Tag: dystopian fiction

Divergent by Veronica Roth

Posted June 29, 2014 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Book of the Month, Dystopia, Young Adult / 6 Comments

Title: Divergent (Goodreads)
Author: Veronica Roth
Series: Divergent #1
Published: Harper Collins, 2011
Pages: 489
Genres: Dystopia, Young Adult
My Copy: Library Book

Buy: Amazon, Book Depository, Kindle (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

A futuristic, post-apocalyptic Chicago is where the dystopian world of Divergent is set; where everyone is divided into five factions. At 16 you are required to take an aptitude test; this will determine which faction you are best suited for. Abnegation are selfless, Amity are peaceful, Candour are honest, Dauntless are brave and Erudite are intelligent. Following the aptitude test comes the Choosing Day (terrible name) where you are required to pick which faction you wish to belong to based on your score and personal preference. For some, like Celeb Prior this means giving up his family and moving from Abnegation to Erudite.

The novel, Divergent follows Beatrice Prior (later known as Tris) who is one of those rare people who have to hide the fact that the aptitude test was inconclusive. In this world she is known as divergent and would be considered an outcast and a danger to society if this was to come out. Tris’ test shows she has an aptitude towards three factions; Dauntless, Erudite and Abnegation. She picks Dauntless where she is trained up to be courageous and reckless, tools she believes maybe useful if her test scores ever come out.

I read this novel as a social critique; the idea of cliques and groups taken to the extreme. You know what I’m talking about; society likes to create rivals, in sports teams, smart phones, gaming consoles, etc., but more importantly when it comes to DC verse Marvel comic’s social-political stands. In this world the Abnegation are the governing body, since they are the selfless they are tasked with looking after everyone. However the Erudite are conspiring to take control, and a step that they believe will advance the world both socially and technologically.

This makes the novel sound more complex that it actually is; in reality I found that Veronica Roth liked to wave the symbolism in the readers face forcing them to take notice. It is like a child who is proud at what she has produced; jumping up and down and explaining everything detail over and over again in the hopes that we will think she is brilliant. The symbolism is prominent in the story, she didn’t need to try and draw extra attention to it. Most readers are smart enough to figure it out and those who don’t are only interested in the plot.

Take the title of the novel and the factions, if you look at abnegation, amity, candour, dauntless, erudite and divergent in the dictionary you pretty much how the entire book worked out already. However Roth reminded us again and again what each word meant. Reminds me of that old writing tip ‘show, don’t tell’. While this is not always true, I feel within the context of Divergent, it would have been a better solution.

There are a lot of interesting themes within the novel and I really wish Roth had let people discover them on their own; I don’t like having everything pointed out to me. The whole concept of social structures and classes would have given a literary theorist in the school of Marxism a lot to work with. There are other themes including courage verse recklessness, power, choices, secrets and even guilt that made the novel bearable.

While the novel has a protagonist fighting against a totalitarian state, the book is full of Christian themes and concepts. At times you can see Abnegation being depicted as weird/cult-like faction in the back drop of a controlling society but then they come through as righteous and merciful. There is a Christian misconception that stems from the Age of Enlightenment, which seems relevant in some radical churches that still believe that intellectualism is a dangerous thing. This comes across in the novel as well as some other Christian ideals. Veronica Roth states she is a Christian but has also claimed that Divergent is not a religious novel. She even believes that most Christians would consider the novel to be profane. It is unclear if Roth is an advocate for intellectualism or warning the reader of its dangers.

Yet another issue I found with Divergent was the characters and world building felt a little flat; I think Roth spent too much time explaining everything that the plot and the setting suffered. I didn’t care what happened to any of the characters; in fact thought they were all two dimensional, which is possibly the case with most of the characters. The idea of each faction just acting like a giant cookie cutter, forcing everyone to fit into that mould is clear. The divergents (I’m not going to name them) should have been richer, more fleshed out characters. The dystopian world borrows heavily from 1984 and The Hunger Games although it sometimes forgets this and reverts back to a more generic present day world. Then realising the book has gotten off track reverts to borrow again from previous dystopian novels.

Finally I would like to focus a little on the feminist qualities of Divergent, since reading The Fictional Woman this seems to be an area of focus for me. The concept of a woman trying to figure out her place in the world is a positive step for equality; however Divergent also reverts to two old archetypes that need to stop. I’m talking about the idea of a wise intelligent older woman being depicted as a witch or evil character and the female heroine needs to have a female enemy. Divergent does tackle the idea of what happens to a woman when she becomes more successful than the men she is competing against, and while it is not pretty it is a very real issue that needs to be looked at more often.

