backwards. * Zulora—Senoj Nosnibor's elder daughter—Higgs finds her unpleasant, but her father hopes Higgs will marry her. Her name is Aroluz backwards. * Arowhena—Senoj Nosnibor's younger daughter; she falls in love with Higgs and runs away with him. * Mahaina—A woman who claims to suffer from [[alcoholism]] but is believed to have a weak temperament. * Ydgrun—The incomprehensible goddess of the Erewhonians. Her name is an anagram of Grundy (from [[Mrs. Grundy]], a character in [[Thomas Morton (playwright)|Thomas Morton]]'s play ''[[Speed the Plough]]''). ==Reception== In a 1945 broadcast, [[George Orwell]] praised the book and said that when Butler wrote ''Erewhon'' it needed "imagination of a very high order to see that machinery could be dangerous as well as useful." He recommended the novel, though not its sequel, ''[[Erewhon Revisited]]''.<ref>Orwell, Collected Works, I Belong to the Left, pp. 172–173</ref> ==Influence and legacy== ===Deleuze and Guattari=== The French philosopher [[Gilles Deleuze]] used ideas from Butler's book at various points in the development of his philosophy of difference. In ''[[Difference and Repetition]]'' (1968), Deleuze refers to what he calls "Ideas" as "Erewhon". "Ideas are not concepts", he argues, but rather "a form of eternally positive differential [[Multiplicity (philosophy)|multiplicity]], distinguished from the identity of concepts."<ref>Deleuze (1968, p. 288).</ref> "Erewhon" refers to the "nomadic distributions" that pertain to [[Simulacrum|simulacra]], which "are not [[Universal (metaphysics)|universals]] like the [[Category (Kant)|categories]], nor are they the ''hic et nunc'' or ''nowhere'', the diversity to which categories apply in representation."<ref>Deleuze (1968, p. 285).</ref> "Erewhon", in this reading, is "not only a disguised ''no-where'' but a rearranged ''now-here''."<ref>Deleuze (1968, p. 333, n.7).</ref> In his collaboration with [[Félix Guattari]], ''[[Anti-Oedipus]]'' (1972), Deleuze draws on Butler's "The Book of the Machines" to "go beyond" the "usual polemic between [[vitalism]] and [[Mechanism (philosophy)|mechanism]]" as it relates to their concept of "[[Desiring-production|desiring-machines]]":<ref>Deleuze and Guattari (1972, pp. 312–314).</ref> {{quote|For one thing, Butler is not content to say that machines extend the [[organism]], but asserts that they are really limbs and organs lying on the [[body without organs]] of a society, which men will appropriate according to their power and their wealth, and whose poverty deprives them as if they were mutilated organisms. For another, he is not content to say that organisms are machines, but asserts that they contain such an abundance of parts that they must be compared to very different parts of distinct machines, each relating to the others, engendered in combination with the others ... He shatters the vitalist argument by calling in question the specific or personal unity of the organism, and the mechanist argument even more decisively, by calling in question the structural unity of the machine.|[[Gilles Deleuze|Deleuze]] and [[Félix Guattari|Guattari]]|''[[Anti-Œdipus]]''}} ===Other uses=== [[C. S. Lewis]] alludes to the book in his essay, ''The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment'' in the posthumously published collection, ''God in the Dock'' (1970). [[Aldous Huxley]] alludes to the book in his novel ''Island'' (1962) as does [[Agatha Christie]] in ''Death on the Nile'' (1937). In 1994, a group of ex-[[Yugoslavia]]n writers in [[Amsterdam]], who had established the [[International PEN|PEN centre of Yugoslav Writers in Exile]], published a single issue of a literary journal ''Erewhon''.<ref>''[http://www.biblio.com/slobodan-et-al-blagojevic/erewhon~1189370~title Erewhon]''; Blagojevic, Slobodan, et al.</ref> New Zealand sound art organisation, the Audio Foundation, published in 2012 an anthology edited by [[Bruce Russell (musician)|Bruce Russell]] named ''Erewhon Calling'' after Butler's book.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Hayes|first1=Craig|title=Crooked Sounds from Aotearoa 'Erewhon Calling: Experimental Sound in New Zealand|url=https://www.popmatters.com/163769-erewhon-calling-experimental-sound-in-new-zealand-bruce-russell-edit-2495811032.html|website=Pop Matters|access-date=5 December 2017}}</ref> In 2014, [[New Zealand]] artist [[Gavin Hipkins]] released his first feature film, titled ''Erewhon'' and based on Butler's book. It premiered at the [[New Zealand International Film Festival]] and the [[Edinburgh Art Festival]].