BetterPHP

I found that I like stories about dystopian societies, such as V for Vendetta (happy November 5th, by the way), 1984, The Hunger Games, and The Giver (we are currently reading that in English). I didn't particularly enjoy "Harrison Berguron", but the movie remake "2081" was good.

So first off, any recommended books/stories abort dystopias?

And are there any websites that I can read short stories that you know of, that have them on it?

Obviously, I would enjoy reading more.


--Happy living!

Is it bad that I had to http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q= ... +dystopias ?

Also, I don't know of any

I didn't really understand the V for Vendetta movie, maybe because I started watching for the middle and the beginning. I don't know....

However! I like paranoia "stories" or stories that includes paranoid people/general paranoia. 'Cause when you're finished reading it you have that feeling you're being followed or documented. Like in that one movie with Jim.

Since you're already reading George Orwell's 1984, isn't animal farm another Orwell classic which is comparably weird?

libeco wrote:Since you're already reading George Orwell's 1984, isn't animal farm another Orwell classic which is comparably weird?

Im gonna read that in like march in English. So I'm waiting. (I groaned when I found out how lOng it was). I do look forward to reading it.

Not that I have insight to books you should read on the subject, you are already covering a vast range of them, although I think it is quite interesting to note that this supposed dystopia which you speak of (particularly in "The Giver") can to some extent be considered a utopia.

The whole basis of literature on one idea or the other shows something truly magnificent about human culture and perception. A utopia to one may be a dystopia to another, and so even through a creative work involving one or the other we peer into both in a more real sense. It is connections like these that make critical reading so fun.

Take The Giver for example; the basis of the book is not that some person is trying to take full control as to make everything in the world worse, to corrupt society, in fact quite the opposite. The purpose of their uniform, isolated society is to remove any form of prejudice from their society. However, through this good intention they remove the core of what it means to be human, to be the highest evolved, most civilized species in existence.

It almost caught me off guard when you mentioned it in your list, I had always thought of it as more of a utopia approached wrong (like Communism, but that is another issue all together), however, come to think of it that is in essence what a dystopia is. The number of occurrences where some person is truly trying to make the world a harsher place, even in literature, is very limited. The difference is truly perception; any tyrannical leader throughout history can be picked and argued that their efforts were not to tyranny but rather to a more serene place, merely misguided.

Anyhow, this is becoming an English paper and diverting me from the English paper I am supposed to be writing, so, have fun!