Other worlds: utopia and dystopia



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Other worlds: utopia and dystopia
(1)Questions of genre: sf, fantasy, cyberpunk, post-apocalyptic lit

(2) the British tradition

(Russia: Zamyatin, Platonov, Nabokov, Sacha Sokolov, Pelevin, Sorokin, T. Tolstaya)

(3)terminology



ou-topia, eu-topia (Sir Thomas More)

dys-topia (John Stuart Mill, 1868); cacotopia


The utopian impulse


Plato: The Republic (pagan) – the utopian city

Judeo-Christian tradition: millenarism (Civitas Dei) and Arcadianism (recovery of a lost Eden) – pagan versions: Golden Age



English Arcadianism: William Morris: News from Nowhere (1891); Richard Jefferies: After London (1885); Kingsley Amis: The Anti-Death League (1966); Orwell’s ’Golden Country’; Lord of the Rings (the Shire vs Mordor)

Nostalgia (Waugh: Brideshead Revisited, 1945)



Utopia in modernity – modernity as utopia

Progress, Enlightenment, modernisation, the New World

Rationalist, scientific utopias: Thomas More: Utopia (1516); Roger Bacon: New Atlantis (1627)

Twentieth-century: Wells: A Modern Utopia (1905); World State ruled by the Samurai

Brian Aldiss and Roger Penrose: White Mars (1999)
C. S. Lewis: The Cosmic Trilogy (Out of the Silent Planet, Peralandra, That Hideous Strength, 1938-1948)

James Hilton: Lost Horizon (1933): Shangri-La

John Burnside: Havergey (2017)

Feminist utopias (Elizabeth Corbett: The New Amazonia, 1889; Lady Florence Dixie: Gloriana, or The Revolution of 1900, 1890; Ch. Perkins Gilman: Herland, 1915; Katharine Burdekin: The End of This Day’s Business, 1935/1989; Joanna Russ, Ursula LeGuin, Monique Wittig)

Primitivist utopias: D. H. Lawrence: The Plumed Serpent; Huxley: Island (1962)


The dystopian impulse: strands


(1)science and reason (factory and bureaucracy)

Samuel Butler: Erewhon (1872/1901); E. M. Forster: „The Machine Stops” (1909)

third book of Gulliver (Laputa)

(2)fear of social engineering

Liberal fears: freedom vs totalitarianism

Anti-fascist dystopias

Storm Jameson: In the Second Year (1936)

Katharine Burdekin: Swastika Night (1937)

Rex Warner: The Aerodrome (1941)

Neil M. Gunn. The Green Isle of the Great Deep (1944)

Gillian Freeman: The Leader (1965)



Anti-communist dystopias:

Arthur Koestler: Darkness at Noon (1940)

Orwell: Animal Farm (1945)

George Orwell: Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949)

Winston Smith

Political ideology – philosophy

The sovereign subject – totalitarian invasion

’Common sense was the hersy of heresies’

The novel genre – vs world of Oceania

individual and collective memory

Anti-novels: Winston’s diary, Julia’s ’novels’

’Nothing was your own except the few cubic centrimetres inside your skull’

’Winston stopped reading, chiefly in order to appreciate the fact that he was reading, in comfort and safety. He was alone: no telescreen, no ear at the keyhole, no nervous impulse to glance over his shoulder or cover the page with his hand.’

The narrative voice, the Appendix in past tense
(3)fears of mass society - conservative dystopias

L. P. Hartley: Facial Justice (1960); the „Darling Dictator”; Jael 97; betafication

Aldous Huxley: Brave New World (1932)

caste system; Eugenics (Bokanovsky’s Process): hatcheries: ’the principle of mass production applied to biology’); hypnopaedia; soma

’Everyone belongs to everybody else’; ’feelies’

’The world’s stable now. People are happy; they get what they want, and they never want what they can’t get. They’re well off; they’re safe; they’re never ill; they’re not afraid of death; they’re blissfully ignorant of passion and old age they’re plagued with no mothers or fathers; they’ve got no wives, or children, or lovers to feel strongly about; they’re so conditioned that they practically can’t help behaving as they ought to behave. And if anything should go wrong, there’s soma. .. You’ve got to choose between happiness and what people used to call high art. We’ve sacrificed the high art. We have the feelies and the scent organ instead.’

