APATHY rules (This Other Eden - Ben Elton)

Member Name: Katz1

Product:	This Other Eden - Ben Elton
Date:	01/02/02 (283 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Makes you think about our future

Disadvantages: Too much ranting about irrelevancies

Ben Elton, as most of you will know, is a man of many talents. Stand-up comedian, comedy scriptwriter (with co-writing credits on “Blackadder” and “The Young Ones”), playwright, and of course, novelist. “This Other Eden” was his third novel after “Stark” and “Gridlock”, and was published in 1993.

If you are familiar with his stand-up comedy, then you will be aware that his favourite topics seem to be ranting against political institutions and everything that he sees wrong with current society. I imagine that people of my age group or above will remember his stand-up routines, constantly and justifiably moaning on about “Mrs. Thatch” and her Tory government. “This Other Eden”, in my opinion, is a slightly longer, more complex and not quite as amusing rant.

The story commences with a view into what life is going to be like in the next century for the inhabitants of Earth. The first image described is of a rat gnawing away at a man’s gangrenous leg, and the man then deciding that he is going to have to cut off the leg to save himself – mm, nice. As a reader, you think this is where the story starts. However, we discover that all is not quite as it seems and this cheerful view of the future has been brought to you by one Nathan Hoddy, a British screen writer, whose job it is to come up with ideas of how to market the end of the world. Yes, you did read that correctly, I shall endeavour to explain.

The actual story is set sometime in the future – Mr. Elton does not specify exactly when, but you get the impression that it’s not too far off. The society is technically much more advanced than our own: most people (especially in America) undergo lots of plastic surgery, making them as beautiful as they want to be, AIDS is still around so people use spray-on condoms that they carry around in their bags, they use virtual reality helmets in th
eir spare time and travel seems to be more efficient. However, the years and years of human neglect of the planet have left it in a dreadful state. There is virtually no sunlight (and where there is, it is usually man-made), to go outside is to subject yourself to thousands of incredibly harmful carcinogenic rays. Britain has become the dumping ground for the rest of the world and is only too happy to accept toxic waste from all other areas of the globe (to remain best buddies with America). There are an increasing number of environmental disasters, so many in fact, that they only make the news for a matter of hours, if not minutes. Due to this impending Armageddon, referred to throughout the book as the “Rat Run” (hence the image of the rat gnawing off a leg), the people of Earth are buying “Claustrospheres” in ever-increasing numbers. A Claustrosphere, in case you were wondering, is a self-sufficient environment within a large dome-shaped enclosure where, depending on its size, a family or families (or hundreds of families) can live quite happily for many years, never needing (or in fact being able) to leave it. I suppose you could call it the futuristic version of a nuclear shelter. The mere fact that Claustrospheres exist, however, is a cause of great annoyance to those people who still believe that the world is not a lost cause; the environmental terrorist organisation “Mother Earth” and their political wing “Natura”. These two groups are in a constant battle with the Claustrosphere company who they claim is profiting from the end of the world. They believe that for people to buy a Claustrosphere means that they are accepting that one day the Earth is going to die and they are not going to do anything about it, they are, in effect, speeding up the process. By choosing a Claustrosphere, they are turning their backs on the rubbish heap that is earth for their own personal manufactured “edens”. The pictu
re on the front cover is of a Claustrosphere, cleverly illustrated in the shape of an apple (“This Other Eden”, you get it?).

The story is not just set in Britain; it flits between America, Britain, Ireland and various parts of Europe. It is told in the third person and follows the fortunes of a variety of very different characters. The first person we meet, as briefly mentioned, is Nathan. He is trying to pitch the ‘rat gnawing off leg’ idea to the most powerful man in the world, American television guru and head of the Claustrosphere incorporation, the unusually yet appropriately named, Plastic Tolstoy. Plastic has achieved this position of power through convincing the world that marketing is all that matters and that, beforehand, there really were too many programmes breaking up the adverts. Plastic Tolstoy, therefore, is the creator of the “advertainment”, an extra long advert whose aim it is to capture people’s attention whilst also selling them things. Of course, soap operas still exist, but they are full-to-bursting with product placements, they all have the same content and are automatically and simultaneously dubbed into thousands of languages, thus making their production much cheaper and the rewards much greater. Televised news also exists but is itself subject to Tolstoy’s megalomaniac control, meaning that news of disasters is always cleverly followed up by Claustrosphere adverts, encouraging people to buy one while they still can!

