Enduring...
I am not able to explain without sounding like I am exaggerating but the last year and a half was Hell. I am grateful for the people who knew who didn't try to minimize my suffering, didn't try to deny it, and who when I lost my computer and totaled my car didn't act like it was no big deal. It was a big deal, and I never thought a year would be worse than 2012 through 2014, when I lost my mom, had cancer, and a best friend committed suicide. But 2019 December to the present has been that. I endure with the help of beloved friends, family and cats.
MY DYSTOPIA, NO UTOPIA
I'm aware that some folks see dystopia from a place of it being depressing or perhaps boring. However, unlike other genres, dystopia is actually most often a darkened mirror image of a utopia. My initial intent writing this was to show how there are times of darkness in life but we can rise up. But my mind said, wait, why can't I just learn the lesson from these books, instead of giving a happy empty truism to my readers. Well it is true that Utopia does not exist. And it is true that most of existence right now is wondering if there is a future for our species, but we can hope. And we can imagine a world beset by issues and find an answer for those issues, because to surrender to a crisis that takes no prisoners means defeat and complete annihilation.
Those books below are the books I consider to be my favorite dystopia novels. I do not suggest they are the only ones of worth, nor that they are the best. I haven't read all or even most of the novels of the genre to know if that is true.
Yevgeny Zamyatin WE
The first true dystopia novel was WE. It introduces a great deal of new ideas, considers the world from the perspective of how human society and thought will evolve, and very powerfully, people are given numbers rather than names for identification. Along with absolute control and covert espionage upon the people by the government, society has come to believe that emotions and dreams are subversive, and dangerous.
“Those two, in paradise, were given a choice: happiness without freedom, or freedom without happiness. There was no third alternative.” Y. Zamyatin
George Orwell 1984
The title 1984 was meant to evoke a feeling of the future, and some degree of separation from the time of writing. Similar to the book WE Orwell imagined a world where there was no privacy, people were not encouraged to be thoughtful or inquisitive, and emotions, even love, was considered dangerous. The book is immaculately written, without flaw, and the love story that occurs feels real, and at the same time horrific.
“Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.” G. Orwell
Margaret Atwood THE HANDMAID'S TALE
In a nation state called Gilead the rulers enforce a form of theocratic rule, Biblical law and demand for obedience to society, to the extent of religious practice and reproduction. Women are considered to be property in most ways, even if they do not have direct laws saying so. Somewhat anti religious in outlook, the author makes a point using fiction to illustrate the danger of religious utopias, especially people who aren't religious, alien in outlook, or vulnerable to control.
"Men are afraid women will laugh at them. Women are afraid men will kill them" M. Atwood
Kazuo Ishiguro NEVER LET ME GO
As I try to avoid spoilers in anything I write, this description might seem thin or less detailed than normal. But the work is A-MAZING... The author considers the life of those humans who were created in a different manner than the rest, and with consequences as a result. This work punches holes in the fabric of society, because some people are more equal than others.
“It was like when you make a move in chess and just as you take your finger off the piece, you see the mistake you've made, and there's this panic because you don't know yet the scale of disaster you've left yourself open to.” K. Ishiguro
Aldous Huxley BRAVE NEW WORLD
Brave New World is shockingly prescient regarding the future it considers, and that future is now. By common and heavy use of narcotics of all varieties in order to avoid stress, to enhance pleasure, and to address the world without feeling compulsion or need for defiance, the Brave New World considered is anything but Brave. Huxley saw the use of drugs as a means to avoid issues, but he also saw use of vaccines and drugs as a way of control by the government. Huxley's lectures about the book are mind-blowing. He was very aware that gradual transfer of human agency over to the powerful, the cultural elite would likely come less from a bold, violent or dangerous use of force to start society on the path to the use of drugs and less personal responsibility. His deft lexicon and apt knowledge of the world outside our door that is less overtly evil, and so it controls by the gradualism of medicating society. By such chemical intervention the state and society acquire a sort of momentum and gravity that pulls upon the individual in a whirlpool of ever greater danger.
“But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.” A. Huxley
Ray Bradbury FAHRENHEIT 451
A member of conformist society used to burn and censor books. But upon learning the true meaning of his actions, he joins those who attempt to commit to memory everything that the censors are trying to erase. The book was written during the McCarthy era of US government following the World War II victory against fascists, but a rise of more dangerous communism. The ideas behind the work are a response to the Nazi book burnings, and demand for a political correct world, where one must conform or like books, they will be burned and the life in them will be lost. The present day world could use a few courses per graduating seniors from high school to suggest, critical thought is more important than financial success.
“Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you're there.
It doesn't matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away. The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime.” R. Bradbury
First off, I can be found on Facebook, Twitter or through email at Alexanderness63@gmail.com. I accept hard copies, so when you inquire at any of these places, I'll follow through by telling you my street address. I no longer have a post box, although I regret that. It was a crushing defeat to no longer have a p.o. box, when I came to realize I was getting so little product it made no sense to pay for the privilege to not receive mail at both my home and at the post office. If you send hard copies for review I will always review them, but if you prefer to send pdf or ebooks to my email, I will review these at my discretion. I don't share my pdf/ebooks, so you can avoid worry that I'd dispense them for free to others.
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Lovecraft Styled Horror CthulhuDarkness.Blogspot.Com
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