<ref>{{cite web|title=Review of 'Erewhon'|url=http://www.circuit.org.nz/blog/circuit-cast-episode-14-gavin-hipkins-kim-paton-spark-festival|website=CIRCUIT|date=19 September 2014|access-date=12 June 2016}}</ref> In "[[Smile (Doctor Who)|Smile]]", the second episode of the 2017 season of ''[[Doctor Who]]'', the Doctor and Bill explore a spaceship named ''Erehwon''. Despite the slightly different spelling, the episode writer [[Frank Cottrell-Boyce]] confirmed<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://twitter.com/frankcottrell_b/status/855857616358166528|title=Frank Cottrell-Boyce on Twitter|work=Twitter|access-date=2017-05-21|language=en}}</ref> that this was a reference to Butler's novel. The book [[The Open Society and Its Enemies|The open society and its enemies]], by [[Karl Popper]], reproduces on first page, the following citation of Butler: ''"It will be seen . . . that the Erewhoniaris arare a meek and long-suffering people easily led by the nose, and quick to offer up common sense at the shrine of logic, when a philosopher arises among them who carries them away... by convincing them that their existing institutions are not based on the strictest principles of morality".''<ref>Popper, Karl Raimund. The open society and its enemies: The spell of Plato. Vol. 1. Princeton University Press, 1971.</ref> 'The Butlerian Jihad' is the name of the crusade to wipe out 'thinking machines' in the novel, ''[[Dune (novel)|Dune]]'', by [[Frank Herbert]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://spartanideas.msu.edu/2016/03/29/8624/|title = The Butlerian Jihad and Darwin among the Machines}}</ref> 'Erewhon' is the name of Los Angeles-based natural foods grocery store originally founded in Boston in 1966.<ref>{{cite web|title=History of Erewhon – Natural Foods Pioneer in the United States (1966-2011)|url=http://www.soyinfocenter.com/pdf/Erewhon.pdf|website=Soy Info Center|access-date=21 December 2019}}</ref> 'Erewhon' is also the name of an independent speculative fiction publishing company<ref>{{cite web| url = https://www.erewhonbooks.com| title = Erewhon Books}}</ref> founded in 2018 by [[Liz Gorinsky]].<ref>{{cite web|title=New Science Fiction and Fantasy Publisher Founded by Former Tor Books Editor|url=https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/liz-gorinsky-founds-erewhon-books-1153139|website=The Hollywood Reporter|date=17 October 2018|access-date=17 October 2018}}</ref> ==See also== * [[Rangitata River]] – the location of the Erewhon sheep station named by Butler who was the first white settler in the area and lived at the Mesopotamia Sheep Station * [[Nacirema]] - another piece of satirical writing with a similar backwards pun ==References== {{Reflist}} * "Mesopotamia Station", Newton, P. (1960) * "Early Canterbury Runs", Acland, L. G. D. (1946) * "Samuel Butler of Mesopotamia", Maling, P. B. (1960) * "The Cradle of Erewhon", Jones, J. (1959) * ''The Day of the Dolphin'' (1973 film starring George C. Scott); it is the name of a motorboat that appears approx. 12 min. into the film. ==External links== {{Wikisource|Erewhon}} * {{StandardEbooks|Standard Ebooks URL=https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/samuel-butler/erewhon}} * {{Gutenberg|1906|Erewhon}} * [http://www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly/tei-ButFir-t1-g1-t1-g1-t4-body.html "Darwin Among the Machines" (To the Editor of ''The Press'', Christchurch, New Zealand, 13 June 1863)] from the [[New Zealand Electronic Text Centre]] * {{librivox book | title=Erewhon | author=Samuel BUTLER}} {{Authority control}} {{Deleuze-Guattari}} [[Category:1872 British novels]] [[Category:1872 fantasy novels]] [[Category:English novels]] [[Category:Fictional European countries]] [[Category:Technology in society]] [[Category:Utopian novels]] [[Category:Lost world novels]] [[Category:Novels by Samuel Butler (novelist)]] [[Category:Novels about artificial intelligence]] [[Category:1872 science fiction novels]] [[Category:British science fiction novels]] [[Category:Social science fiction]] [[Category:Novels set in New Zealand]] [[Category:British novels adapted into films]] [[Category:Victorian novels]] [[Category:Works published anonymously]] [[Category:British satirical novels]]'