Carley’s Comments (group member since Mar 07, 2011)

Carley’s comments from the Utopian and Dystopian Reading Group group.

Hello! How about "The Glass Bees" by Ernst Junger? I came across the author whilst compiling a list of German authors. According to amazon:

In The Glass Bees the celebrated German writer Ernst Jünger presents a disconcerting vision of the future. Zapparoni, a brilliant businessman, has turned his advanced understanding of technology and his strategic command of the information and entertainment industries into a discrete form of global domination. But Zapparoni is worried that the scientists he depends on might sell his secrets. He needs a chief of security, and Richard, a veteran and war hero, is ready for the job. However, when he arrives at the beautiful country compound that is Zapparoni's headquarters, he finds himself subjected to an unexpected ordeal. Soon he is led to question his past, his character, and even his senses....

That is so true! I never really thought about that. It's hardly like Atwood chooses the naturally "strong" characters to survive the waterless flood - I wonder what point she is trying to make here?

Oryx and Crake

So, I've just finished Oryx and Crake, and thought it would be good to hear what other people thought about the novel? To those who know me, I am a huge Margaret Atwood fan, although I had previously steered clear of this book for a while now, as I wasn't sure it would be my cup of tea. For those unfamiliar with the plot, the novel deals with scientific issues in an imagined (although as Atwood makes clear, perhaps not too distant) post-apocolyptic world, but, despite my preconceptions, I loved the premise of the novel, and thought it was extremely clever and well-thought out.

I don't know about anyone else, but I thought the novel lends itself well to being interpreted through a religious lens. The idea of a "waterless flood" echoes all too clearly the biblical figure of Noah, with Jimmy and the Children of Crake the apparently only sole survivors of such a "purge." Whilst in the Bible, it is God who created a flood to wash away the sins of man and start anew, it is scientists who take on this God-like role in the novel, inflicting upon the world an infectious epidemic which they hope will wipe out the old human race, to make room for a new, scientifically designed, and thus much-improved, "super-human" one. In playing around with the idea of eugenics and designer test-tube babies (after all, this is essentially what the Children of Crake are), Atwood highlights the dangers (rather than the benefits) of scientific advancement.

With the Compounds representative (in my eyes) of mini "gardens of Eden," the use of names such as "MadAddam" ("Adam named the living creatures, MadAddam named the dead ones") and the rebellious faction existing in the Pleeblands called God's Gardener's - Atwood obviously intends us to comprehend the novel's religous connotations, and debate amongst ourselves the arguments for and against religion, and science.

Yes, that's true. I also thought that when the time traveller speeds through time at the end and we see all these dystopic visions of what the world might become, that Wells is drawing on ideas from Darwin's Origin of Species, and theory of evolution - and inverting them to suggest that progress does not necessarily equal evolution, but could, in fact, lead to devolution.

I thought I'd start a discussion group so that we can talk about the various dystopian elements of this novella.

I think it's particularly interesting that this book was written at the end of the nineteenth century (or the fin de siecle) where science was seen as a new, yet potentially destructive force. Perhaps we could start our discussion with this?

Hello everyone! :) Can't wait to get discussing these books - looks like a great line up Eve! Perhaps we could start a discussion thread...? xx