If I say, "I just finished a novel set in a dystopian future, where all adults get euthanized at age 68," do you have a guess as to the author?
Did you say Trollope? Probably not, huh?
Because it's a Trollope novel: The Fixed Period. This was Trollope novel #17 for me, and it was my least favorite by a wide margin. I guess if you publish 47 novels, something's got to fill out the bottom tier.
But it was still interesting. It's set in 1980, where ship-to-shore communications are enabled by "hair telephones," a more sophisticated version of a tin can on a string. In Trollope's 1980, bicycles can go -- wait for it -- twenty-four miles per hour! The game of cricket has been revolutionized by a steam-powered machine that does the bowling. Although steam-powered tricycles exist, horse-drawn carriages remain popular. Also, comically, breach of promise suits are still a thing for couples who once considered themselves engaged.
It was intriguing to see how much of the future was literally unimaginable, even for someone who had a remarkably fertile imagination. Airplanes? Gasoline? Women in the workplace? He didn't see any of it coming.
Maybe the weirdest thing about the book is that he seemed to get tired of writing it and just...stop. The book is written in first person, in the voice of the president of Britannula, a fictional island that has decided to eliminate old age and all its associated hassles. We know from the very beginning that he is being taken to England by sea, and most of the book tells us how he wound up on the ship. I found the ending so strange and abrupt that I wondered if the free Kindle edition was missing the actual ending. The Project Gutenberg version is equally strange and abrupt, though, so I guess that's just the way it ends.
"Well," I imagine Trollope saying to himself in the middle of the last chapter, "this has been a wearying and unpleasant experiment. Time to be done and write more novels about class differences in the British Isles. Endings are overrated anyway."
I'm still enthusiastic about my Trollope project despite the weirdness of this book. Seventeen down, thirty to go. I figure if I read about one per season I can finish by the time I'm 60. Unless there are a lot more like The Fixed Period, in which case some re-evaluation will be necessary.
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