I would have liked this novel a lot more if the message was subtle and ambiguous; I just feel like everything got over done. As a reader I like to look for the messages but if the author hits me over the head with it and then proceeds to explain everything I lose interest. Dystopian fiction has a unique ability to tackle social issues and just because a book is aimed for a young adult audience doesn’t mean they need to be everything explained to them. I have to wonder how many YA lovers read the book for the themes rather than the plot. I suspect the majority of them read for the story and they probably prefer not to be stepped through themes either. If Veronica Roth left the themes in place and focused on the plot, this may have been a better book.

On Such a Full Sea by Chang-rae Lee

Posted March 6, 2014 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Dystopia, Literary Fiction / 0 Comments

Title: On Such a Full Sea (Goodreads)
Author: Chang-rae Lee
Published: Little Brown and Company, 2014
Pages: 352
Genres: Dystopia, Literary Fiction
My Copy: Library Book

Buy: Amazon, Book Depository, Kindle (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

Dystopian literary fiction is an often under-appreciated and underutilised literary tool. Chang-rae Lee steps away from the historical novels he normally writes to give us On Such a Full Sea, a dystopian novel set over a hundred years into the future. The novel tells the story of a teenage girl Fan who works in the high walled, self-contained labour colony know as B-Mor (formally the city of Baltimore) who goes searching for the man she loves as he has mysteriously disappeared.

I often enjoy a novel that disguises political discourse with the dystopian fiction genre. Think 1984’s message on totalitarianism, Fahrenheit 451 on censorship, Super Sad True Love Story on Globalisation. On Such a Full Sea also has a political message but it is far more subtle. The thing about literary criticism and political discourse is that you can often find differing opinions; was this novel on the harsh reality of immigration, slavery, human trafficking, removal of individuality or something more? I’m not going to go into too much detail on this; you can discover that on your own.

I want to have a quick look at the dystopian world that Lee has created as it follows a similar style to that of George Orwell’s 1984. These walled communities are more like labour camps, designed to keep people in rather than out. The workers are being watched and controlled by fear; rather than by governmental oversight, the labours are been monitored by The Charters, which to me feels like middle management. In this future most of the American cities have been abandoned due to crushing debts and disease and the Chinese cities are suffering from major air and water pollution. The solution, to relocate and occupy America; this is why Fan and the others are found working in B-Mor.

The harsh realities of this dystopian world are often drowned out by the beauty in Chang-rae Lee’s writing. You can spend so much time being swept away by the writing that the plot really does take a back seat. This works only because the plot isn’t really as strong as I would have liked it to be. There are times I found myself enjoying the writing and not really paying enough attention to the plot only to have something shocking happen that snaps me back to attention. I would have liked a stronger plot, it really was a big downfall for me, not that plotless books are bad it’s just the particular story called for it.

I picked up this book because Chang-rae Lee mentored my current literary obsession Gary Shteyngart and helped him get his first book published. My first thought was On Such a Full Sea sounds very similar to Super Sad True Love Story. I expected to read a similar book about the struggles of Chinese immigrants but I’m happy to see the two novels are very different. There are a few similarities but not enough to compare them; Shteyngart uses satire and humour where Lee takes a more serious approach.

The plot may sound basic but On Such a Full Sea is a stunning yet surprising novel. This is actually my first Chang-rae Lee novel and while I enjoyed this novel, I’m not in a hurry to read his back list. Lee joins the ever growing list of serious novelists trying their hand at genre fiction. I for one am happy to see an increase in literary genre fiction; you can do some interesting things with genre fiction and blend that with the discourse of literary fiction the results are often amazing.

Guest Post: Brief Overview of Pulp Fiction – Part 4 (1990’s & On)

Posted December 16, 2012 by Guest Post in Guest Posts, Literature, Pulp / 0 Comments

There are currently many prolific authors working in crime fiction, whose names will not be mentioned, that occasionally find themselves labelled as noir by fans and critics alike and quite simply are not. They write about cops who have problems with their superiors or former military men with vengeance on their mind, they pile up the bodies and solve dark cases but they border on fantasy and as we’ve seen in the previous three parts to this overview true noirs are realistic and bleak with very few happy endings.

After assessing fifty years of noir and hard-boiled writing it becomes quite obvious that the fourth generation, the contemporary American hard-boiled and noir writer are yet to truly find their own unique voice or societal change to rail against.

If you accept that 9/11 changed the world completely in the same way that WWII and the threat of nuclear war did to previous generations we should expect a dramatic increase in distinct creative output from the next wave of authors.

