Utopia
It's nice to finally have something concrete to associate with the term "utopia" beyond just the typical fantastical ravings of the curious mind. Both thought provoking and fascinating to consider in terms of what this work is as a work of fiction, "Utopia" falls somewhere between easy and difficult in terms of reading, partly due to More's writing style. The writing does occasionally feel extraneous and meandering in an unnecessary way, but the ideas which More puts forth are as interesting as they are fun to think about at times. Some passages, like the way in which Utopians consider gold and jewels to be trinkets for children, how they adorn their slaves with it because they believe that, since there isn't an abundance of these things on earth, then they aren't necessary for everyday life (which is quite true). It was also quite beneficial to read and discuss this for an actual class, so that these ideas could be grounded using theory and modern examples. It's particularly pertinent to read this now, both to see how our conception of what a utopia has changed over time, but also to compare and see if our modern society has achieved in checking any of these things off the list in its (frequently failed) attempts at being better.
