[Comments] The Blazing-World by Margaret Cavendish

[Fillyjonk]

The Blazing-World Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, had enough wealth and power in 1666 to educate and please herself. And so she did, becoming a philosopher, scientist, naturalist, poet... Known as Mad Madge (mostly because she had ideas and published under own name), she is most famous for THE BLAZING WORLD, one of the first examples of science fiction. It features animal-folk, submarines, characters with tiefling Virtue names, plane travel, women talking about philosophy, descriptions of Utopia, satire, love, and other strangenesses --- especially for the time. Clocking in at only 34,000 words, we can all dip into it a little bit, I hope! You can read it for free here, though the formatting is a little unfriendly. You can rent the movie based on the book here on VUDU, and perhaps other places. It is has spectacularly bad reviews. You can shell out almost 70 bucks for the Illuminated Version brought to you by the exquisite weirdos at Beehive Books. WARNING: the cover has space boobs in it, but I consider them PG because they are artspace boobs, such as anyone of any age might see in a museum. STILL, if your work filter doesn't understand the difference between art bosoms and NSFW bosoms, perhaps do not click this link until you are home. You can also pick up a paperback for under 10 bucks or buy a (presumably) better formatted version for 99 cents on Evil Amazon.

[Ildrahil]

1666 and she did this? She must have been in league with Lucifer. She should have been burned as a witch. I mean, she turned me into a newt. Well, I got better.

[lostcheerio]

Check it, from the dedication to her female readers:

Though I cannot be Henry the Fifth, or Charles the Second; yet, I will endeavour to be, Margaret the First: and, though I have neither Power, Time nor Occasion, to be a great Conqueror, like Alexander, or Cesar; yet, rather than not be Mistress of a World, since Fortune and the Fates would give me none, I have made One of my own. And thus, believing, or, at least, hoping, that no Creature can, or will, Envy me for this World of mine, I remain,

Noble Ladies, Your Humble Servant, M. Newcastle.

[Ildrahil]

I absolutely love that. This was a great pick and someone I've been studying up on. Not just the book but her life. This was an amazing woman for her time, for any time.

[lostcheerio]

She had neither power nor TIME NOR OCCASION to be a great conqueror.

This kills me.

[lostcheerio]

So far the lady has been captured by some animal people who took her in ships of gold powered by wind machines to a city of gold and diamonds where she is being worshiped as a goddess.

And I think we need to bring back the word "soever." It's useful!

[lostcheerio]

It does not suck to be this main character:

"No sooner was the Lady brought before the Emperor, but he conceived her to be some Goddess, and offered to worship her; which she refused, telling him, (for by that time she had pretty well learned their Language) that although she came out of another world, yet was she but a mortal. At which the Emperor rejoycing, made her his Wife, and gave her an absolute power to rule and govern all that World as she pleased. But her subjects, who could hardly be perswaded to believe her mortal, tender'd her all the Veneration and Worship due to a Deity."

[bothers]

Sounds alright but it'd be even better if she didn't have to marry the dude first. I feel like one of the best things about being a goddess in 1666 is that you shouldn't need to be Married To A Dude to have validity. Does she at least murder him for objectifying her and assume the throne? I hope so!

Facetiousness aside, I've been reading a lot of stuff lately about women and marriage in the early modern period, and I think it's quite interesting that these ideas about marriage being the ultimate goal for a lady are so taken for granted that they're even transposed onto deities. In 500 years time, I wonder what weird beliefs we take for granted are going to have our descendants scratching their heads?

[Ildrahil]

500 years...I hope it's money. What the heck did they use that stuff for? To pay for things? But things are just things. We all share and there is so much across all the planets of the Federation. Oh wait, that's Star trek.

[Fillyjonk]

Originally Posted by bothers

Sounds alright but it'd be even better if she didn't have to marry the dude first. I feel like one of the best things about being a goddess in 1666 is that you shouldn't need to be Married To A Dude to have validity. Does she at least murder him for objectifying her and assume the throne? I hope so!

She probably wanted to. Because on PAGE ONE, when a man falleth in loveth with her and has the reasonable plan of just kidnapping her and keeping her, the seas rise up and drive the ship to the north pole where:

...alas! Those few men which were in it, not knowing whither they went, nor what was to be done in so strange an Adventure, and not being provided for so cold a Voyage, were all frozen to death; the young Lady onely, by the light of her Beauty, the heat of her Youth, and Protection of the Gods, remaining alive

If you try to marry this lady and she isn't into you, woe betide thee. Or maybe, Tide be-woe thee.

[Yoshimi]

I can often be seen in the dead of winter sporting naught but the heat of my youth and a smile.

The book is a dense read so far, but ordering her bear-subjects to break their telescopes because they see nonsense through them was hilarious, and I enjoyed when she ordered her subjects to build a reverse microscope for observing whales. Now that is good empress-ing.

[lostcheerio]

I read little bits of this between other things. I just reread The Awakening because I'm going to be teaching it in December --- what an interesting juxtaposition that is with the empress.

[HashtagBryn]

Oooh, a book club! And featuring a weird, old book that I've actually read?

Like most Utopian travelogues, this one presents an unlikely voyage to a distant, unreachable land populated by a society markedly different from the authors, but that is presented as superior in at least some ways. Also like most works of its genre, it does so in order to serve as social or philosophical commentary. Likewise, it invokes the science of the day (The Blazing-World was literally published alongside her husband's legitimate scientific work Observations upon Experimental Philosophy) to lend realism to the surreal. This sort of thing has been around since at least Greek antiquity. It was apparently so common at that time that there's a 2nd century CE Utopian travelogue called A True Story that explicitly serves as satire targeting the genre itself (and which also features a trip to the moon).

But all of them were written by men. I don't think The Blazing-World is really a strong candidate for the start of science-fiction in the modern sense (it doesn't really do much that A True Story didn't do 1500 years earlier), but it is important because of the contrast between Duchess Cavendish's Utopian visions and those of men doing the same thing. If you didn't get enough dense, 17th-century prose from this, grab Sir Thomas More's Utopia, written only a few decades earlier, and marvel at how The Blazing-World is almost totally unlike More's vision of a nearly-monastic slave-owning society where women are ostensibly equal participants but actually only get to do housework and take time each month to confess their sins to their husbands.

[lostcheerio]

Welcome to the discussion Bryn!

I have actually read (some of, right?) More's Utopia and found it dreadful but liked the map.

Tell us more about yourself, your reading likes and loves. How did you come across The Blazing-World before?

[HashtagBryn]

Thanks, it's fun to be here!

So, for the most part, I read modern sci-fi and fantasy. But I've read more than a normal share of weird old material. At one point, I was contemplating writing something based on a bunch of these old fictional travelogue settings. Nothing came of it, though, unless "being slightly better at trivia night" counts!

Anyway, Utopia is like 300+ pages and it's a lot less fun than The Blazing-World. But More did do a nice job with the maps, so there's that.