Blog#8 - Donnelly

Aniruddha Joshi
English 1102
Dr Reynolds
March 31, 2009
Blog #8
This was indeed a very interesting novel and I have not read a book like this before. It is a novel which portrays a utopia at a time in the future. The book is organized into letters which Gabriel writes to his brother. I found it a very effective way of narrating the story in first person. There are some key aspects of the book which jumped out at me which I felt the need to address.
At first, in chapter one , the reader pictures a perfect utopia with the description of New York which Gabriel portrays in his letter to his brother. Future New York is shown as a perfect place to live with its technology, its size and it being simply the pinnacle of human society. However, as one progresses into the book, future New York is shown as a dystopia of sorts. New York gets worse through the chapters as more is revealed on the political problems of the city.
The book holds a lot of political references in my opinion which may or may not be intended by the author. First of all, Africa is portrayed to be still a third world sort of place even if it is substantially better off than it is now. It is a dystopia in the future world portrayed. African countries seem much more organized though. This could be something the author intended for the reader to think about. Jews are noted to be the wealthiest and the noblest of the people in New York. I am not saying that the Donelly is making a statement of the future but I was just posed the question why he chose to specify this on multiple occasions in the book.