Q: Is the world (or this country) getting better or worse? Why or how?
-Were things, in general, better 50 years ago? How will things change over the next 50?
-Why do you think dystopian novels and post-apocalyptic stories are so popular right now?
A: The world gets worse for a while, and then it improves just a little bit. The same goes for the United States. For us it is mainly the economy and the people, but then something big happens, good or bad, and everything goes in that direction for a while, then turns around and goes right back to where it started. There's global warming, terrorists, then the fiscal cliff and the President of the United States, and wars, and sometimes the world can get really messed up. That includes the United States.
- 50 years ago it was a little better, but it still was kind of like it is now. In the next 50 years, I don't think that it will really change, unless world peace or something else happens that brings all the world together.
- I think that dystopian novels are popular probably because they are what people think are the closest to the future and want an idea of what will happen, even though no one really knows what will happen in the future. Plus, people want something more besides boring life, where everyone lives with their phone or device as their prime focus and their home. People live half their lives on their phones and social media rather than in the moment. Also, the dystopian stories are about young people standing up for themselves and others, and fighting back against the rules and regulations that surround their world.
Welcome to my reading blog! I'll be posting about a few dystopian books/stories on this site, but mainly I'll be focusing on another genre. Today I'll be posting on a story called A Pail of Air by Fritz Leiber.
This story really reminds me of Astronomy class and what we are learning about stars and everything else. I remember learning that eventually the Sun would grow into a Red Giant and consume Earth and all the close-up planets, and that the Earth would either die in Fire or Ice, but that it was more likely that the Earth would die in Fire. A Pail of Air turns that around and makes it seem as though a Black Dwarf star would come out of nowhere and steal the Earth away from the heat and warmth of the Sun, and we would be left in ice, with violent earthquakes and ice so thick and so cold that almost everyone is frozen, and you have to boil air to breathe.
I think that the author is trying to make a statement in writing this story. They are trying to make it known that we need to be more prepared for what is coming next - the Future. But also, he is saying that the human race is too stubborn to give up right away, and that we will fight until we can't do anything more, and then fight some more until everything is gone and there is nothing left. That is one of the things I detected in this story. For example:
"So I asked myself then," he said, "what's the use of going on? What's the use of dragging it out for a few years? Why prolong a doomed existence of hard work and cold and loneliness? The human race is done. The Earth is done. Why not give up, I asked myself - and all of a sudden I got the answer...Life's always been a business of working hard and fighting the cold," Pa was saying. "The Earth's always been a lonely place, millions of miles from the next planet. And no matter how long the human race might have lived, the end would have come some night. Those things don't matter. What matters is that life is good...It makes everything else worthwhile. And that's as true for the last man as the first."
In this section Pa is saying that he needed a reason to hold on to life and keep the human race alive, and he found that in the fact that "life is good," no matter how cliche that is, it is true in some aspects. I personally thought that the beginning of the story is a little bit creepy and horror-story beginning, and this was not my favorite story, but it had an interesting twist at the end, when it is realized that the Nest is not the only human existence on Earth. The story is set in an era unpredicted by scientists and astronomers, when the Earth is pulled into darkness and cold, and not devoured by a Red Giant star.
I am personally not really interested in the dystopian genre, as it usually makes me feel depressed and hopeless, but that's just me. Other than that, the story was well written, and could really get you to imagine what everything looked like and how it happened, even if the beginning was kind of creepy.
Signing off,
bookhouse4
> My next post will be on the book Animal Farm by George Orwell...
No comments:
Post a Comment