Books: This Other Eden By Ben Elton (1993)

"The Earth is being devastated by mankind's continued exploitation, and it seems obvious that the environment will collapse sometime in the near future. Rather than adopt a more eco-friendly approach to life, most people have instead invested in a "claustrosphere", a dome-shaped habitat in which all water, food and air is endlessly recycled in a completely closed environment. A person can therefore survive indefinitely within a claustrosphere no matter what ecological horrors may happen outside. British writer, Nathan, who is attempting to sell an idea for a claustrosphere commercial to Plastic Tolstoy, owner and chief marketer of the company which builds them. The commercial represents a change in emphasis for the advertising campaign; up to now claustropheres have been sold as a kind of fall-back insurance, just in case the environment collapses. However, now that virtually everybody owns at least a basic model, sales are falling and the company is having to try and sell upgrade and improvement packages instead. The new advertising, therefore, attempts to convince people for the first time that the environment truly is doomed and they are inevitably going to have to live in their claustrospheres."

Despite the heaviness to the plot, comedian Ben Elton’s (The Young Ones, Blackadder) third novel, This Other Eden, also takes a satirical approach to environmentalism. So despite some the serious themes, there is enough humor to make this a fun (if overlong) tale about the fact the planet is dying and no one really sees anyway to solve it because, as always, it’s costs money and there is no profit in the end. Fear, however, has always been and will always be, is what drives media corporations, politicians, and even environmentalists to make gobs of money and never solve any of the planets problems.

The book takes place in different parts of the world, including Los Angele and Ireland, and other European cities and we never get an actual date of when this takes place, beyond it being set “in the near future.” But Elton appeared to be prescient on a few things, like gender,  

“Judy was a man, even though he had a woman’s name. He was called Judy because he had been unfortunate enough to be born during the time of the great gender realignment. A period when it was commonly held belief in the University commons-rooms of the world that all single sex imagery was oppressive. This was a time when men were strongly encouraged not to grow beards, which were seen as a visual assertions of gender, whereas it became fashionable for women to be as hairy as possible, in order to blur the margins. The idea was that if everyone could pretend to be exactly the same then no one could be held back by being different and hence, it was argued, the individual would be in a position to prosper”

Also mobile phones, and daytime TV that focuses on how easy it is to exploit people’s problems for profit. He is also able to capture the insanity of how sometimes doing good can be bad, and how one person can convince the mass audience that they are the best person to save the world.

While released thirty years ago, the books themes are pretty relevant today as it probably was when it was published. While wild and unbelievable in some aspects, back in 1993, many would say it was science fiction and no one would let the Earth die for profit.

“The fact was, the cynics in Mother Earth have been naïve as everyone else in the world about the nature of government. The basic perception of modern society is that ‘they’ (that big, catch-all term for the powers that be) are at least attempting to look after our best interest. That there is a logical and at least partially benign force which watches over us, and for which we pay our taxes. Certainly, we think that ‘they’ are, in the main, a bunch of hypocritical bastards on the make, but deep down we presume that at heart they want what’s best for us. “Surely ‘they’ wouldn’t let us drink polluted water?” we say to ourselves. “Surely ‘they’ would tell us if the food was poisonous. Surely they would never stitch people up for crimes those people did not commit and put them away for 20 years without appeal?”

In the end, I found I like the book and highly recommend it. Yes, it can be depressing sometimes, but there is always a good joke around the corner (something comedians are great at). And maybe that’s why anyone who does read, understand that the truths written in a novel thirty years ago are still going on today. Because the book does not give any real solutions, ironically, but does offer some thoughts on if we work together, instead being opposing forces, Earth may recover from the destruction humans have done to it over (honestly) a very short time period.