The Dystopian Novel

[saoirse]

Earlier today I was watching Farenheit 451 on the cable. The host (some young guy in a beard) was explaining the golden age of the form in terms of the cold war. I thought he was correct as far as that goes, but he went on to say that it stemmed from a fear that the communists would take over the west. Thsi bothered me because even the most anti-communist dystopian novel, 1984, porttrayed the Cold War continuing apace, with references to equatorial proxy wars nad shifting alliances between the three great powers.

When I first finished reading David Halberstam’s The Fifties, the first thought that came to me was, “he left out the dystopian science fiction novel.” I would place it’s beginning at the turn of the century, with H. G. Wells’ The Time Machine. It entered its peak beginning with 1984 and ending in the mid-sixties. Of course, there a lot of great examples have been produced right up to the present, but the classics of the “first generation” are clustered in a fifteen-year stretch. After that, a new sort of dytopia came into vogue, led by authors like Philip K Dick and Anthony Burgess. In these works, the protagonist is not trying to overthrow the dystopia, but rather to find some accomodation or understanding with it. They assume that the power structure is permanent, and that open opposition is impossible to sustain.

Anyway, I would propose that the heyday of the dystopian novel had everything to do with the Soviet Union, and nothing to do with the Cold War. It was the fact of the Soviet Union that inspired these visions of the future. Socialism considered itself to be a scientific analysis of class in history. The structure of the Communist utopia was arrived at through a rational process and beginning with only the best intentions. As far as anyone knew at the time, they were advancing scientifically at at least the same pace as we were, but the ideology that controlled that society twisted the technological advances so that they served to make the lives of its citizens even more miserable. At the same time, technological change also had the capacity to make the average citizen’s life much easier, and was during this period. The dystopian authors, however, saw this as a second path to enslavement. As the populace became more and more dependent on technology, it became lazier and less able to act or think independently.

So that’s what I thought about the introduction to the movie and the form in general, which I think really is a crucial aprt of our cultural history. What does everyone else think about this particular type of literature?

[Little_Nemo]

I’m not sure I follow your reasoning completely - you seemed to be making some leaps a little faster than I could follow.

But my thoughts on the subject are that dystopian novels are based on the author’s (and readers’) thoughts about their own society. If they were worried about the big danger to their society being an external one, then they could depict their protagonist as resisting it - he would not be a part of the system that was oppressing him. But if the threat to your society is inherent to the society itself, then the protagonist can no longer hope to overthrow his oppressors - they are part of the same system that created him. The best he can hope to do in such a situation is seek a reasonable accomodation.

So the shift in dystopian novels you’ve observed might reflect growing uneasiness about problems in American society. If the Soviet Union is the threat, the solution is obvious - defend the United States against its enemies. But if the United States is a threat to itself, who do you attack or defend?

[Marley23]

@saoirse

At the same time, technological change also had the capacity to make the average citizen’s life much easier, and was during this period. The dystopian authors, however, saw this as a second path to enslavement. As the populace became more and more dependent on technology, it became lazier and less able to act or think independently.

That does sound like the thinking behind a lot of dystopian stories, including my favorite, Brave New World. I do like the genre.

[davenportavenger]

I think there is a definite difference between dystopias as presented in the work of Dick, Burgess, and possibly Orwell and works like Brave New World and Fahrenheit 451, which I would classify as “negative utopias.” In a dystopic novel, most everyone is opposed to the society; even if they offer no conscious resistance they seem pretty miserable. Even the powerful have their complaints. In BNW, most people are content, and even if their society seems horrifying to us it is okay to them. I think both these types of novels can provide useful commentary on our society, but in different ways. I’d say that dystopic novels show us our worst nightmares and classify them as such, whereas negative utopias show us our greatest wishes fulfulled and it is up to us to deduce that they are actually bad, make us figure out why we react so strongly to the dissolution of the family structure or a ready supply of brain-numbing drugs. The lines between the two types aren’t always totally clear though–I think 1984 straddles the line.

I like both these types of novels, by the way. A great recent negative utopic novel is Beautiful Soup by Harvey Jacobs. And if you haven’t yet, read yourself some Stanislaw Lem. And I think a lot of Neal Stephenson’s work could be categorized as dystopic too. Oh, and Gun with Occasional Music by Jonathan Lethem. I could go on all day, really.

(I don’t see how you can divorce the Soviet Union from the Cold War, in fact I was kinda confused about that part of your post. The CW wouldn’t have happened if not for the USSR, yeah, but I think the domestic repercussions of censorship and witch hunts drastically influenced fifties science fiction, and by extension dystopias. Maybe there is some part of this that I am missing?)

