Summary of Eugene Luther "Gore" Vidal's Messiah added May 24th 2004
Dystopia, also called anti-utopia, is a rare but potent genre of fiction. The word comes from dys-Utopia, referring to the classic "Utopia" which described a perfect world. The word "Utopia" itself means "Nowhere" but has come to mean paradise, since that is what the work described. Dys-Utopia, then, is just the opposite: a Hell on Earth. This fictional form is usually used as a warning, generally a political one, a portrayal of the author's vision of what would happen if that which terrifies him or her became all powerful.
In discussing the genre of dystopia it is important to examine the distinction between what I call a "True Dystopia" and something which is merely "dystopian." In a true dystopia it is the dystopian world itself which is the focus and purpose of the piece, the artist's message being expressed by the totalitarian world itself. Something which is simply dystopian takes place in a dystopian horrible future, but the dystopia itself is not the focus of the book; more often the characters in it and their story are the focus, making it a dystopian novel. For example, the movie "Waterworld" is dystopian, but in no way does the future depicted convey the message of the creators; rather, the plot and characters are the point of the movie. This distinction may be difficult to make but the difference is very important for how one views the piece and what one gets out of it.
WARNING: if you have never read a true dystopia before and plan to, take care! You cannot read it as you would an ordinary novel. If you read for plot and character interaction, you will be angered and upset by the horrible world you see. True dystopias must be read for the world, not the characters, and the reader must continually have an eye towards the author's comments on society. If you view the characters as the subject you will be angered; if you view them as the means of showing you their world you will be disturbed, enraged, terrified and delighted by these brilliant works.
NOTE: most of the listings on this page are unfinished. The majority of works listed lack summaries. If you know of a dystopian work or film not listed, or would like to send a summary of one listed but not summarized, please e-mail me.
THE BIG THREE:
Zamyatin's We (Russian My is the first modern dystopia, and the work on which all the rest are based, or are based on those based on it. It portrays a future of absolute totalitarian communism in which everyone wakes up and dresses and even chews food in unison and all buildings are made of glass so there is no privacy, not even the idea of privacy. Being the first dystopia, it is not quite as refined as 1984, for example, but fully as horrifying and more potent due to Zamyatin's brilliant writing.
Orwell's 1984 is the most famous modern dystopia and has been copied by everything from Apple Computer advertising to the Simpsons' Halloween special. It depicts a world under absolute totalitarian fascism and is a haunting vision of a future with no future where "the party" is absolute. O'Brian, one of the characters, describes the future to the protagonist as "Imagine a boot stamping on a human face forever." If you only read one dystopia in your entire life, this would be the best choice since it is so much more widely known than WE and so much more haunting than any other. To do it right, of course, you must also read...
Huxley's BRAVE NEW WORLD which is probably the second most famous modern dystopia and is often, and rightly, paired with 1984, or in a trio adding Zamyatin's own WE. BRAVE NEW WORLD is the complete opposite of 1984: it is a world where everyone is free to do whatever each wants; however, all babies are produced in factories and pre-conditioned to want to do what they will have to do when they are grown up, so they really have no choice. It may sound benign, but it is just as disturbing and terrible as its more violent partner, and the language is astoundingly vivid.
OTHER DYSTOPIAN WORKS (This listing is dreadfully lacking. Anyone who wants to add anything please send me a one paragraph summary and I will be glad to post it.)
Fahrenheit 451
A Clockwork Orange
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep
The Immortals
'Repent, Harlequin' said the Tick-Tock Man (Ellison)
Kallocain (1940), by the Swedish author and poetess Karin Boye. In a totalitarian state, protagonist Leo Kall invents a truth serum which allows the monitoring of thoughts.
