#847 Musings Beyond the Bunker (Wednesday January 31)
Good morning,
I spent 10 weeks on the best books of the decades, from the 1930s through the 2020s (so far!). Last week was a selection of great books from our book club. I’m continuing on the weekly theme of great books, this time by category. Here is my list of dystopian literature.
I’ve been a fan of dystopian literature, alternative history, and science fiction all my life. I’ve been thinking a fair bit about the value of that literature. What it offers is the opportunity to create a world or a situation from which the author can create metaphorical conflicts and resolutions that speak to the times and serve to warn of potential alternative futures.
There are so many great ones but here are among my favorites (I’ve included one TV show, as well):
Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury. Continuing the warnings of other dystopias from the 40s. How does a government control the minds of the people? Simple. Get rid of the books. The story and the message seem particularly prescient and relevant today.
1984, by George Orwell. Totalitarianism, perpetual surveillance, thought police, doublethink and newspeak. Dystopia as imagined in 1948 that is frighteningly prescient of regimes in power today and a warning for what easily could come to our shores.
Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley. A caste system of artificially inseminated and gestated people from artificial wombs.
The Road, by Cormac McCarthy. Pulitzer prize winner of a father-son journey across the ash of a post-apocalyptic America. Stories of thievery, violence, and hope on the road through a largely lifeless land.
The Children of Men, by P.D. James. A depopulated U.K. where conception of children has slowed. The story of one pregnant woman who is a member of a resistance group against the tyrannical system.
Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro. The story of children raised and taught by “guardians,” at a country school. The children’s purpose is revealed by a teacher as to provide replacement organs for those from whom they are cloned. Short listed for the National Book Critics Circle Award and made into a haunting move. Sally Kerr of the New York Times says, "the theme of cloning lets [Ishiguro] push to the limit ideas he's nurtured…about memory and the human self; the school's hothouse seclusion makes it an ideal lab for his fascination with cliques, loyalty and friendship."
The Giver, by Lois Lowry. A utopia that’s really a dystopia. People remember nothing and don’t experience grief. Sameness is prized. There is a boy regularly chosen who is the “receiver of memories,” taught of hunger and war and who bears these memories and the burdens associated with that position in a society that knows neither good nor evil, and few emotions.
The Time Machine, by H.G. Wells. The “granddaddy” of the genre. Wells imagines a 19th century time traveler going far into the future to find two groups of humanoid life forms on Earth—one, the Eloi, the other, the Morlocks—one above ground and the other below. One to serve and one to be served.
The Wall, by John Lanchester. Ron Charles, of The Washington Post, says “The novel takes place in an island nation, something like England, that is now entirely surrounded by a thick wall designed to repel hordes of desperate refugees, called the Others. ‘It’s cold on the wall,’ the book begins. ‘That’s the first thing everybody tells you, and the first thing you notice when you’re sent there, and it’s the thing you think about all the time you’re on it.’” Xenophobia and anti-immigration sentiment are brought to a head in this dystopian world that has resulted from massive climate change. A wall is built around the country. Everyone must serve their time as a “Defender” on the Wall, to keep out the “Others.” Obviously, much resonates with our current times.
Don’t Look Up. A thinly disguised metaphor for the climate crisis, in the form of a comet approaching earth. In some ways, holding a mirror up to current society and saying “this is nuts” is reminiscent of Doctor Strangelove. Okay, so it’s not a book…
Handmaid’s Tale. What can happen with excessive government control, particularly when tied to social issues and religion. Watch the first season on TV, based upon Margaret Atwood’s wonderful book. Ignore the subsequent seasons, which are not written by Atwood and are just more of the same but with amped up violence (not unlike when Westworld tried to turn a great concept into a multi-season machine for capturing eyeballs with greater and greater violence and absurdity).
The Mandibles. What if the economy really goes to hell? Another great read by Lionel Shriver. Thinking the unthinkable, pumped up to the absurd to demonstrate the risks. The book is divided into two parts: The first is the economic collapse of the United States, centered around the “Great Renunciation,” when T-Bills are declared null and void, and the U.S. coping with a new international monetary/financial order (of which it is not a part). The second part is the increasing authoritarianism of the government, a couple of generations later.
Station Eleven. A pandemic catastrophe (written before COVID) by Emily St. John Mandel. What does the world look like when it must rebuild. And can art save our souls? This has been adapted as a miniseries on TV. It’s good as TV but better as a book. There is a hopefulness to the slow establishment of a society, centered around the Great Lakes.
The Resisters. By Gish Jen. Dystopia with AI, oversight by “Aunt Nettie” (like Big Brother from 1984), with two populations (the “angelfair’ and the Surplus—much like the eloi and the morlocks from H.G. Wells). And baseball is involved…! An enjoyable and quick read.
Have a great day,
Glenn