[Exapno_Mapcase]

I’d place the beginnings of the dystopia novel before Wells, somewhere between the 1880s, when Walter Besant was writing The Revolt of Man and The Inner House and Ignatius Donnelly’s 1890 Caesar’s Column and the rest of the responses to *Looking Backward. A wide variety of dystopias were written before WWI, most predicting horrible consequences in debilitating wars.

The destruction of mankind through machines was a second peak with E. M. Forster’s The Machine Stops and Karel Capek’s R.U.R. Brave New World was a variation on these. They restarted after the way with such books as Kurt Vonnegut’s first novel, Player Piano.

Political dystopias spanned the political spectrum. Jack London wrote The Iron Heel, against capitalism, as early as 1907. American fascism was skewered in Sinclair Lewis’ It Can’t Happen Here in 1933. By that time anti-fascist, anti-Nazi, and anti-socialist dystopias had appeared in every western country.

Specifically anti-Soviet dystopias probably start with 1924’s We by Yevgeny Zamiatin, whose structure influenced seemingly every later book of its type, from Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon to Orwell.

Hardly any book of the 50s carries the power of these earlier works. Bradbury simply could never be as frightening and Vonnegut pioneered the black humor that was the dominant style of dystopias thereafter.

So it doesn’t surprise me in the least that Halberstam left dystopias out of The Fifties, unless you are referring to the sci-fi B-movies made during that decade.

Your history of the dystopia bears little resemblance to what serious critics have written. I have no idea what you mean when you say, “the classics of the “first generation” are clustered in a fifteen-year stretch.” Anti-technological dystopias long preceded Stalin and were normally a separate track from the anti-Communist ones, although they later adopted technological means of oppression. 1984 is hardly the most anti-communist dystopia, and even without all the competition wouldn’t qualify since Orwell was ripping his own English society more than any other.

And that takes me to Little Nemo’s correct and quite important point. Dystopias savage their own society for its failings. That is their power. Without that they’re just crude scare the masses books. Look at all the idiots running around today calling the French cowards and dilettantes. But when French writers dramtize the meaningless of life in a society with false values, as the existentialists did after WWII, it become literature.

[Voyager]

@Exapno Mapcase

Specifically anti-Soviet dystopias probably start with 1924’s We by Yevgeny Zamiatin, whose structure influenced seemingly every later book of its type, from Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon to Orwell.

I second this. Zamiatin had just about every feature of a dystopia first and mostly better - including people being given numbers instead of names. Not to mention that the sex aspect is covered more fearlessly than Orwell ever did. Find yourself a copy somewhere (mine is the 1959 Collier edition) if you are the slightest bit interested in this area.

[saoirse]

@Exapno Mapcase

I’d place the beginnings of the dystopia novel before Wells, somewhere between the 1880s, when Walter Besant was writing The Revolt of Man and The Inner House and Ignatius Donnelly’s 1890 Caesar’s Column and the rest of the responses to *Looking Backward. A wide variety of dystopias were written before WWI, most predicting horrible consequences in debilitating wars.

The destruction of mankind through machines was a second peak with E. M. Forster’s The Machine Stops and Karel Capek’s R.U.R. Brave New World was a variation on these. They restarted after the way with such books as Kurt Vonnegut’s first novel, Player Piano.

Political dystopias spanned the political spectrum. Jack London wrote The Iron Heel, against capitalism, as early as 1907. American fascism was skewered in Sinclair Lewis’ It Can’t Happen Here in 1933. By that time anti-fascist, anti-Nazi, and anti-socialist dystopias had appeared in every western country.

Specifically anti-Soviet dystopias probably start with 1924’s We by Yevgeny Zamiatin, whose structure influenced seemingly every later book of its type, from Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon to Orwell.

Hardly any book of the 50s carries the power of these earlier works. Bradbury simply could never be as frightening and Vonnegut pioneered the black humor that was the dominant style of dystopias thereafter.

So it doesn’t surprise me in the least that Halberstam left dystopias out of The Fifties, unless you are referring to the sci-fi B-movies made during that decade.

Your history of the dystopia bears little resemblance to what serious critics have written. I have no idea what you mean when you say, “the classics of the “first generation” are clustered in a fifteen-year stretch.” Anti-technological dystopias long preceded Stalin and were normally a separate track from the anti-Communist ones, although they later adopted technological means of oppression. 1984 is hardly the most anti-communist dystopia, and even without all the competition wouldn’t qualify since Orwell was ripping his own English society more than any other.

And that takes me to Little Nemo’s correct and quite important point. Dystopias savage their own society for its failings. That is their power. Without that they’re just crude scare the masses books. Look at all the idiots running around today calling the French cowards and dilettantes. But when French writers dramtize the meaningless of life in a society with false values, as the existentialists did after WWII, it become literature.

