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3 books to know Dystopian Fiction

E-BookEPUBePub WasserzeichenE-Book
90 Seiten
Englisch
Tacet Bookserschienen am02.05.2020
Welcome to the3 Books To Knowseries, our idea is to help readers learn about fascinating topics through three essential and relevant books. These carefully selected works can be fiction, non-fiction, historical documents or even biographies. We will always select for you three great works to instigate your mind, this time the topic is:Dystopian Fiction. Samuel Butler used his tale, Erewhon, to satirize the injustices of Victorian England through a utopian society in which all customs and social laws were the exact opposite of what they were in England. This anti-utopian novel, like many experimental Victorian literary works, resists easy categorization. The Sleeper Awakes is a novel by H. G. Wells, about a man who sleeps for two hundred and three years, waking up in a completely transformed London where he has become the richest man in the world. The main character awakes to see his dreams realised, and the future revealed to him in all its horrors and malformities. The book has elements explored later both in Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. The Iron Heel is a novel by Jack London, first published in 1907. Generally considered to be 'the earliest of the modern dystopian' fiction, it chronicles the rise of an oligarchic tyranny in the United States. A forerunner of soft science fiction novels and stories of the 1960s and '70s, the book stresses future changes in society and politics while paying much less attention to technological changes. The book is unusual among the literature of the time in being a first-person narrative of a woman protagonist written by a man. This is one of many books in the series 3 Books To Know. If you liked this book, look for the other titles in the series, we are sure you will like some of the topics.

Samuel Butler, (born Dec. 4, 1835, Langar Rectory, Nottinghamshire, Eng.died June 18, 1902, London), English novelist, essayist, and critic whose satire Erewhon (1872) foreshadowed the collapse of the Victorian illusion of eternal progress. The Way of All Flesh (1903), his autobiographical novel, is generally considered his masterpiece. Jack London, pseudonym of John Griffith Chaney, (born January 12, 1876, San Francisco, California, U.S.died November 22, 1916, Glen Ellen, California), American novelist and short-story writer whose best-known worksamong them The Call of the Wild (1903) and White Fang (1906)depict elemental struggles for survival. During the 20th century he was one of the most extensively translated of American authors. H.G. Wells, in full Herbert George Wells, (born September 21, 1866, Bromley, Kent, Englanddied August 13, 1946, London), English novelist, journalist, sociologist, and historian best known for such science fiction novels as The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds and such comic novels as Tono-Bungay and The History of Mr. Polly.mehr

Produkt

KlappentextWelcome to the3 Books To Knowseries, our idea is to help readers learn about fascinating topics through three essential and relevant books. These carefully selected works can be fiction, non-fiction, historical documents or even biographies. We will always select for you three great works to instigate your mind, this time the topic is:Dystopian Fiction. Samuel Butler used his tale, Erewhon, to satirize the injustices of Victorian England through a utopian society in which all customs and social laws were the exact opposite of what they were in England. This anti-utopian novel, like many experimental Victorian literary works, resists easy categorization. The Sleeper Awakes is a novel by H. G. Wells, about a man who sleeps for two hundred and three years, waking up in a completely transformed London where he has become the richest man in the world. The main character awakes to see his dreams realised, and the future revealed to him in all its horrors and malformities. The book has elements explored later both in Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. The Iron Heel is a novel by Jack London, first published in 1907. Generally considered to be 'the earliest of the modern dystopian' fiction, it chronicles the rise of an oligarchic tyranny in the United States. A forerunner of soft science fiction novels and stories of the 1960s and '70s, the book stresses future changes in society and politics while paying much less attention to technological changes. The book is unusual among the literature of the time in being a first-person narrative of a woman protagonist written by a man. This is one of many books in the series 3 Books To Know. If you liked this book, look for the other titles in the series, we are sure you will like some of the topics.

