Niels Klim's Journey Under the Ground

MP3 Audio CD. After Klim completes his studies in Copenhagen, graduating magna cum laude, he is drawn to a strange cave near his home town of Bergen. He doesn't know it yet, but that cave will be the last he sees of the surface world for the next 12 years, during which he is thrown into a remarkable adventure that he is sure no one on the surface will ever believe.

Niels Klim's Journey Under the Ground is more than a typical science fiction novel. Although it still features another planet (one that, incidentally revolves around the ?inner sun? or Earth's core), the author, Baron Ludwig Holberg, takes the story one step further, showing how the strange civilization Klim is introduced to many miles under the surface of the Earth, is actually one that embraces a utopian form of society, where women and men have the same types of jobs, and the same types of limitations associated with government, finances and religion that surface dwellers need to follow, no longer exist here.

Holberg explores many deep philosophical issues with this seemingly playful and carefree novel. Klim himself is presented as a person who cannot get accustomed to a world in which sexual equality is so strikingly obvious which is the main reason why he is eventually forced to leave. However, he is able to spend a great deal of time with the Potuans ? the strange people he is first introduced to during his long underground journey ? and introduces us to many of their unusual customs, beliefs and ideals.

Tackling controversial subject such as morality, religion and government head-on, Holberg manages to envision a world in which none of them are of any consequence, and ultimately points out that our own limited vision as human beings is only one responsible for preventing us from building a working utopian society.