Dystopia: can we face reading more?

 This week I have taught myself how to use Sway by creating one on dystopian fiction as something which could be used for a book talk in the library.  Over the past decade the teen shelves have doubled in size mainly due to me acquiring new dystopian novels, as they have become ever more popular along with a growth in such films.  They offer a sense of adventure but more than that they focus on people who have no power taking on the authorities often in some alien future so unlike our own.

But as I was working on the Sway I wandered will dystopian novels be as popular now? Will teens still want to read about futures in pandemics or in worlds where authorities are controlling our every move? In this strange era where we all have to socially distance, are encouraged to go masked in shops and public transport  and when for much of the day there is barely a child to be seen on the streets, do we really want to read fiction that appears to reflect our reality?

Well a quick look at the Internet told me that apparently searches to purchase such books and films are as popular as ever. So why?  Caroline Zielinski in the Guardian says that light holiday fiction does not help when we don't know when we will be free to go out again - agreed. A number of commentators see our appetite for disaster books as a way to view the problems of our society through some sort of lens. It is not that we are looking at some specific catastrophic future reality but that it allows us a way to understand our reactions to our deepest fears. How would we cope in a crises? How do we understand what is going on when there are so many conflicting messages and getting to the truth is harder than ever? Now, more than ever, we need characters who have resilience: Katniss, Thomas, Saba, Offred they all stand out by standing up. There is something to admire and learn from all of them.  

 

Blood Red Road (Dustlands trilogy ) is one of my favourite dystopian novels so this gives me the perfect excuse to play a trailer from it.