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Utopian Dreams (Hardcover)

by Tobias Jones (Author)
3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Hardcover: 220 pages
  • Publisher: Faber and Faber (11 Jan 2007)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 057122380X
  • ISBN-13: 978-0571223800
  • Product Dimensions: 21.6 x 13.8 x 2.6 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 141,630 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Conde Nast Traveller

A quite amazing book ... a superb blend of narrative and analysis
questioning and enacting various notions of 'the good life'.

Toby Lichtig, Observer

Jones is an informed guide, and much of what he writes is
intelligent and thought-provoking.
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Inside This Book (Learn More)
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews

10 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
3.3 out of 5 stars (10 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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34 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars An unusual study, 27 Jan 2007
Tobias Jones with his family stayed in five different communities over a period of a year. He is dissatisfied with every day life, like most us of lead and seeks out the company of people who have aspired to be something different.
He certainly spreads his net widely, visiting communities in Italy and England. The communities reviewed include the new age community in Damanhur, the orphanage of Nomadelfia, a Quaker old age community, a cooperative in Palermo and a community for down and outs in Pilsdon.
All except the first, receive a favourable review. Far from these communities being a cop out, he sees them being very innovative as they have had to overcome a lot of resistance and perform a very good service to those in need.
The author finds a different type of Christianity, often muted, that is the wellspring of these initiatives. There are some interesting thoughts e.g. `liberty can't be the liberty to do whatever one wants. Its only when one has a life project, when one has made choices that settle with clarity the end you have in mind, that you're truly free.' Another saying is ` you often get cornered by people who introduce themselves as charismatic healers: for me, the best healing is simply manual labour.'
This book, with its unusual study of communities, deserves to be better read, not only for its in depth study of communities, but also for the deeply engrossing study of genuine Christianity, all too brief, that is its source. The book reaches a surprising conclusion.
I would have liked to have heard more of his wife's reactions to these communities to give the book a slightly richer flavour: this is my only quibble.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, but ..., 1 Jun 2008
By Eric Ambleside (North Yorkshire) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   
This review is from: Utopian Dreams (Paperback)
Tobias Jones went looking for something. He wasn't entirely sure what it was, just that it would be different to the unsatisfying fast-paced modern lifestyle that he had been struggling with for some time.

So he went community hopping. He visited a range of different, reasonably self-contained 'communities', all with a common theme of separation from the 'normal' world, generally with religious roots to some extent, in Italy and the UK. He explores how communities in general are built, whether they work, and whether spirituality and/or religion are necessary for a successful community.

In the end his answer is probably "yes", communities need some sort of foundation based on shared beliefs or objectives. In addition, he made the remarkable discovery (for a metropolitan type) that hard manual work is good for the soul. Yep, it can be, so long as you don't have to do it for your entire life for a pittance. It's different if you've volunteered for it for a while before disappearing back to your comfy city home. To some extent that is all probably stating the blindingly obvious, but he has some interesting takes on the how and why.

There are some problems of course: he visited 5 different groups in the space of a year, which is probably not really enough time to fully dig down to the core and truly understand whether they work. Most of them have issues: the half-barmy, half-deeply cynical Damanhur in Italy swings from self-indulgence to completely spaced out pottiness. Nomadelfia, a catholic Italian village style group, is easier on the mind, but there are clear undercurrents of the worst sort of roman catholic insularity and intolerance.

The Quaker village near York is an oddity, as it is really just a very expensive retirement/care home facility, populated by well-heeled and often intellectual and activist over-sixties. I'm not sure it's relevant to anything much.

Pilsdon, an apparently genuinely open and caring place for people with real problems (rather than those suffering from self-indulgence, like some of the others) seemed to me to be the only one that really achieved, in a realistic and open but knowingly limited way, what it set out to do.

The accounts of the places themselves are interesting, and there are intriguing ideas and questions arising from how they work. One thing that struck me was that most of them (Pilsdon very much aside) achieved their separation from the 'real world' in a very artificial manner. They were either dependent on mundane commerce, or hand-outs from the church or wealthy trusts/benefactors. To some extent their other-worldliness is a fraud.

The main problems with the book are the author's wanderings into philosophy and musings on his own life-issues and the more general subject of community. Some of them are interesting; some of them, unfortunately, are utter piffle. Some of his more exotic flights of prose fancy don't actually make any sense, and he has a habit of building a theory or idea on firmly stated truths that he appears to have invented on the spot.

Overall, interesting, but the conclusions are not clear. Jones seems to have come away with a clearer mind (and a 1 mile radius exclusion zone round his house!) but there are hints of the same self-indulgence that afflicts some of the Damanhur types in particular.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Defining Communities, 30 July 2007
Clever, humble, well researched. Jones documents his stay in various communities over the space of a year. Though their motivations differ he finds common trends and shared goals that make him question his own place in society and just what he intends to achieve with his life. I found myself jotting down quotes or interesting ideas every other page and seriously fascinated with all the very different reasons for and expectations people had of what living with others would do for them. I think the community that caught my imagination most was the Quaker community of elderly folks set up by the Rowntrees. I found the idea of elderly people coming together to feel safe, involved and cared for was perhaps the most pragmatic discussed in the book and it sounded realistic and down to earth.

Jones has an ability to give a flavour of the communities, their participants and daily routines with flair and this makes the book one of my favourites of the year so far, however since he travelled for most of the time with his wife and child I would have liked to hear more of his wife's thoughts about the places they visited. For this reason a 10/10 is moved to a 8/10.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars A most disappointing book
I was unfortunate enough to have to read this awful book at my book club. This is a wasted opportunity to explore an incredibly important subject. Read more
Published 14 months ago by CN

1.0 out of 5 stars Boring, pretentious and repetitive
This book could have been so good. A young author, dismayed by the lack of worthwhile values in the world he inhabits, sets out in search of a better life. Read more
Published 14 months ago by D.J.M.

4.0 out of 5 stars A thoughtful exploration of life together
Utopian Dreams, by Tobias Jones, is part travelogue, part philosophy. Tired of the frustrations and empty promises of consumer culture, he sets off on a search for something more... Read more
Published 22 months ago by Jeremy Williams

2.0 out of 5 stars An Opportunity Lost
Anyone who, like me, expected to encounter a genuine study of alternative communities in Tobias Jones' travel book Utopian Dreams, will be well displeased by a project that had so... Read more
Published on 20 Nov 2007 by Christopher Rickleton

5.0 out of 5 stars Thank You Tobias Jones
Utopian Dreams is my book of the year. Just when we were all about to despair... along came Tobias Jones. Read more
Published on 19 July 2007 by I. Losada

3.0 out of 5 stars Pseudo intellectual attempt at travelogue/sociological study? which?
I read this work of non fiction, blind of the authors previous work and based mainly on the subject matter. Read more
Published on 8 July 2007 by Mr. C. A. Lillie

5.0 out of 5 stars Thank you Tobias Jones.
Utopian Dreams is my book of the year. Just when we were all about to despair... along came Tobias Jones. Read more
Published on 9 Oct 2006 by I. Losada

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