What is clear is that, as with the rise in popularity of dystopian fiction, contemporary hard-boiled and noir authors are looking to their genre heritage and their countries past for settings and places to escape to. They are almost a lost generation, dreaming of a time when things were friendlier, less scary, less connected and invasive, that time when there was still some hope for the American Dream.

I discovered the work of Megan Abbott this year, she’s approximately 3 feet tall and specialises in reworking dark noir stories with a female centred twist. If you saw her on the street she’d probably be the last person you would imagine writing such dark novels. Her debut, Die A Little (2005), is set in 1950s LA and steeped in atmospheric suspense and voyeuristic appeal. She wrote four of these excellent period re-workings and then along came The End of Everything (2011) in which she updated her noir styling’s to teenaged girls in 1980s suburbia to amazing effect. It is a tale of lust, revenge, guilt, and my favourite four noir words; secrets, lies, passions and repressions.

Walter Mosley created the iconic hard-boiled hero Easy Rawlins in Devil in a Blue Dress (1990) and went on to write ten more books about his black private detective in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, ending with Blonde Faith (2007). Utilising the style of Chandler and MacDonald Mosley manages to craft top quality hard-boiled mysteries and blend them with analysis of the social inequalities of the time.

George Pelecanos is one of the most famous names from this list, especially for his time writing for the HBO series The Wire. He came to prominence however for his D.C. Quartet, a series of four historical crime novels set in Washington D.C.. He also created two fantastic hard-boiled series featuring first Nick Stefanos in A Firing Offense (1991) and then the pairing of Derek Strange and Terry Quinn with Right as Rain (2001) which has built him a reputation for his gritty depiction of street life and a focus on hard-luck criminals.

James Ellroy, the King of Sinnuendo, the Demon Dog of American crime writing, knows how to write bleak noir filled with hard-boiled characters like nobody working today. His work is generally set in the 1950s and 1960s, featuring densely plotted criminal behaviour from all sides of the law with his tone relentlessly pessimistic. Perhaps his best work (or at the very least the best place to start) is L.A. Confidential (1990) and should be followed up with the first part of his Underworld USA trilogy American Tabloid (1995). But nobody can describe him better than he describes himself:

“Good evening peepers, prowlers, pederasts, panty-sniffers, punks and pimps. I’m James Ellroy, the demon dog, the foul owl with the death growl, the white knight of the far right, and the slick trick with the donkey dick. I’m the author of 16 books, masterpieces all; they precede all my future masterpieces. These books will leave you reamed, steamed and drycleaned, tie-dyed, swept to the side, true-blued, tattooed and bah fongooed. These are books for the whole fuckin’ family, if the name of your family is Manson.”

Another black private investigator, Lew Griffin, got his start in The Long-Legged Fly (1992) by James Sallis, a novel that starts in the 60s and moves through to the 90s and would lead to five more outings. Sallis has his own way of writing these hard-boiled private detectives, they’re complex and often poetic in their structure. He would go on to create another great of modern noir, Drive (2005) about an unnamed stunt driver who also works as a getaway driver for criminals.

Don Winslow might be most widely known for his brilliant and brutal modern noir Savages (2010) but he also created the surfing private detective Boone Daniels in The Dawn Patrol (2008). Winslow is known for his adrenaline-fueled novels and unique prose style, his subject matter is nothing ground breaking but he entertains like nobody else in the genre.

That leaves us with only Dennis Lehane to draw part four to a close. Lehane might just be best known for his psychological thrillers turned in to Oscar bait movies but his six Boston based noir thrillers featuring male/female investigation team Kenzie & Gennaro are some of the best in modern hard-boiled crime writing. Their first outing A Drink Before The War (1994) set a high standard to live up to but he reached incredibly bleak heights with Gone Baby, Gone (1998).

I’ll reserve special mention for another Brit, Philip Kerr, the creator of the Bernie Gunther novels. These books are a fantastic throwback to classic hard-boiled novels. Bernie starts as a private detective in Berlin as Hitler is consolidating his power and witnesses some truly awful things. His first three adventures are collected as Berlin Noir (1989 to 1991) and are well worth your time.

This is a guest post by blahblahblahtoby; You can find him discussing books on Goodreads, discussing movies on Letterboxd, tweeting nonsense as blahblahblahtoby and on his blog blahblahblahgay, feel free to say hi.

There are literally dozens of great authors and great novels that could have been suggested as essential reading for this guide. The writer of the article went through agonising decisions over who to leave out and is more than aware that your favourite author probably hasn’t been mentioned but feel free to start a discussion in the comments.

This post is part of a four post series exploring the history of Hard-Boiled and Noir Fiction, for recommendations check out each post;

The 1930’s – 1940’s

The 1950’s

The 1960’s – 1980’s

The 1990’s – Onwards