The Running Man

Synopsis:

Ben Richards is fed up with this shit. He quit his job at General Atomics because his wife wanted to have a baby, and you cannot have a baby microwaving your testicles all day long. So, being blackballed (no pun intended) from any job in respectable society, he decides to make money the only way anyone from the Co-op City can: He applies for the Games. The Games are government run, reality tv shows on Free-Vee, a government sponsored cable news entity. Little did he know, that with the right mix of derision and attitude, he could make it all the way to the top: The Running Man. He gets a head start of twelve hours, then the Hunters get sent after him. If they find him, they will kill him. If he makes it a month, he wins a billion New Dollars. Let the Games begin.

Governmental Control:

Two methods of control here. One, the most obvious, is the Free Vee. The government (called "The Network") gives free television to all the masses. On it, it runs new reports and shows and the Games. Each Game is a chance for the poor to make a bit of money, like Treadmill to Bucks, where people with heart disease or lung infections earn money by the amount of time they can spend on a treadmill. Yeah, real cool stuff. But, the other way, the less obvious but more scathingly written, is dope. "Rich folks smoke dokes." "Smooth Blokes Blow Dokes." And it is no secret that King really detests it when he brings up the subject matter.

Personal notes on this book (may contain spoilers!):

This is how a dystopian book is supposed to end. I won't spoil, but damn, was this a good book.

And also, some people would think this blasphemy, but this story would make a much better movie than that craptastic Arnold Schwarzenegger film. Seriously, read it and decide for yourself.

Important lesson of this book:

TV rots the brain, and is a control mechanism for whoever has the ability to put crap on it.

From there to here:

This is not hard to imagine. With the public's fascination with these mind-numbing reality shows (looking at you Survivor and American Idol), it is not hard to imagine that this will become the method by which the government dispenses justices and keeps its sheep in line in the future. That sickens me.

Overall:

96/100

Farenheit 451

Synopsis:

Guy Montag is a fireman. But, in a near-future twist, firemen are no longer needed to put OUT fires. The government uses these men to go to the houses of those that have broken a specific laws and, there, these men must burn everything. That is, until one day, when Guy meets a teenaged neighbor who shocks his world and shakes his beliefs. Soon, he doesn't know good or evil, right or wrong.

Governmental Control:

The government bans books. This is in an effort to control ideas and philosophies to truly make all men equal:

I hope I've clarified things. The important thing for you to remember, Montag, is we're the Happiness Boys, the Dixie Duo, you and I and the others. We stand against the small tide of those who want to make everyone unhappy with conflicting theory and thought. We have our fingers in the dike. Hold steady. Don't let the torrent of melancholy and drear philosophy drown our world. We depend on you. I don't think you realize how important you are, to our happy world as it stands now.

By controlling what people can read, the government can control what the perceptions of reality are, and thus can control the simulated states of happiness of its people.

Personal notes on this book (may contain spoilers!):

Or, at least, as spoiler you can get for a sixty-year-old book. It took me a long time to read this book, in the grand scheme of things. I have picked it up and put it down about ten times before I actually read the whole thing. Now that I have read it, I am glad that I did. It was a great book. But. Ten pages to go in the book, Bradbury invalidates all the actions of the book. And this irritated me. Montag really struggles with his new identity, the dichotomy of being a fireman who has struggled with the fact that books hold treasures, and he gets caught, which was inevitable. So, he gets out the only way he knows how. He torches his boss (that is the boss' quote that precedes this section) before he can be arrested. And there is finally a struggle of man vs. government that makes dystopian literature great. And as he's running, and the government is chasing, war is declared. It is a side note. It gets mentioned a few times through the chase, but it is not an ever-present concern. So, Montag gets out, the government captures some scapegoat because Montag has lost them, and Montag finds a group of expatriate professors and kindred spirits, but still lives in fear of the government. Then, ten pages to go, Bradbury nukes the freaking city. No more government. Montag wins! And thus, all his actions are invalidated. And the books are still gone. GOD. DAMMIT.

Important lesson of this book:

"Remember the firemen are rarely necessary. The public stopped reading of its own accord."

Read a book, for pity's sake!

From there to here:

This is a tough one to imagine. But I will try. The internet has already invalidated most books as it is. People have stopped reading long ago. In fact, I think that, of all the people I know, I can count the fiction readers who read regularly on two hands. And that is a shame. Movies, the internet, the instant gratification age has taken over. If the government convinces people that books are no longer necessary, libraries will crumble and publishers will close. The government convinces people that you can get all you need on the internet with your iPhone and your new Kindle and blah, blah, blah. Once books are gone, controlling the internet will be easy. Books can become the relics that it seems people have already made them. And, in an effort to save trees and be more green, printing of things is made illegal. Therefore, books are recycled and no more books.

Plausible, but not probable.

Overall:

First 150 pages: 9/10
Last 15 pages: 2/10

Dystopia 101

I have a love of all things dystopian. I went through a phase about ten years ago that proved, in my mind, that dystopian fiction was the genre for me. In thinking of ways to make over the blog so that it is not all cooking, I decided that each week I would try to post a review of a piece of the dystopian genre. Since a book a week is a tall order, I will expand my reviews to cover all media, be they novels, movies or, sometimes, musical in nature.

First, let's get to the bottom of the real dystopia, at least the real one to me. I see a lot of suggestions about great dystopian books that just aren't. Two guys walking through a shell of the land, burned out by holocaust is not dystopian. It is post-apocalyptic (which I may add if the dystopian fare gets low). Guys with cyberware, wetware, brain burns, etc. is cyberpunk. The main theme in dystopian literature, to me, is an all-powerful, people-suppressing government hell-bent on keeping the sheep to be sheep through all manner of manipulation.

So, for example, Neuromancer, not dystopian. 1984, on the other hand, is. The Road? Nope. Father and son walking through the land. Brave New World? Yes.

Now, the format. I will right a synopsis of the piece, then give the method by which the government controls its people. Lastly, and maybe the most fun, I will try to imagine a path that would lead us from present day to that future presented by the artist.

So, buckle in, the path may be bumpy for a bit until I find my style. The cooking blog will continue, starting with homemade lasagna (with homemade mozzarella and ricotta cheeses and a homemade sauce) next week. But, until then, on with the dystopia!