Electric Revolution

Lord Dunsany, The Last Revolution (1951) - Part 1

This book was an unexpected delight.  I had heard good things about Dunsany before – and you have to appreciate someone who could inspire authors as diverse as Tolkien and Lovecraft.  Nevertheless, the austere elegance and philosophical richness of this book really surprised me.  Do yourself a favor and read this under-appreciated masterpiece – then come back and muse with me.

In chapter one, Ablard Pender declares, “I have made a brain.”  We soon discover that it is a mechanical brain – a construct of wire and electricity, ultimately encased within a multi-limbed body of iron.  The philosophizing of the book begins early and rarely relents – but it’s so interesting and woven into such a charming story that I can’t complain.  Thus, Pender – confident that his machine will prove a dutiful servant to mankind – quickly indulges in a slave fantasy: “It will give us the leisure that slaves used to give the Romans.”  Indeed, the themes of slavery, machines, nature, and revolution interact in a delicate dance through the pages of this work.

It sounds serious – but this book is also very funny.  When we meet Pender’s aunt, the narrator reports “I rather gathered that she disapproved of her nephew for wasting his time with science, instead of being a chartered accountant….”  Pender’s creation looks like a crab, but is the size of a large dog, and has a hundred claw-like hands.  It’s hard not to laugh when Pender moves the thing into the house in a wheelbarrow, hoping to prevent his aunt from realizing that the mechanical construct is actually sentient.  Ablard tells the narrator “she thinks it’s remote control.”  As the narrator starts playing chess with “the monster,” he complains, “It was watching me intently, rather as a cockroach watches one.”  It’s absurd and comical and creepy, all at the same time.  Fantastic!