Bernard Marx, Helmholtz Watson („I want to know what passion is. I want to fell something strongly”), John the Savage; Lenina Crowne

Huxley: Ape and Essence (1948)



Anthony Burgess: A Clockwork Orange (1962) Alex; Ludovico’s Technique; Nadsat

’They don’t go into the cause of goodness, so why the other shop? If lewdies are good that’s because they like it. … More, badness is of the self, the one, the you or me on our oddy knockies, and that self is made by old Bog or God and is his great pride and radosty.’



William Golding: Lord of the Flies (1954- rewrites Ballantyne’s The Coral Island); The Inheritors (1956 – rewrites Wells’s world history; Pincher Martin – rewrites Robinson Crusoe

Lord of the Flies: the dark side of rules

Piggy: rationalist („There’s no beast”); Ralph: liberal humanist („This is a good island”); Jack: Realpolitik, Simon: saint



The main dystopian fears often combined with others

Degeneration - H. G. Wells: The Time Machine;

invasion fears - Angus Wilson: The Old Men at the Zoo (1961)

(nuclear) holocaust, ecological disaster - Nevil Shute: On the Beach (1957); John Christopher: The Death of Grass (1956); The World in Winter (1962); Maggie Gee: The Ice People (1998), The Flood (2004)

Anna Kavan: Ice (1967)

Disease, loss of fertility - Brian Aldiss: Greybeard (1964); P. D. James: Children of Man (1992);

overpopulation – Burgess: The Wanting Seed, 1962; John Brunner: Stand on Zanzibar, 1968;

Other postwar dystopias

Michael Frayn: The Tin Men (1965)

Doris Lessing: Memoirs of a Survivor (1974); The Four-Gated City (1969);

Christopher Priest: Fugue for a Darkening Island (1972)

D. M. Thomas: The Flute-Player (1979)

J. G. Ballard: Highrise (1976), Hello America (1981) etc

Trevor Hoyle: Vail (1984)

Russell Hoban: Riddley Walker (1980)

“The vantsit theory, which is a kynd of telling and trantsing. That’s when the singing and the shouting come the many cools of Addom and the party cools of stoan. The strong and the weak inner acting and what happent in the cloudit chamber.”

“What I wer lissening wer Power. What ever it wer. The 1 Big 1 or the Spirit of God or the Littl Shyning Man or what ever.”

“Every body knows Aunty. Stoan boans and iron tits and teef be twean her legs plus she has a iron willy for the lady. When your time comes you have to do the kiucy with her like it or not. She rides a girt big rat with red eyes it can see in the dark and it can smel whos ready for Aunty.”



Maggie Gee: The Burning Book (1983);

Martin Amis: London Fields (1989); Einstein’s Monsters (1987); Money (1984)

Ian Watson: Whores of Babylon (1988); Ben Elton: Gridlock (1991), This Other Eden (1993)

Jim Crace: Arcadia (1992); The Pesthouse (2007); A. S. Byatt: Babel Tower (1997)

Julian Barnes: England, England (1998)

James Flint: Habitus (1998); James Kelman: Translated Accounts (2001), James Lovegrove: Untied Kingdom (2003)


David Mitchell: Cloud Atlas (2004)

“By evenin’ we got to a cluster of Old’un buildings what Meronym said’d been a village for S’tron’mers what was priests o’ the Smart what read the stars.”