"Messiah" (1954) by prominent American author Eugene Luther "Gore" Vidal
(1925-) provides a dystopic vision of a recognisable future controlled by
religious rigorists. The mise-en-abīme* is Moslem Egypt where Eugene Luther
(yes, the author's own monikers) is en cachette. Elderly and in failing
health, he sets down his memoir, as an insider, of the inexorable rise of a
new Messiah, John Cave. Although an apostle and close associate of Cave's
from the early days (he ghostwrote the main texts of the new faith) Luther
and his contributions have been erased 1984-style from official "Cavite"
history. Luther recounts his side of the story - the origins and early days
of Cavism, its spread under the aegis of disciples such as the mariolatry
figure Iris Mortimer; the sibylline Helena Blavatsky type called Clarissa;
and the increasingly skeptical Luther himself; and its ultimate hideous
corruption by opportunism and cynicism.
There is contemporary resonance. Martyrdom is now chillingly commonplace in
the Near, and not-so-near, East. A politically supported Japanese State
Shinto cult now inexorably revolves around Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine (Vidal
served in World War II). A televised Congressional Committee's hostile
examination lends Cave an appalling salience. Religious con-men in the
Sinclair Lewis "Elmer Gantry" tradition recall TV evangelists "waiting for
the rapture".
In the artist's words:-
"I shall attempt to evoke the true image of one who assumed with
plausibility in an age of science the long-discarded robes of prophecy,
prevailing at last through ritual death and becoming, to those who see the
universe in man, that solemn idea which is yet called by its resonant and
antique name, god."
The result is a disturbing success.
Summary contributed by Peter Rout (Sydney). * many thanks to Robert Burchette's helpful review at
http://www.rtsfs.org/reviews.html - but please note he gives away some of
the plot!
Player Piano is the mordant first novel of American Kurt Vonnegut, Jr (1922- ). Published to little fanfare only three years after Orwell's "1984" (1949), Player Piano (1952, reprinted 1966) continues the tradition inspired by Zamyatin's novel "We" (1922) and Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" (1932). The author, an engineer and anthropologist, examines the familiar dystopic themes of Vermfrendugnseffekt (alienation) and ostraneniye (defamiliarization) in an electronic automated future America after the Third World War has been won, permanent peace declared, and the machines have moved off the battlefield into the factories*. The scene is Ilium, New York, where massive topless towers contain the workshops which distribute all material needs to the American public. (Fans of Vonnegut will recall Ilium is the home town of Billy Pilgrim in Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five (1969)). Society is one interlocked corporate machine so expertly mechanized and productive that few have to work, and about the only thing people can die of is boredom. The managers are an isolated élite. The only diversions for the lumpenproletariat - outside service in the Army or Reconstruction and Reclamation Corps - are television, dope, alcohol, divorce and delinquency. Dr Paul Proteus is an insider, married to a "sexual genius", and should be complacent. Instead his peregrinations amongst the canaille convince him that the gadgeting of America has "deballed and dehumanised", cost man his character, usefulness and meaning. The action starts when Proteus is ironically recruited by his Washington overseers to spy on his best friend who is acting out his own apostatic agenda. The results are refreshingly Protean.
Summary by Peter Rout (Sydney) Routmedicolegal@bigpond.com
* Grateful acknowledgement to Charles Lee's review "New Terms and Goons" in Saturday Review 30 August 1952 p11) reprinted in Robert Merrill's "Critical Essays on Kurt Vonnegut" G. K. Hall and Co. Boston (1990).
Atwood's A HANDMAID'S TALE is the ultimate feminist's dystopia taking place in an absolute patriarchal totalitarian state and one in which fertile women, or Handmaids, are so rare that they are rotated from home to home for breeding purposes and treated essentially as walking ovaries. It is also a disturbing story, especially for Americans because it takes place in the former USA, and has very real and interesting characters, but in truth it is what I would call a slightly less poignant feminist rewrite of 1984, and while it has its merits, I would not put it down on the "must read" list.
Plato's Republic
More's Utopia
Voltaire's Candide - a real proto-dystopia
THE BLACK ENVELOPE by the Romanian writer Norman Manea is a very interesting work because it shows, very eloquently and often metaphorically and through twisted dreamscape, the real life dystopian world of what was happening in Romania when he wrote it, a few decades ago, and so while undoubtedly a true dystopia, it is not really fiction, since the horrible world shown is a real one in every sense of the word. This strange idea of the non-fiction dystopia, coupled with Manea's striking writing style makes this my favorite recent true dystopia, my favorite excepting the three oldest and greatest fathers of them all, We, B.N.W. and 1984. Norman Manea is currently in exile and living in the USA where he has been teaching at Bard College and working with the translation of his books into English for their first uncensored publication.
