Hello!
So i’ve read Qualityland so far and I think it’s a really funny book.
I think the idea of having your parents job as last name is so hilarious.
But the most interesting part is the dystopia -fakes utopia. It’s really well written.
So i’d like to ask you : What’s your opinion on this book ? Do you think that if we cange the one or the other thing there we could have an utopia similar to the book ?
What do you think of the last name concept ? Is it better than the one we have atm ?
I’m looking forward to a lot of opinions and discussion. (:
by Select-Occasion-5866
10 Comments
I haven’t read the book, but why is having your surname be your parents’ job funny? That’s how we got a lot of our modern last names, if they’re not a place name. They were ways to tell John the blacksmith apart from John the cooper.
I really liked this book. My biggest frustration is that Qualityland 2.0 came out 3 years ago, but still doesn’t have an English translation. 🙁
I think it is distressing. The author is probably my favorite author and after reading his other works which are also anticapitalistic/leftist System critiques it really struck me how close we are to transforming our world into the hellscape that is quality land.
However from a reading enjoyment standpoint it is a A-Tier book that’s a joy to read while also being witty, thought provoking and
dystopian-feel inducing.
LOL, Qualityland is a hilarious book! I loved the whole parents’ job as last name idea, it’s so absurd. The dystopia-fake utopia combo is on point. As for having a similar utopia, TBH, I think we’d need more than just changing a thing or two.
>What do you think of the last name concept ?
It really isn’t a novel idea (pardon the pun). Many surnames are from the profession of the family, occupational surnames:
[https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/England_Surnames_Derived_from_Occupations,_Ranks_-_International_Institute#Occupation_Surnames](https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/England_Surnames_Derived_from_Occupations,_Ranks_-_International_Institute#Occupation_Surnames)
It was alright. However, as a big fan of the kangaroo chronicles, I was underwhelmed.
Funny? Yes! Intelligent? Well, also yes, but mostly more of what I already expected.
However, I simply didn’t care about the story or the characters. Like ‘at all’.
I think his style of mixing thought-provoking bits of critique with humour works a lot better in those short stories that are only loosely connected.
I think the naming system is just a small joke. I refuse to read it as an actual comment on the injustice of the birth-lottery, as that seems to be simply too cheap and obvious to even put an effort into.
But I don’t want to criticise books too much. I enjoyed them, just not as much as I hoped I would.
Qualityland from Marc-Uwe Kling, a German satire book.
I loved Quality Land. Listened to the audio book several times throughout the years. The whole naming convention might have been inspired by “Jennifer Government” (published as “Logoland” in Germany btw), a novel from 2003 with a somewhat similar premise that was just as disturbing but less funny in its execution
Hmmm never heard of it. I want to read it!
I recommend it a lot to people who aren’t really super aware of what exactly surveillance capitalism has done to our societies. As someone who works in that field I really saw the seams, but enjoyed it nonetheless.
What I mean is that you usually can quickly make out what kind of concept or problem the author is explaining or skewering in each scene or chapter – which also comes from his background as a comedian and short story writer. “This is the chapter where I explain what automated warfare would be like”, “This is the chapter were I explain shadow profiles”, “This is the scene were I explain right-to-repair”, “This is the section about social scores”. It’s very much a funnier and sunnier version of Broken Mirror, which has the same “problem/concept of the week”-type structure and it’s very well written. If you don’t know the concepts and arguments, I’m sure it can be eye-opening.