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Jul. 17th, 2023 10:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsOne of the books I read in the past couple months that I've been really eager to write up is Everything For Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052-2072.
This is not so much a novel as a thought experiment and socialist argument about how the collapse of our current society might result in the development of a better one, constructed as a series of imaginary oral history interviews with various New Yorkers about their experiences during the aforementioned collapse and how they ended up playing a role in rebuilding afterwards.
Although New York is the structural center of the book, it's definitely not intended to be considered as the center of the new world, just the place where this particular lens happens to fall. The interviews are structured to provide various glimpses of global revolution, with interviewees reporting back on their time in Palestine, China, and Native American territories in the Midwest. There is a chapter on the communization of space. (Poor Staten Island, once again, gets to stand in as representative of New York's reactionary sentiment, and spends several years entirely under the purview of an ethnonationalist cult before the revolution comes.)
Although the interviews are intended primarily to illustrate a speculative history and speculative society, the interviewees are also individuals, with their own individual stories and perspectives on events. Some of them are carrying enormous amounts of trauma from living through the collapse; some of them are so young that they've never known anything but the New York Commune. The most charming element of the book, to me, is the way the authors position themselves as 'interviewers' within the narrative as slightly out-of-touch olds who are constantly tripping over their own assumptions, or having to have concepts explained to them that teens and young adults growing up in the new society take for granted.
The transformative utopian future as envisioned by the authors is post-capital, post-borders, post-nationalism, post-nuclear family. I personally found myself with plenty to agree with and plenty to fight with them about -- which is fine, as these authors are clearly no stranger to leftist infighting and it's certainly not a world post-argument either. Either way, I'm really glad to have read it. It's a deeply digestible way to experience theory, and I love having a compelling vision to fight with.
This is not so much a novel as a thought experiment and socialist argument about how the collapse of our current society might result in the development of a better one, constructed as a series of imaginary oral history interviews with various New Yorkers about their experiences during the aforementioned collapse and how they ended up playing a role in rebuilding afterwards.
Although New York is the structural center of the book, it's definitely not intended to be considered as the center of the new world, just the place where this particular lens happens to fall. The interviews are structured to provide various glimpses of global revolution, with interviewees reporting back on their time in Palestine, China, and Native American territories in the Midwest. There is a chapter on the communization of space. (Poor Staten Island, once again, gets to stand in as representative of New York's reactionary sentiment, and spends several years entirely under the purview of an ethnonationalist cult before the revolution comes.)
Although the interviews are intended primarily to illustrate a speculative history and speculative society, the interviewees are also individuals, with their own individual stories and perspectives on events. Some of them are carrying enormous amounts of trauma from living through the collapse; some of them are so young that they've never known anything but the New York Commune. The most charming element of the book, to me, is the way the authors position themselves as 'interviewers' within the narrative as slightly out-of-touch olds who are constantly tripping over their own assumptions, or having to have concepts explained to them that teens and young adults growing up in the new society take for granted.
The transformative utopian future as envisioned by the authors is post-capital, post-borders, post-nationalism, post-nuclear family. I personally found myself with plenty to agree with and plenty to fight with them about -- which is fine, as these authors are clearly no stranger to leftist infighting and it's certainly not a world post-argument either. Either way, I'm really glad to have read it. It's a deeply digestible way to experience theory, and I love having a compelling vision to fight with.
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Date: 2023-07-18 03:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-07-18 03:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-07-18 05:04 am (UTC)(The time will come when I read enough leftist literature to agree and fight properly. Emma Goldman's autobiography is looking at me from the shelf).
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Date: 2023-07-18 06:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-07-18 06:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-07-18 11:33 am (UTC)purchased!
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Date: 2023-07-18 01:08 pm (UTC)Thanks for bringing this to my attention!
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Date: 2023-07-18 04:54 pm (UTC)Also, you know, maybe Staten Island gets this rep in spec fic novels for a reason, IJS…
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Date: 2023-07-19 03:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-07-19 03:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-07-19 03:12 am (UTC)(Emma Goldman's autobiography has been looking at me for SO long and someday I have GOT to take up the challenge)
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Date: 2023-07-19 03:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-07-19 03:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-07-19 03:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-07-19 03:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-07-19 03:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-07-21 01:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-07-21 11:55 am (UTC)(Mostly I clung and lost my suspension of disbelief with the whole 'oh, everything fell apart but twenty years later we have all this INCREDIBLE technology' thing. Also got a bit cranky about the obsession with reproduction that seemed to be threaded throughout the book.)
But overall, an engaging read and I want to read more fake oral histories now!