Some True Dystopian Films:
BRAZIL, directed by Terry Gilliam, is my favorite. It uses Gilliam's typical brilliant convoluted confusion and his hallmark dreamscapes and unreality to produce what I consider the best taste of true dystopia ever produced on film. It is definitely a dystopia of the individual and love versus the machine of the controlling government, but so much of the film is visual, and so much so confusing, that it is impossible to describe. I suggest you simply watch it, although be careful when you do so; it can be very muddling to the unprepared mind.
THX1138 - classic dystopian film, one of the first.
Things to Come. This film, made in the thirties, is a vision of the twentieth century, predicting many things accurately, including the Second World War, the space program and the cellular phone. It is a beautiful portrait of the struggle between the human tendency toward progress and the human desire for stability. Makes me cry every time.
Metropolis - everyone knows Metropolis.
La Cite Des Enfants Perdus (The City of Lost Children) - French film: surrealist, Frankensteinian. One of Terry Gilliam's favorite films. That's about the best summary I can give.
Logan's Run - attempt to escape from dystopia.
Soylent Green - Near future earth ruined by overpopulation.
World Gone Wild - post-apocalyptic film: It hasn't rained in decades.
Gattaca - Genetic testing has created a sort of genetic caste system.
The Big Day Off (Short film) - a classic life-in-a-cubicle portrait.
Ego Trip, a dystopian comedy movie of the cartoon Dexter's Laboratory.
Samurai Jack, the new serious cartoon series by the brilliant and innovative animator Genndy Tartovsky, of Dexter's Lab and Power Puff Girls fame, is set in a spectacular dystopian future of aliens and demons.
Blake's 7 is a British sci-fi series set in a Dystopian future. Many sci-fi series include dystopian elements, but Blake's 7 is far more thorough than most. It's not a good series, but it's thorough.
There is, of course, the matter of films made out of the traditional books, 1984, Brave New World etc., and the truth must be simply that as much as some may outshine others, they are all terrible compared to the original novels. You just can't make books like those into movies; it doesn't work. If you are interested in how film interprets them, the only one I would recommend is a movie of 1984 starring John Hurt (other notable roles: Caligula in I, Claudius, Hazel in Watership Down, that weird guy in Contact who gave her the solution to the puzzle and then died on the Mir). It is completely accurate to the book, which means, of course, that it leaves out huge chunks in order to fit everything into a standard movie length, so if you have read the book it is interesting to watch it in order to see how it is interpreted, and he is a wonderful actor, but if you have not read the book you will be completely lost throughout. Whatever you do, avoid the recent made for TV movie of Brave New World, unless you are only interested in the comic value of its ridiculous inadequacy.
It should be noted that both Star Trek: the Next Generation and Babylon 5 have 'Orwell' episodes, inflicting the last third of 1984 on their own protagonists.
Some of my favorite Dystopian works (remember, dystopian vs. true dystopia)
GHOST IN THE SHELL is a spectacular dystopian work both in the original graphic novel form and in the animated form. It depicts a world where cyborg technology is so advanced that it blurs the distinction between man (or in this case woman) and machine and incites questioning of what it really means to be human. The art itself is extraordinarily beautiful and the story is potent and moving, although complex enough that, with the video anyway, it may take a couple viewings to understand it all. Still this is a wonderful addition to any collection of dystopian literature or animation. Many other Anime films and series deal with dystopian societies, but usually, as with Ghost in the Shell, only as a backdrop to the action.
More to come in the unending process of updating the site.
Links to other sites on the Web
Trends in Anti-Utopia
Seven By Nine Squares Home Page
Oxford Dystopian Index- highly recommended
Information on 1984, BNW and We
If you have more information on Dystopia, please e-mail me.
© 1997 putrocca@aol.com
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