I think it was Engels who said that politics in art is best conveyed by attention to detail, not by pontificating on ideas. That's why I never got the success of Gardner's Sophie's World in the early 90s. Lukes's 'novel of ideas' is a satire, of course, but that doesn't make it any less stiff read. Aesthetics aside, the caricatures of different political ideologies are obviously sharp and to the point. That said, perhaps nothing says more about reflexive capabilities of the author than the fact that there are basically no women in the story (with the exception of one particularly nasty feminist--unsurprisingly). I always considered Lukes one of the good guys, but not even in the updated (2022) afterword does he discuss how the Enlightenment is now weaponised for illiberal and bigoted causes by so-called 'free speech' advocates. Maybe this is why the satire about 'communtaria' with its feminism struck me as somewhat tone-deaf. What it truly shows is, of course, how much the world has changed since the original publication in 1995. Anyway, not a mean feat for an academic to write a novel, hence the three stars.

I can't believe I did it

Love the concept! It would have been great to discover more worlds or spend more time in them. Not sure it would be entertaining for people who have no interest in political theory.

Entertaining and instructive!

A professor who studies The Enlightenment finds himself out of favor in his home country of Militaria and goes on a journey to find which country would be best to live or be born in. Each is built upon a different moral principle. The principles sound good at first, but when put into practice they can have surprisingly bad results. (Note that I say 'can'. The author isn't saying this is the only way a society could implement a certain rule. Just that it 'could' turn out this way.)

Utilitaria is based on the idea of the greatest good for the greatest number. Sounds OK, but can lead to very unpleasant outcomes for some. If 'greatest number' is all that matters, then isn't it better to keep innocent people in prison than to destroy the whole country's faith in police and courts by revealing their corruption? The next country is based on Communitarianism which requires maximum respect for all ethnicities and faiths. This turns ugly for individuals who want to reject some of their ethnic customs or find a new faith, as well as those who accidentally give offense. Finally, Libertaria is based on maximum individual freedom. Everyone is free to try to survive based on their own merit, where merit is measured by money. (This one feels very close to home.)

He also briefly visits one society, Proletaria, that really does function perfectly for all of its citizens based on Marxist/Communist ideas. But it turns out to have only been a dream! (As in real life.)

He never finds the perfect society. The closest that he comes to a conclusion is that no society should be based on one single rigid principle, but rather some balancing between competing interests.

The author is a moral philosopher, and we all know how popular they are at parties!

I, at least, enjoyed this! I should award extra points for an entire book about moral philosophy that never once mentions that [b:Forking Trolley|41967089|The Forking Trolley An Ethical Journey to The Good Place|James M Russell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1545490522l/41967089._SY75_.jpg|65491519] problem!

Quibbles: I'm not sure what exactly was extra in the new "expanded" edition. I hope that doesn't refer only to the glitch where, starting on page 205, about 5 pages of text is repeated verbatim. That was an odd flaw, but doesn't change the fact that I enjoyed this very much. Another oddity is the quotation marks, which are sometimes like ‘this’ and sometimes like “this”, but also very often, like ‘THIS‘. It distracted me every time I saw it. Is using an open-quote mark at the end of a quote some common British thing? It was so systematically used for titles of books and businesses that it seems intentional.

What a horrific shame. This book should be everything I wanted and more. As a philosophy fanatic, a novel which is literally constructed out of philosophy to formulate a political allegory is my idea of heaven. But after 100 pages in, I surrendered. What a shame. Why? I’m afraid it as far too on the nose for my liking: the story was painfully shoehorned into philosophical concepts to a point it felt so laboured my head started to throb with boredom.

I prefer novels that show don’t tell. I was open to the blatant use of overt philosophical concepts as a humorous gag, such as the names of the cities, countries and gangs. It had the potential to be a Terry Pratchett-esque tongue in cheek play on familiar principles (which are, in turn, manipulated and toyed with for entertainment).

But as the novel progressed, my hopes were dashed. It felt as though these obvious names were not used as a playful wit, but more to hammer home and spoon feed the reader to digest the principles. It resulted in the over stressing and emphasising of points which killed any sense of logical and imaginative freedom for the reader. There was no room for interpretation, there was no room for the reader to work it out for them self - the challenge of unpicking imagery and allegory was stripped away from me because I was told absolutely everything to the point of boredom and exhaustion. I have no time for over laboured narrative, so I passed the book over in favour of literature more cleverly and literally written. It’s a shame, because the concept was wonderful, but there’s no pleasure in being told a story as if the narrator is holding your hand and doesn’t trust you to not pick up on every single clever detail they’re shoe horning in, because heaven forbid we overlook any spec of knowledge. I’ll stick to the philosophical literature of Italo Calvino and Herman Broch in future.

Disappointing. The idea is good: a professor of philosophy visits imaginary countries where different philosophical systems are the predominant belief and organizing principle.
Unfortunately, it's rather boring. I'd hoped it would be more entertaining than just reading the theories. All too often, Lukes' professor attends lectures by other professors about the system in effect, or the "ordinary people" speak more like lecturers or Socratic dialogues than giving some kind of insight into how people might embody those beliefs. I found the dialogue to be tedious, in very academic language, which obviates the point. For example "Then there are the particularists. They say that a specific community has the answers to how women should be treated, but they don't agree on which that is: some say the Mellifluans, others the Indigens, and so on". Whole paragraphs of monologue in that style.

OK, but not really worth the time reading so I gave up about half-way through.