Book Review: 'The Machine Stops'

   by Oscar Robinson       

The Machine Stops by E M Forster is a dystopian novel, 82 pages long. It addresses the future of our planet where humanity becomes so completely reliant on technology that they struggle to perform even the simplest tasks such as getting into bed and even opening doors.

In the book the world revolves around The Machine, a machine created by scientists many years before, that grants all of your commands with buttons and switches. People live in capsules and never leave them, relying completely on the machine to survive. Everything happens from their rooms. They give lectures from their rooms and they talk to their friends through screens in their rooms. Everything in this fantastical world is also authorised by a council.

One day a young and curious man named Kuno decides to visit the outside world. He has realised humanity has become so reliant on The Machine that The Machine has begun to take over. He tries to escape the machine by reaching the Outside. He goes outside through a vent and sunlight touches him for the first time. He realises that the council and The Machine have been lying to them; the sunlight doesn’t kill you after all. Kuno tries to tell his mother, Vashti this but she wouldn’t listen, insisting that the machine couldn’t do anything wrong. Threatened by the council with homelessness, Kuno doesn’t have much time. Thinking quickly he sabotages the machine causing faults and power cuts. Suddenly no one can have a bed, the buttons have stopped working! 

Slowly, Kuno destroys the machine. As the machine breaks down further humanity starts to adapt and depend more and more on themselves again.

Finally humanity had learnt its lesson. Things go back to living again in the outside world like their ancestors did long ago.

The Machine Stops is a thrilling and thought provoking read. The title of the book makes the story ending no surprise however this fact does not spoil the integrity and impact of this novel. Forster pushes you in this book to understand how reliant humanity has become on technology. Forster also emulates the influence and control technology could have over us and our lives. 

The fact that something humans are capable of making could become our downfall as we become less and less intelligent and as technology becomes more and more intelligent is worrying! I enjoyed this book and the thought provoking nature it entails.