Erewhon

How could it have happened that having been once so far in advance they were now as much behind us?

An 1870 satirical novel by Samuel Butler, Erewhon (also known as Erewhon: or, Over the Range) is about an Englishman who goes too far trying to explore a mountain and ends up discovering a foreign civilization.

The unnamed protagonist begins his narration with a very vague description of the place where he was living and how he did end up there (from the description of the season along with the date, the geography of the place with a northern and southern island, and the focus on sheep in the local economy, one can easily deduce it's New Zealand). The little we know is that he is indeed English, and he ended on a remote point of the world working on a sheep station. Ambitious, he wants to discover a new location proper for the breeding and raising of sheep to get rich. He gets the idea that he should cross an unexplored mountain range nearby to find such a place before anyone else, and for that he seeks the help of Chowbok (a nickname, he is actually called Kahabukha), a native who is clearly an alcoholic and the narrator believes have knowledge about how to go over the range.

When asked about the area over the main mountain range, however, Chowbok is clearly fearful of it and does unexplainable gestures, grinning his face into a scary expression while standing over two bales of wool and putting an woolpack on his shoulders like a mantle. The author is completely unable to determine what he is talking about, but Chowbok agrees to guide him around the area. Well, up until the point just before the range: he promptly leaves before such place, scared. The narrator, completely clueless of what he is scared of but still motivated, decides to cross it.

The author finds himself almost cornered by the water currents, and steep angles and passages of the mountain, but manages to advance through the range and finds the solution for the enigmatic gestures Chowbok did: scary statues of something at the summit. Tired and confused, but relieved for believing that the people who built the statues were not savages because he sees a bridge as he descends on the other side of the mountain, the narrator falls asleep. When he wakes up, he finds goats eating around him, and then meets two teenage girls. They look at him in amazement, and so does him, but then they cry and ran off, fearful of the strange man.

The women come back with armed men, speaking a language incomprehensible to the narrator, but our hero manages to grow a friendly relationship with them despite the language barrier. He soon realizes he is a land not known to the world outside it, a country he calls Erewhon.

Published by Trübner and Ballantyne.

Tropes used in Erewhon include:

The Alcoholic: It's pretty obvious Chowbok would do almost anything for a bottle of alcohol, that makes the narrator get what he wants from him easy at first.
A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Heavily discussed. The Erewhonians are technophobes and consider even possessing an advanced piece of technology as a crime because they are fearful of machines overtaking them.
The Atoner: While discussing his attempt to convert Chowbok, the author brings up the possibility that converting him would at least make up for his own faults, though he does not disclose what they are.
Babies Ever After: The protagonist and Arowhena end up having a baby of unspecified sex; the hero mentions the child when talking about how Arowhena retained her faith in the Erewhonian deities.
Chick Magnet: The protagonist has an uncanny ability to attract women, that he seems unaware of. He talks about how women like him but doesn't comment over it, offers no physical description of himself as handsome or ugly and does not describe himself as seductive. It eventually helps him in escaping when he convinces the queen of Erewhon to order the construction of a hot air balloon so he can "interrogate the god of air".
Crap Saccharine World: At first Erewhon seems like a pleasant place filled with beautiful, healthy people and beautiful nature. Then the narrator discovers how people with physical illnesses are treated like scum, moral transgressors receive little to no punishment, and the world is still stuck to Middles Ages-level technology because it is enforced. Also, he can't marry Arowhenia because Erewhonian law demands the older daughter to marry first.
Deliberate Values Dissonance: A good portion of the novel involves the protagonist not only describing but contrasting several aspects of the Erewhonian society to the English one in the Victorian Age.
The Dreaded: It's heavily implied Chowbok is scared to death of the Erewhonians, or at least of the statues of their gods, and that is why he is adamant on not crossing the range.
Driven to Suicide: The narrator describes a tale of a young man who needed to eat meat to treat an illness, but this was in an age where consumption of meat was forbidden in Erewhon. When he is finally discovered, he commits suicide instead of having his future aspirations compromised for being caught committing such a heavy crime.
Earn Your Happy Ending: There is no doubt that the balloon escape was dangerous and that they almost died of starvation in the middle of the sea, but the hero and Arowhena manage to be rescued by a passing ship and marry.
Foregone Conclusion: We already know the author will escape with his manuscripts about Erewhon intact because he tells the reader several chapters beforehand.
Happily Married: The narrator and Arowhena, at the end of the book.
Here We Go Again: The protagonist decides it's a good idea to return to Erewhon, but with armed men in order to profit from hiring Erewhonians to do physical labour in nearby English colonies in response to current demand for it. It's uncertain how successful this will be since the entire book is in the end an appeal for physical and financial support.
Hypocrite: How the ban on meat consumption in Erewhon finally ended: a philosopher postulated that consuming vegetal matter was just as immoral as consuming animal meat.
Human Sacrifice: Paranoid after meeting statues of the Erewhonian gods, the author fears becoming one of these to the statues before he actually meets anyone.
Not So Different:
- The narrator likes to interrupt his description of the Erewhonians' societal values to point out how they're not so different of English ones in his era.
- The Erewhonians' stances on machines, consumption of animals and of vegetal matter revolve about how those things are similar to humans.
Pet the Dog: Though the protagonist comes off as greedy, his love of Arowhena is genuine as is his Christian faith, making him less of an Unscrupulous Hero as it seems at first.
No Communities Were Harmed:
- Butler never names it, but his description of the place where the narrator is at the start of the tale can be inferred to be New Zealand thanks to geographical and meteorological descriptions.
- The Erewhonians are said to resemble Italians. The narrator's plan to recruit them as migrant workers at the end of the novel seems to resemble how Italians were convinced to immigrate to distant places like the United States and Brazil during the time the novel is set in response to demand for physical labour.
Real Men Love Jesus: The protagonist, naturally, thinks a Christian education and morals is something everyone needs, even dreaming about converting Chowbok.
Star-Crossed Lovers: Initially, it seems the author and Arowhena will end up like that. They love each other, but the girl can't marry him because of the land's costumes, causing a great amount of grief to both. Subverted at the end as they manage to escape, marry, and have a baby.
Take Our Word for It: The protagonist never describes Arowhena, and in fact openly refrains to do so, saying all words he could use could never match the real deal, and for the reader to just imagine her as the most beautiful woman in the world.
Take That: Though not quite aggressive, it's clear Butler makes point about how the English society of his time is not so different of the oppressive, technophobic Erewhonian: one could say "nowhere" is actually "everywhere".