A couple of days ago, I was watching a documentary featuring Jim Jones and his cult The People’s Temple. In case you don’t know, he’s the crazy guy who convinced over 900 people to commit mass suicide by drinking kool-aid laced with cyanide in Jonestown, Guyana way back in 1978. By that point, the group was mired in controversy with relatives accusing Jones of brainwashing, but no one saw such a violent end coming. In the early days of his ministry, Jones was known for progressive views on racial integration, and his social enlightenment was one of the main selling points for people joining the group.
The documentary showed a propaganda film produced by the people’s temple starring a smiling guy proclaiming that Jonestown was a utopia. And he was not the only one at the isolated Jones compound who thought that. Which got me thinking: in life and in literature, one person’s dystopia is another person’s utopia.
Take Lois Lowry’s THE GIVER for example. The world Jonas lives in seems perfect. There is no war. No fear. No pain. Everyone contributes their share for the greater good. A person's mate and job are chosen for them. And when they are no longer useful, they are peacefully "released". Everyone seems happy. And yet when Jonas becomes a giver, the one person in society who holds memories of the past, he begins to realize that peaceful living comes at a great price. No freedom of choice, no familial bonds, no romantic love and worse than that, euthanasia and infanticide. Still, interview most anyone in the book and they’d tell you they were living in a utopia. (Do keep in mind though that they are all popping emotion suppressant drugs...)
Gemma Malley’s THE DECLARATION presents another type of perfect world. Modern science has found a way to grant mortals immortality via a longevity drug. There is a slight downside: to counter an unsustainable population explosion, anyone who takes the drug must sign a declaration that they won’t have children. But hey, who needs children when you can live forever right? I mean some pesky people are kind of disgruntled about not being allowed to procreate, and surpluses, children of rule breakers lead pretty crappy lives in unfriendly institutions. But yeah, ask the man on the street, and he’s going to smile and call the place a utopia.
In Neal Shusterman’s UNWIND, no one dies waiting for organ donation because high quality organs are readily available thanks to The Bill of Life, a result of the Heartland War between Pro-lifers and Pro-choicers. It declares that a person’s life cannot be legally terminated from conception to age thirteen. However, if someone doesn’t prove their worth by that age, they can be "unwound", allowing them to continue to “live” in a “divided state” and to contribute something more valuable to society than they ever would be able to in their "undivided state". So maybe not a such a great deal for those who prove unworthy, but think about how happy all the organ recipients are. Ask one of them if they are living in a dystopia, and they’ll look at you like you’re crazy.
As you can see, sometimes it’s all a matter of point of view: One person’s dystopia is another person’s utopia.
Showing posts with label The Read Carpet Podcast. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Read Carpet Podcast. Show all posts
Monday, May 11, 2009
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Transcript: Presenting Lenore Presents...Dystopias (1): What If?
Science fiction asks the “what if” questions, like ‘what if there was life on mars” or “what if little green aliens attacked earth”. Dystopias ask “what if society was really, really frakked up?” – how would people live and what would they do about their situation?” Authors build fictional dystopian societies as a device to criticize some hot button cultural issue of the day and to show us what our future might be like if the human race doesn’t get their act together.
George Orwell wrote his dystopian classic 1984 in 1948 and publicly asserted that it was written as a response to the oppressive communist and fascist regimes of that time. Today’s dystopias explore societies built on everything from marketers abuse of consumer privacy – such as in MT Anderson’s Feed – to government mandated plastic surgery – such as Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies series. In 2008 we had Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games which can be seen as a criticism of reality TV, Allegra Goodman’s The Other Side of the Island, a criticism of extreme environmentalism, and Little Brother by Cory Doctorow, a criticism of the termination of human rights in the name of national security.
Not all dystopias are necessarily criticisms of course. They can also ask purely speculative questions such as “what would happen if children were left to rule themselves?” This was in fact asked twice this past year, in Michael Grant’s Gone and Bonnie Dobkin’s Nepture’s Children, two books I don’t feel a pressing need to read, because this particular question was quite adequately answered for me by William Golding’s Lord of the Flies.
Post apocalyptic fiction is a very similar and often interchangeable subgenre which explores the question “what if there would be a complete breakdown of society due to some cataclysmic event?” Books in this category include The Road by Cormac McCarthy and Life as We Knew it by Susan Beth Pfeffer.
