Fun Stuff > ENJOY
Dystopian Literature
KharBevNor:
--- Quote from: cuchlann ---
Brunner also helped design the peace sign, if I remember correctly - it was originally a stylized graphic of the semaphore signs for N and D (nuclear disarmament) used a lot in fifties Britain. Like a lot of movements, the ND touched base with the anti-war movement later on, and the symbol transferred.
--- End quote ---
Ooh, so that's what its meant to represent. I thought it was supposed to be someone with their arms out-stretched. Ironically, it also looks like an inverted life-rune or nazi Lebensborn symbol, which has fed into some conspiracy theories concoted by those who probably know too much about nazi symbolism.
sjbrot:
There's been a lot of talk about Brave New World and even mention of Brave New World Revisited, which isn't surprising. I'm just wondering if anyone read his novel Island that was published sometime later.
It would be hard to classify it as a disutopian novel since it was Huxley's effort at describing his perfect society. Parenting's done by the society as a whole, people are taught to control their gods and therefore their fates while rejecting consumerism and using drugs in moderation to expand their minds.
What may qualify it as a disutopian novel in some way (actually, probably not, but whatever) is the ending, which also happens to be the most interesting part of the novel.
***SPOILLLLLLLLLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRZZZZ***
The book ends with one of the patriarch's of the island country selling it out to corporate interests because he has a fascination with scooters if I remember correctly. The last thing the narrator tells is that he hears machine gun fire in the distance.
That can lead to so many interpretations. I always took it to mean that Huxley believed that his own perfect society was attainable, but that it would undoubtably fall victim to individuals working for their own benefit.
End ***SPOILLLLLLLLLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRZZZZ***
Also, I liked to point out Jonathan Lethem's great novel, Gun With Occasional Music, a surrealist detective work wrapped in setting disutopian where the protaginist is doomed to be eaten up by society in the end but still manages to score a personal victory.
Trollstormur:
Moore's V For Vendetta is a very good example of Dystopian Fiction in graphic novel form.
it's also coming out as a movie that looks... okay. they r-r-r-really could have chosen a better actress for the starring role.
cuchlann:
Oy, Trollstormur - I just thought I'd say I like your Mjollnir icon. Neat-o.
Khar: It does look like an inverted rune, doesn't it? With a circle around it. I actually saw a website run by really, really fundamentalist folks that claimed it was a broken cross. Let me get my reference so my nerdy grad. student nature doesn't bother me...
All right, there we go. In reference to the CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament): "To create the symbol, Holtom used the naval flag code of semaphore, and the symbol represents the code letters for ND -- 'nuclear disarmament.' [. . .] In the United States and elsewhere it is known more broadly as the all-familiar peace symbol adopted by the 1960s anti-war movement." (Bell, James John. "Afterword." The Sheep Look Up. 378-79). So Holtom made the symbol; Brunner was a part of the organization, and the early fifties protests.
Bunnyman:
I'm hesitant to lump Cyberpunk with dystopia, because it's meant to be an extension of today's society, whereas most dystopian lit is more fantastical in nature; i.e. defies time and place.
The Neuromancer trilogy wouldn't be written in any decade other than the 80s; the Bridge trilogy (Virtual Light~Idoru~All Tomorrows Parties) is very 90s. Snow Crash is distinctly 90s as well. All the above books present a world, and ideas come from it, rather than the other way around. Blade Runner is a bit fuzzier in this respect, but in classic Ridley Scott manner the world is so fleshed out that it can stand on its own independent of the plot. This also goes for that other great Ridley Scott dystopia, Alien.
While 1984 is explicitly set in a certain year, that and other works such as Fahrenheit 451 and Brave New World are not linked to time and place so much as ideas. All mechanics of the world, be it miniluv or soma, are tied explicitly to literary ideas. If you strip away these ideas, there isn't much left. This isn't to suggest that the works lack any merit, but they simply have a different focus.
Additionally, cyberpunk generally only hints at a failed utopia; the fact that it is a natural extension of today's society suggests a more organic course of evolution, rather than the forced engineering suggested by the label 'dystopia.'
----
Canticle for Leibowitz is a good banner-bearer for that other great pseudo-dystopian genre, Post-Apocalyptica. Canticle is vaguely dystopian, especially towards the end (spoiler!) but is definitely more of a sci-fi novel playing with cool ideas rather than building a counter-utopian society. Nonetheless, it's a great read, and highly recommended.
If you want to open that can of worms, may I forward Alas, Babylon, Warday,, and The Postman as three excellent examples of the genre? These represent a good cross-section of Cold War paranoia through the second half of the 20th Century. Earth Abides is another good post-apoc novel, though it's more of an existential piece and less immediately a "we're all going to die" piece.
-----
As a final note, I'll forward Battle Royale as genuine Dystopian fiction.
Not because it's particularly brilliant, subtle, well-written, poignant, emotionally engaging, or anything else for that matter. More because it's absolutely bollocks.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version