Review: Mizora by Mary E Bradley Lane
Title: Mizora: A World of Women
Author: Mary E. Bradley Lane
Genre: speculative fiction
Source: Project Gutenberg
Reason for Reading: This semester I’ve been taking a class about women in literature. I haven’t reviewed any of the other stuff we’ve read as we’ve mostly focused on short stories, but this is a novel so I figured it was fair game. It also qualifies for the Women Unbound challenge.
Synopsis from Amazon:
What would happen to our culture if men ceased to exist? Mary E. Bradley Lane explores this question in Mizora, the first known feminist utopian novel written by a woman.
Vera Zarovitch is a Russian noblewoman—heroic, outspoken, and determined. A political exile in Siberia, she escapes and flees north, eventually finding herself, adrift and exhausted, on a strange sea at the North Pole. Crossing a barrier of mist and brilliant light, Zarovitch is swept into the enchanted, inner world of Mizora. A haven of music, peace, universal education, and beneficial, advanced technology, Mizora is a world of women.
Mizora appeared anonymously in the Cincinnati Commercial in 1880 and 1881. Mary E. Bradley Lane concealed from her husband her role in writing the controversial story.
My Thoughts: So what would a world of women be like, according to Mary E. Bradley Lane? Mandatory education for all children would be enforced, making teachers the highest-paid people in the land. (Good.) Blue-eyed blondes would be found to be superior to everyone else. (Bad.) Electricity would be used to make rain. (WTF?)
Basically, not a lot happens. Our narrator shows up in Mizora, learns how awesome it is, and that our world can’t possibly hold a candle to it. And… that’s pretty much it. Also, there are lots of lectures about how awesome education for all would be, and how it would solve all the world’s problems. And then there’s some insidious racism, which I suppose is to be expected of a 19th-century novel, but which was still jarring nonetheless.
I can see why this book would have been considered controversial. Lane has strong opinions, particularly about how free education and embracing technology will solve all problems. But I didn’t really like it. After a while, the lectures about Mizoran society wore thin, and I wanted some characterization, or, you know, something to happen aside from broad political statements. But nothing does until the very end, when our protagonist goes back home and is basically, predictably, miserable.
Final Thoughts: Give this one a miss, historical significance aside, at least if you like characters who are more than just political mouthpieces to root for.
Final Grade: C-
I haven’t read this book yet, but just the thought of living in a world without men is distasteful. And I don’t think there could ever be a eutopia of all women either. Women can be very cruel to each other, in a lot of ways, crueller than humanity in general, and women often are the strongest opponents of the status quo if that status quo is convenient.
I never like books that look at such “possibilities” as they seem to completely ignore a lot of technicalities. What implies that women value education more than men? I don’t think the problem with the current world is lack of belief in the power of education- it’s just finding ways to get kids in school and staying there.