I haven’t read [Cesar’s Column,* but it is my understanding that it was written as a companion to Looking Back, which would make sense since Donnely was elected with support from the Bellamyites. In any case, according to Russell Nye (who generally erred on the side of giving progressive and populist authors too much credit) the book did not do well, and generally failed to capture the imagination even of the Chatauqua set the way that Looking Backward did.

This is why I think that the postwar period was the most important time for the form. It was during this time that the idea of a dystopia was more compelling than that of a Utopia. Many of the novels written during the 19th Century embraced didacticism, and were frequently a reduccio ad absurdam of an opposing viewpoint.

I don’t think dystopian novels were necessarily anti-communist, although they frequently served anti-communists. They were generally anti-totalitarian, and did not see totalitarianism as something foreign to their own society. Thta was the problem I had with the way the dystopian novel was described. They asserted that they sprang from the Cold War, and embraced the fear that totalitarian societies would take over. I would say they embraced the fear that their own society had the same tendency.

I did forget, though, that Brave New World was published in the 1930s. I had thought that Player Piano was published in the 1950s, as well. So I would have to abandon the narrow time frame I laid out earlier.

I aslo have a question: I thought that Darkness at Noon was simply a realistic novel about the Stalinist Purges. Was it supposed to be science fiction?

[Knowed_Out]

Good points, but I’m not sure the authors of that period were writing out of any sense of patriotism for the US by presenting a dismal state reminiscent of the USSR. Authors usually (not always) write things from a personal perspective, and they might have written out of fear of what they thought their own governments were evolving towards. Paranoia was rampant during the 50’s, and these authors you cite may have been reflecting the oppression they felt their own governments were imposing.

Kafka’s The Trial can certainly be described as dystopic, as the main character can never figure out what crime he’s being charged with, and the endless bureaucracies he’s dealing with only mire him down further. That certainly reflects on Kafka’s personal experience.

[Exapno_Mapcase]

Readers in the past had exactly the same reading habits as they do today: they made one book a super-bestseller and ignored all the other books that sprang up on the same subject.

Virtually none of the dystopias until after WWII were written as science fiction or received by their audiences that way. We retroactively apply the label. Exactly when the book is set is less important, IMO, than the general tone of the book.

I’m sorry if my typo caused some confusion. Player Piano appeared in 1954 and I was including it with 50s novels. However, remember that for all of Vonnegut’s later fame, this book was almost totally unread at the time. Like the vast majority of other dystopias scholars consider historically important it was rediscovered later.

I’m still not sure what you mean by saying “that the postwar period was the most important time for the form.” Post-WWI or post-WWII? You seem to be emphasizing post-WWII. Except for Orwell, what other important dystopias are you counting from that period? If you’re including sci-fi movies, I have to disagree. They played upon fears of the other, and dystopias are about fears of what we’ll do to ourselves.

[E-Sabbath]

I would like to toss in the ring the most… The… the most examined version of a dystopia. Paranoia, the roleplaying game. Recently updated to once again mirror society in strange and unusual ways, it seems to be, truthfully, about nothing so much as human nature run rampant.

[saoirse]

@Exapno Mapcase

I’m still not sure what you mean by saying “that the postwar period was the most important time for the form.” Post-WWI or post-WWII? You seem to be emphasizing post-WWII. Except for Orwell, what other important dystopias are you counting from that period? If you’re including sci-fi movies, I have to disagree. They played upon fears of the other, and dystopias are about fears of what we’ll do to ourselves.

I wanted to say WWII, which would have wrapped the whole thing up in a nice little package with maybe the assassination of Kennedy as the bright red ribbon. The elegance of my theory is ruined, sadly, by the facts which insist on wandering off where they will. I would have to say that WWII was not so much an impetus as an interruption for the form. The time prior to that was, however, known as “The Age of Dictators,” and I would suggest that the shadow cast by it continued for many years after the war. I do remember there was discussion about whether the Allies had won WWII because fascism was inferior to democracy, or because they happened to have enormous land masses with abundant natural resources.

The books I had in mind were Brave New World, 1984, Farenheit 451, Clockwork Orange and The Wanting Seed, as well as The Man in the High Castle, and the other dystopian novels by Dick and Huxley. I would also include the dystopian novels by Ayn Rand and Nabokov, as examples of an author trying a hand at it. It’s kind of cheating, but I would also throw in Lord of the Flies, although you could certasinly make the case that this is also realistic fiction. I would include it simply because the setup and the ending seem to take place outside of any familiar historical context, and because whoever was being pursued by the warship is clearly playing the role of Piggy on a larger stage. I will admit it’s not much to go on, though.