Rupert Thomson: Divided Kingdom (2005)

Kazuo Ishiguro: Never Let Me Go (2005)

Will Self: The Book of Dave (2006)

Chris Wooding: Storm Thief (2006); Tony Ballantyne: Recursion trilogy (2004-7); Sarah Hall: The Carhullan Army (2007); Paul McAuley: The Quiet War sequence (2008-); Stephen Baxter: Time’s Tapestry quartet

Robert Edric: A New Ice Age (1986); Salvage (2010); China Miéville: The City and the City (2010); Howard Jacobson: J (2014)

Feminist dystopias:

Angela Carter: Heroes and Villans (1969); The Infernal Desire Machines of Dr. Hofmann (1972); The Passion of New Eve (1977)

Margaret Atwood: The Handmaid’s Tale (1985); Marge Piercy: Woman on the Edge of Time (1976); Zoe Fairbairns: Benefits (1979);

Jane Rogers: The Testament of Jessie Lamb (2011)



Novels “about” utopia, the utopian impulse

Jane Rogers: Mr. Wroe’s Virgins; Matthew Kneale: English Passengers; William Golding: Sea trilogy; Barry Unsworth: Sacred Hunger



Drama

Howard Barker. That Good Between Us (1977); The Hang of the Gaol (1978)



Young adult dystopias:

John Christopher: The Guardians (1970); Louise Lawrence: Andra (1971), Children of the Dust (1985); Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy; Meg Rosoff: How I Live Now (2004); Philip Reeve: Mortal Engines Quartet (2001-6); Malorie Blackman: Noughts and Crosses series (2001-); Moira Young: Blood Red Road (2011); Julie Bertagna: Exodus, Zenith, Aurora (2002-11); Marcus Sedgwick: Floodland; Gemma Malley: The Declaration, The Resistance, The Legacy; China Miéville: Railsea (2012); Sally Gardner: Maggot Moon (2013)

USA: Suzanne Collins: Hunger Games trilogy, Lois Lowry: the Giiver quartet; Monica Hughes: ArcOne series (1984-); Michael Grant: Gone; Fear etc; Scott Westerfeld: Uglies trilogy, Veronica Roth the Divergent trilogy; Margaret Peterson Haddix: Shadow Children, Lauren Oliver: Delirium (2011); Kristen Simmons: Article 5 (2012), Marie Lu’s Legend trilogy, Ally Condie: Matched trilogy; Patrick Carman: Land of Elyon series (2005-) the Atherton series; Kiera Cass: Selection series; M. T. Anderson: Feed (2002), Victoria Foyt: Save the Pearls series, Neal Shusterman: Unwind (2007); Gennifer Albin: Crewel (2012)

Karinthy Frigyes: Utazás Faremidóba, Kapillária; Szathmári Sándor: Kazohínia (1935-40); Déry Tibor: G. A. úr X-ben; Dallos György: 1985; Bodor Ádám: A Sinistra-körzet; Dragomán György: A pusztítás könyve; Parti Nagy Lajos: Hősöm Tere;Térey János: A legkisebb jégkorszak (2015) Bartók Imre trilógiája

Jevgenyij Zamjatyin: Mi; Andrey Marsov: Love in the Fog of the Future (1923); Andrej Platonov: Csevengur; Vladimir Nabokov: Bend Sinister (1947); Invitation to a Beheading; Sztrugackij-fivérek: Sztalker; Szasa Szokolov: Asztrofóbia; Tatyjana Tolsztaja: Kssz!; Vlagyimir Szorokin trilógiája (Az opricsnyik egy napja; Cukor-Kreml; Hóvihar); Vlagyimir Vojnovics: Moszkva 2042; Viktor Pelevin: Sárga nyíl; Generation P. Gluhovszkij: Metro-sorozat

Jack London: The Iron Heel; Kurt Vonnegut: Player Piano; The Sirens of Titan; Ira Levin: This Perfect Day (1970); Walter Hoffman: A Canticle for Leibowitz; Philip K. Dick: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Paul Auster: In the Country of Last Things (1998); Man in the Dark (2008)
Hermann Hesse: Üveggyöngyjáték

Arno Schmidt: Tudósköztársaság

Ernst Jünger: A márványszirteken

Ernst Jünger: Heliopolis (1944)

Arlen Haushofer: The Wall (1963)

Juli Zeh: The Method (2009)




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