Something that I’ve noticed is that dystopian novels written for adults tend to have unresolved and/or depressing endings while novels written with a teen audience in mind tend to have more uplifting or inspiring endings. If the teen protagonist doesn’t find a way to overthrow the society completely, he or she at least carves out some measure of freedom within or outside the society.
YA novels also tend to be less brutally realistic. In Life As We Knew It, Miranda and her family are holed up at home and trying to survive after a meteor hits the moon and pushes it too close to Earth, causing massive societal disruptions. There are no more food deliveries so people are starving. At one point, Miranda’s cat goes missing. Had this been an adult dystopia like The Road, the cat would have been roasting over a fire and in some starving belly by day’s end. But no. The cat comes back! And he even has enough dry cat food to last him until society can get back on its feet again. I found this unrealistic in the context of a post-apocalyptic landscape.
But despite that very specific plot criticism, I really love YA dystopias. They are generally creative, exciting reads and I think they are a great way to get teens thinking about and discussing “what if” questions and hopefully thinking about ways to make our world a better place so that we don’t actually have to live out a dystopian or post apocalyptic future.
George Orwell wrote his dystopian classic 1984 in 1948 and publicly asserted that it was written as a response to the oppressive communist and fascist regimes of that time. Today’s dystopias explore societies built on everything from marketers abuse of consumer privacy – such as in MT Anderson’s Feed – to government mandated plastic surgery – such as Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies series. In 2008 we had Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games which can be seen as a criticism of reality TV, Allegra Goodman’s The Other Side of the Island, a criticism of extreme environmentalism, and Little Brother by Cory Doctorow, a criticism of the termination of human rights in the name of national security.
Not all dystopias are necessarily criticisms of course. They can also ask purely speculative questions such as “what would happen if children were left to rule themselves?” This was in fact asked twice this past year, in Michael Grant’s Gone and Bonnie Dobkin’s Nepture’s Children, two books I don’t feel a pressing need to read, because this particular question was quite adequately answered for me by William Golding’s Lord of the Flies.
Post apocalyptic fiction is a very similar and often interchangeable subgenre which explores the question “what if there would be a complete breakdown of society due to some cataclysmic event?” Books in this category include The Road by Cormac McCarthy and Life as We Knew it by Susan Beth Pfeffer.
Something that I’ve noticed is that dystopian novels written for adults tend to have unresolved and/or depressing endings while novels written with a teen audience in mind tend to have more uplifting or inspiring endings. If the teen protagonist doesn’t find a way to overthrow the society completely, he or she at least carves out some measure of freedom within or outside the society.
YA novels also tend to be less brutally realistic. In Life As We Knew It, Miranda and her family are holed up at home and trying to survive after a meteor hits the moon and pushes it too close to Earth, causing massive societal disruptions. There are no more food deliveries so people are starving. At one point, Miranda’s cat goes missing. Had this been an adult dystopia like The Road, the cat would have been roasting over a fire and in some starving belly by day’s end. But no. The cat comes back! And he even has enough dry cat food to last him until society can get back on its feet again. I found this unrealistic in the context of a post-apocalyptic landscape.
But despite that very specific plot criticism, I really love YA dystopias. They are generally creative, exciting reads and I think they are a great way to get teens thinking about and discussing “what if” questions and hopefully thinking about ways to make our world a better place so that we don’t actually have to live out a dystopian or post apocalyptic future.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Presenting The Read Carpet Podcast!
It's here (a bit earlier than I expected)! The Read Carpet is a podcast made by an assortment of bloggers to talk about our favorite subject - YA literature. It was put together by Adele and has a rotating roster of contributers including myself and some of the most awesome bloggers around. We are planning to have two episodes a month and you'll hear from me every other episode if all goes well. This time, I discuss dystopian fiction and I even managed to record a take without Emmy meowing in the background!Please excuse the sound on my segment (which begins at 14 min 20 seconds in). I will invest in a better microphone for next time. In case you can't or don't want to listen to audio, I will post a transcript of my segment here on my blog one week after the airdate .
Go to the official Read Carpet site where you can find the show notes and find links to all the contributing bloggers or listen to the podcast right here. It should also be available at iTunes starting tomorrow. And remember, we'd LOVE to hear your feedback. Thanks!
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