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It Feels Like All The Dystopian Novels and Movies are Coming True Right Now
What’s going to happen in the next chapter?
The first dystopian novel I ever read was George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four.” I read it in grade school, when that year was still in the future. I graduated from high school in 1984; a fitting year for me to come of age.
I went on to devour dystopian fiction like there was (wait for it) no tomorrow. Still in high school, I believed I recognized the boys in William Golding’s “Lord of the Flies.” I particularly remember congratulating myself for my superior taste in literature because Golding won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1983, just as I had finished reading and praising the book. Clearly, I was miles ahead of the uncivilized masses surrounding me.
Then I went to college. As a journalism major and English minor, I made many friends with proudly pretentious tastes. Thus I was introduced to Kurt Vonnegut’s “Player Piano” and Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451” and Anthony Burgess’ “A Clockwork Orange.” I loved Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” and George Orwell’s “Animal Farm.” At some point I began deliberately searching out dystopian books and read dozens of them. (Check out this pretty decent list that includes both popular and literary works if you want to do the same. Unless you’re a health care provider, you no doubt have time right now. Just download them.)
More recently, after the last presidential election, I finally got around to reading Sinclair Lewis’ chilling “It Can’t Happen Here.” And I re-read Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale.”
Perhaps my favorite is Stephen King’s “The Stand.” I’ve read this book several times, including after the last presidential election, because I couldn’t stop thinking about one very prescient section. You’ve probably already read the book, and if you haven’t, you will, so I’m not going to retell the whole story. But remember when one of the women in Boulder goes undercover to Las Vegas to spy and finds, to her surprise, that she quite likes one of the other women there? She realizes that if they had met before the pandemic that they would have been friends. She’s on the wrong side, but she isn’t evil. (And there are some bad actors on the right side, as well. Good and evil are never absolute.)