Virtually none of the dystopias until after WWII were written as science fiction or received by their audiences that way. We retroactively apply the label. Exactly when the book is set is less important, IMO, than the general tone of the book.

I shouldn’t have used the term Science Fiction; there’s just not enough agreement on a definition for it. I will say a dystopian novel has to be speculative. Dystopia is based on Utopia which by definition is nowhere. The society can’t be something that actually exists at the time. The dystopian author has to invent the society, not Josef Stalin. Otherwise, The Gulag Archipelago and Fear and Loathing in the Third Reich would have to count, too.

I’m sorry if my typo caused some confusion. Player Piano appeared in 1954 and I was including it with 50s novels. However, remember that for all of Vonnegut’s later fame, this book was almost totally unread at the time. Like the vast majority of other dystopias scholars consider historically important it was rediscovered later.

I actually remember him saying it was the book that allowed him to pursue a full-time career in writing. The two statements aren’t mutually exclusive, but he was a young author and even if the first edition didn’t do so well, he made it up in paperback, certainly over the next ten years.

@Exapno Mapcase

Readers in the past had exactly the same reading habits as they do today: they made one book a super-bestseller and ignored all the other books that sprang up on the same subject.

That is not true. I don’t have access to the archives I’d need to link, but the fact that publishers have adopted a “blockbuster (small b) model” over the past twenty years has been analyzed and lamented in the NYT Book Review, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, and Esquire. There used to be more publishing houses and they used to make their money off of a larger selection of less profitable books.

[Exapno_Mapcase]

I wasn’t referring to general mainstream fiction and nonfiction, but to the kind of odd, specialized books that utopias and dystopias represent.

In all ages you find examples of one book or one author suddenly gaining astounding popularity and starting a subgenre or category of books. Publishers leap to find other authors to capitalize on the audience, but none of them ever seem to gain the readership. The public is satisfied with that one example.

You see it with Kon-Tiki, or Will Durant’s The Story of Philosophy, or Fulton Ousler’s The Greatest Story Ever Told, or Kids Say the Darndest Things, or A Message to Garcia. In fiction no other China novel sold like Pearl S. Buck’s The Good Earth, no other lost civilization book like Lost Horizon. And Mickey Spillane suddenly outselling virtually all other mysteries combined for a few years in the 50s still doesn’t have a good explanation.

John Bear’s The #1 New York Times Best Seller is a fascinating read about the ways the public has taken odd books and throw them to the top of the charts and then abandoned them for entirely different if equally odd choices. Alice Payne Hackett’s series of books on historical best sellers are more of a compilation of lists, but have some fascinating information on best sellers going back to 1895.

Anyway, Looking Backward is a prime example of what I mean by this. Several of the other books you mentioned have sold huge numbers over the years in paperback, but not one of them made the top ten of the year in hardcover the U.S., according to Hackett. Few other such books have ever sold more than a tiny fraction of their numbers. It’s hard to know the readership of these books in the postwar era.

A bit of a specialized point, but one that’s always interested me.

[Exapno_Mapcase]

I wasn’t referring to general mainstream fiction and nonfiction, but to the kind of odd, specialized books that utopias and dystopias represent.

In all ages you find examples of one book or one author suddenly gaining astounding popularity and starting a subgenre or category of books. Publishers leap to find other authors to capitalize on the audience, but none of them ever seem to gain the readership. The public is satisfied with that one example.

You see it with Kon-Tiki, or Will Durant’s The Story of Philosophy, or Fulton Ousler’s The Greatest Story Ever Told, or Kids Say the Darndest Things, or A Message to Garcia. In fiction no other China novel sold like Pearl S. Buck’s The Good Earth, no other lost civilization book like Lost Horizon. And Mickey Spillane suddenly outselling virtually all other mysteries combined for a few years in the 50s still doesn’t have a good explanation.

John Bear’s The #1 New York Times Best Seller is a fascinating read about the ways the public has taken odd books and throw them to the top of the charts and then abandoned them for entirely different if equally odd choices. Alice Payne Hackett’s series of books on historical best sellers are more of a compilation of lists, but have some fascinating information on best sellers going back to 1895.

Anyway, Looking Backward is a prime example of what I mean by this. Several of the other books you mentioned have sold huge numbers over the years in paperback, but not one of them made the top ten of the year in hardcover the U.S., according to Hackett. Few other such books have ever sold more than a tiny fraction of their numbers. It’s hard to know the readership of these books in the postwar era.

A bit of a specialized point, but one that’s always interested me.