Omphalos' SF Book Reviews

Santaroga Barrier, The, by Herbert, Frank

It’ll be a beautiful life, he thought. Beautiful . . . beautiful . . . beautiful.

Frank Herbert’s 1967 novel The Santaroga Barrier is probably best interpreted as a utopia novel, though there are strong psychological and drug use themes that run through it too. As a utopia, I cannot imagine anyone concluding that it is anything other than another ambiguous utopia. Santaroga tells the story of Gilbert Daesin, a UC Berkley psychologist during a visit to a Northern California community[…]

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I read this novel many years ago and have just discovered in in a box of books put away in the 1970s and I am just now re-reading it.

As seen from 2013 as opposed to 1968 the outside commercial have become much more dominant over local communities than they were. Almost every town in the U.S. is blessed with a strip development with the same chain stores and fast food outlets dominating their markets. This has had massive negative social, psychological, and economic effects. The Santaroga Coop, which I see as a sort of exaggerated stand-in for local boosterism, seems to be much more benign in this context.

In light of the perspective of time I wish that the moral and legal issues underlying the motivation of both the outside interests had been more thoroughly discussed. For example, does a local community have the right to protect itself and act in its own collective interests? Does the principal of “Free trade” protect Wall Street companies and make their exploitation of local markets legal? Does it also make these practices moral?

With “Buy local” campaigns going on around this country this would be a good discussion to have.

Santaroga Barrier, The, by Herbert, Frank

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