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/lit/ - Literature

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4110441 No.4110441[DELETED]  [Reply] [Original]

What is your favourite distopian pieces of literature ?
>pic semi-related

>> No.4110464

>>4110441
*What are your favourite distopian pieces of literature ?
sorry
OP here

>> No.4110471
File: 117 KB, 389x640, silverberg world inside.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4110471

E. M. Forster - The Machine Stops
Robert Silverberg - The World Inside
William Hope Hodgson - The Night Land

>> No.4110476
File: 60 KB, 500x781, RiddleyWalker-front_cover.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4110476

>>4110441
Unbeatable

>> No.4110534

>>4110476
Does Riddley's world really represent "dystopia", though? I mean, considering the whole post-apocalyptic thing. Dystopias are basically unified in this idea of control, that some overwhelming force keeps either keeps everybody under its thumb or has risen to be the dominant controlling force in the world; although Riddley ultimately works to undo the "government" of England, if it can be called that, the forces at play hardly qualify as dominating the world in which he exists.

But is it still one of the best novels of the 20th century, if not all of literature? Hell yes.

>> No.4110542

>>4110534

>Dystopias are basically unified in this idea of control, that some overwhelming force keeps either keeps everybody under its thumb or has risen to be the dominant controlling force in the world

This is you makin shit up. There's nothing that says a dystopia that needs to be controlling, that's just one thing that many people find scary (the real essential element of a dystopia).

>> No.4110574

>>4110534

I'd say there's two kinds of dystopia you can have really: the kind where society AM GO TOO FAR! and the kind where society AM NOT GO FAR ENOUGH. The latter kind though tend to be about the breakdown of what we would consider society, which makes it hard to consider some of them dystopia - for example McCarthy's The Road treats these kinds of themes but you couldn't call it a dystopia exactly, because it isn't so much about a society but rather what happens where society isn't. But I do think there's room for dystopias of the latter kind, even if they do mostly follow the same "post-apocalyptic, everything is fucked and now we must live like beasts" ideas - Canticle for Leibowitz is a decent counterexample in some ways. For a better comparison of what I'm talking about with the two kinds of dystopia though, read first Jack London's The Iron Heel and then Jack London's The Scarlet Plague. It's Jack London so you know it kicks ass, go ahead and read them.

>> No.4110577

>>4110534
Remember riddley walker takes place thousands of years after some sort of disaster. The fallout is actually beginning to become less radioactive. Any disaster that can keep things at that level that long is pretty dystopian. Of course you could argue theat the entire past was a dystopia using that logic I guess....

>> No.4110591

>>4110542
well control defined as lack of choices might figure into dystopias.

Consider "With Folded Hands" or "the Midas Plague" and if you look at Campbell's "Twilight" , or "Who an Replace a Man?" you see that dystopia can come from too much stuff and too much freedom, but there's always an element of control. Also, "Country of the Kind" and "Love Conquers All" explore different aspects of the freedom/license issue.

>> No.4110660

>>4110591

>well control defined as lack of choices might figure into dystopias.

Yeah of course it often does, I meant the "basically unified" bit isn't true at all. There's plenty of dystopias that don't revolve around totalitarian craziness though most of the most celebrated dystopias do.

>> No.4110738

bump

>> No.4110750

>>4110738

Why? /lit/ is a slow board, there's no need to bump without content. Contribute to the thread if you want someone to say something.

>> No.4110852

>>4110750
i've spent too much time on /b/ :D

>> No.4110861

The Communist Manifesto.

>> No.4112850

>>4110861
hue

>> No.4112907
File: 184 KB, 658x3485, dystopia.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4112907

sorta boring answer but I may have to go with fahrenheit 451
>>4110861
top lel

>> No.4112914

Daily reminder that Brave New World actually WAS set in a dystopia, unless you want to ignore everything Huxley ever said about the type of world that he envisaged there.

I know you all like to be contrarian faggots though.

>> No.4113814

>>4112907
edgy

>> No.4113987

>>4112907
>using ms paint comics to seriously convey anything
Please stop.