The other main characters include Max Maximus, a very popular American actor (who stars in advertainments and virtual reality games), Rosalie Donnelly, an Irish Mother Earth activist, Jurgen Thor, the sex-god Scandinavian leader of Natura and Judy Schwartz, a geeky looking MALE FBI agent. The heroes of the piece are Max and Rosalie, who have a kind of chalk and cheese relationship and who are together, trying to save the world (Max is joining in though, mainly
because he fancies Rosalie). I did not entirely understand what Judy’s role was in the whole thing. I think he was supposed to be some kind of comic “straight” man or something. I didn’t understand his motives for finding out about the environmental disasters even though he was the most believable of all the characters.

I suppose you could class this story as soft sci-fi, if you can call it sci-fi at all. Although we are told about the technical inventions and the problems the Earth is having, I do not feel they are described in sufficient detail for you to imagine them clearly enough or for them to seem realistic (there are various bits that just don’t add up either). In my opinion, the novel is more an excuse for Elton to vent his bile about everything he sees wrong with today’s society. He lends chapters to moaning about taxi drivers, movie directors, people that throw gum on the floor, baggage handlers at airports, theatrical agents, and so on and so forth. To be honest, this book, for me, is a thinly veiled rant against western society and our apathy in general. Sometimes he sounds like an old man down the pub, moaning about the state of everything. The tone of Elton’s writing in this book is generally tongue-in-cheek and sarcastic. He obviously holds a very bleak view on the future and of mankind in general, and a very cynical view of our governments.

Of course, he takes the situation to the nth degree but this is sometimes a good thing as he has valid points to make and by exaggerating, it captures your attention more. From an environmental point of view, this book could be successful in shocking people into taking a closer and more cynical look at the society around them and not just trusting blindly in their governments and Hollywood films. He successfully puts across his view that all of us are selfish in our own way – the people flocking to buy claustrospheres care more about saving thems
elves than saving the planet, Jurgen Thor cares more about his image and his sex life than he does about sticking to his morals and fighting for the planet, Plastic Tolstoy, well, Plastic Tolstoy is everything that Elton thinks is wrong with our commercial society rolled into one. The only people he makes us like are Rosalie and her family, they are the ones who have been least affected by the trappings of modern life and still have morals and something to fight for.

Parts of the book also seem to be about innocence lost – the naivety of youth and thinking you can change something, growing into age and experience and the slow and sad acceptance that you’re really not that important after all and unlikely to ever change anything. I sometimes thought some of the characters might be metaphors for Elton himself. The hapless writer constantly battling to get his original thoughts heard by monstrous moviemakers. The geeky but incredibly intelligent guy, the once naive environmentalist becoming cynical about it all.

I did have problems with this book, however, which is why I haven’t given it a very high rating. I felt that the characters were all a bit stereotyped – the heart-throb young actor, the fiery red-haired Irish girl, the fat cat corporation owner, the large, powerful looking nature-loving Scandivanian and the geeky American Federal agent – they are all easy to picture and yet not three-dimensional enough for my liking. I was interested in the plot though and especially how it was going to turn out, for example, was the world actually going to end? Were they going to get to the bottom about who was causing the environmental disasters (although, that was pretty obvious)? Were Rosalie and Max going to get together and stay together?

There are amusing aspects to the novel too, although it did not make me laugh out loud. I would recommend it, if you are interested in seeing a disturbing view of the future and
like a fairly interesting plot. If you want really interesting characters, a stunning plot and are not interested in reading Elton’s opinions on the world and its dog, then don’t read this, or don’t say I didn’t warn you!

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