エレホン――あるいは山脈を越えてのあらすじ

The story in 10 parts

1. Key idea 1 · free to read

   A lonely shepherd dreams of land beyond the range

   The book opens with a narrator who will not tell us his name or his past. He says he has made a discovery that will bring a reward beyond money, and he needs money to follow it up. His voice is eager, pious, and a little foolish, and the reader is invited to see more than he does.

   He reaches a new colony aged twenty-two and takes work on a sheep station in the foothills. Beyond the second range lies a plain, and beyond that a great snowy range that no one has crossed.

   At shearing time he questions an old native called Chowbok, who goes silent about the big range. In the wool shed the old man pulls a hideous frozen face, lets out a low moan, holds up ten fingers, and bolts into the night. The narrator sets out with a packhorse, hoping for gold and a chance to cross the range. The takeaway: a man who reads the world through his own hopes will misread it, and the first oddity in Erewhon is the narrator himself.

2. 2

   Alone over the pass past the singing statues

   Chowbok guides the party up the river and through a gorge, but when the narrator finds a side valley that seems to lead into the great range, the old man turns and runs for home.

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3. 3

   A stolen watch lands him in a comfortable prison

   Below the clouds the narrator sees a golden evening plain dotted with towns, then falls asleep under a tree.

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4. 4

   Illness is a crime and crime is an illness

   The truth about Erewhonian justice comes through a small slip.

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5. 5

   The Musical Banks hold a currency no one can spend

   Mrs. Nosnibor and her daughters leave each morning for the bank, carrying their purses where everyone can see them.

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6. 6

   Arowhena, a court, and the goddess Ydgrun

   At court the Queen gradually takes all of the narrator's clothes, and the King admires his complexion rather than his mind.

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7. 7

   Unborn souls are blamed for every birth

   The Erewhonians believe that the unborn live in a pale, ghostly kingdom, and that some of them grow so restless that they choose of their own free will to be born.

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8. 8

   The Colleges of Unreason train the art of evasion

   The narrator, in poor health and sorrow, accepts an invitation from a cashier named Thims to visit the great city of the colleges.

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9. 9

   Machines may one day outgrow their makers

   A learned antiquarian gives the narrator a copy of the book that ended the age of machines in Erewhon about five hundred years earlier.

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10. 10

    A straight-faced narrator tells a crooked tale

    Erewhon is told by a man who believes every word and understands almost none of it.

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