Greener Than You Think

This is a story of an egotistical huckster of a salesman and a well-intentioned but careless and impetuous female scientist who together destroy the world by covering all the land masses with Bermuda grass.

Greener Than You Think lampoons the human propensity for self aggrandizement. This was a difficult book for me to read because of how much I despised the lead character, Albert Weener. Weener possessed nearly all the repulsive, shameless, appalling and vile human deficiency. And what few he didn’t possess, the other characters in the book more than compensated for. The few human virtues presented by the author were realized by the novel’s characters too late to have any impact on anyone or anything. If the author’s assessment show more of humanity is correct and we are all Albert Weener, then humanity’s future is infinitely darker than you think. show less

I read this many years ago and it stuck. It feels closer to coming true as time goes by. Greed and hubris and the end of the world as we know it---not a pleasant story with pleasant characters, but memorable. It is available on Project Gutenberg since the copyright wasn't renewed (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24246).

Rollicking science fiction that has some offensive historical content, but the way the story's presented by a clueless narrator, it shows just how and why some of it was so offensive. Starts out with some strained humor that was probably knee-slappingly funny at the time but had me cringing, then slowly becomes something much darker and satirical. Good stuff.

Albert Weener, el cínico y mezquino narrador de la historia, es un vendedor puerta a puerta contratado por la doctora Francis para que venda su producto: el Metamorfoseador, que es capaz de mejorar sustancialmente el crecimiento de las gramíneas como medio para combatir el hambre en el mundo. Pero Albert, que no cree precisamente en el producto, decide probarlo en un césped marchito. Cuál no será su sorpresa cuando comprueba que realmente funciona. Pero surge un problema, y es que la hierba no deja de crecer y extenderse.

‘Más verde de lo que creéis’ (More Than You Think, 1947), del norteamericano Ward Moore, aparte de plantear un tema tan candente como es el cambio climático, es una visión bastante exacta de la codicia del show more ser humano. Interesante y ameno. show less

Much like [b:War with the Newts|816440|War with the Newts|Karel Čapek|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1328766079l/816440._SY75_.jpg|1469484]. I read first and last bits and believe that plenty... it should have been a novelette. Satire, yes, but remember that satire is not necessarily humorous. Note that the satire extends to the 'sexism' and 'racism' other reviewers see... it's Weener who is an ignorant bigot, and Moore is thereby showing how wrong bigotry is, as Weener is wrong about everything. Otoh, the epigraph that we are all Weener is apt, too... what we do for lawns and other luxuries could surely be the death of us all....

May 2021

I know--its a classic PA book. If you're a PA fan you have to like it. But-I just didn't. The story isn't really PA. The focus is on the idiot main character who's a scam artist, slacker and degenerate. Often the book focused on him and had nothing to do with the out of control growing grass that was destroying cities, etc. Who wants to read a PA book about a slacker? I don't.

The (very infrequent) portions of the book that focused on the grass and civilization's attempt to stop its advance were interesting and engaging. However--if you're reading this book for a PA theme--you'll be as disappointed as I was.

The book focuses almost entirely on the manipulative jerk main character and how he skated through life, taking advantage of every show more possible situation and scamming people. The grass isn't even a close second in the storyline.

Let others waste their time on this "PA Classic" and read Alas Babylon or On The Beach or the other PA classics that truly deserve the acclaim. show less

anticapitalist, feminist satire better than it has any right to be. posthuman sublime rarely rendered better. highly, highly recommended.