Samuel Butler, (born Dec. 4, 1835, Langar Rectory, Nottinghamshire, Eng.died June 18, 1902, London), English novelist, essayist, and critic whose satire Erewhon (1872) foreshadowed the collapse of the Victorian illusion of eternal progress. The Way of All Flesh (1903), his autobiographical novel, is generally considered his masterpiece. Jack London, pseudonym of John Griffith Chaney, (born January 12, 1876, San Francisco, California, U.S.died November 22, 1916, Glen Ellen, California), American novelist and short-story writer whose best-known worksamong them The Call of the Wild (1903) and White Fang (1906)depict elemental struggles for survival. During the 20th century he was one of the most extensively translated of American authors. H.G. Wells, in full Herbert George Wells, (born September 21, 1866, Bromley, Kent, Englanddied August 13, 1946, London), English novelist, journalist, sociologist, and historian best known for such science fiction novels as The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds and such comic novels as Tono-Bungay and The History of Mr. Polly.
Details
Weitere ISBN/GTIN9783968587202
ProduktartE-Book
EinbandartE-Book
FormatEPUB
Format HinweisePub Wasserzeichen
FormatE101
Erscheinungsjahr2020
Erscheinungsdatum02.05.2020
Reihe3 books to know
Seiten90 Seiten
SpracheEnglisch
Dateigrösse691 Kbytes
Artikel-Nr.5166528
Rubriken
Genre9201

Inhalt/Kritik

Leseprobe

by H. G. Wells
Chapter I
Insomnia

ONE AFTERNOON, AT LOW water, Mr. Isbister, a young artist lodging at Boscastle, walked from that place to the picturesque cove of Pentargen, desiring to examine the caves there. Halfway down the precipitous path to the Pentargen beach he came suddenly upon a man sitting in an attitude of profound distress beneath a projecting mass of rock. The hands of this man hung limply over his knees, his eyes were red and staring before him, and his face was wet with tears.

He glanced round at Isbister s footfall. Both men were disconcerted, Isbister the more so, and, to override the awkwardness of his involuntary pause, he remarked, with an air of mature conviction, that the weather was hot for the time of year.

Very, answered the stranger shortly, hesitated a second, and added in a colourless tone, I can t sleep.

Isbister stopped abruptly. No? was all he said, but his bearing conveyed his helpful impulse.

It may sound incredible, said the stranger, turning weary eyes to Isbister s face and emphasizing his words with a languid hand, but I have had no sleep-no sleep at all for six nights.

Had advice?

Yes. Bad advice for the most part. Drugs. My nervous system.... They are all very well for the run of people. It s hard to explain. I dare not take ... sufficiently powerful drugs.

That makes it difficult, said Isbister.

He stood helplessly in the narrow path, perplexed what to do. Clearly the man wanted to talk. An idea natural enough under the circumstances, prompted him to keep the conversation going. I ve never suffered from sleeplessness myself, he said in a tone of commonplace gossip, but in those cases I have known, people have usually found something-

I dare make no experiments.

He spoke wearily. He gave a gesture of rejection, and for a space both men were silent.

Exercise? suggested Isbister diffidently, with a glance from his interlocutor s face of wretchedness to the touring costume he wore.

That is what I have tried. Unwisely perhaps. I have followed the coast, day after day-from New Quay. It has only added muscular fatigue to the mental. The cause of this unrest was overwork-trouble. There was something-

He stopped as if from sheer fatigue. He rubbed his forehead with a lean hand. He resumed speech like one who talks to himself.

I am a lone wolf, a solitary man, wandering through a world in which I have no part. I am wifeless-childless-who is it speaks of the childless as the dead twigs on the tree of life? I am wifeless, childless-I could find no duty to do. No desire even in my heart. One thing at last I set myself to do.

I said, I will do this, and to do it, to overcome the inertia of this dull body, I resorted to drugs. Great God, I ve had enough of drugs! I don t know if you feel the heavy inconvenience of the body, its exasperating demand of time from the mind-time-life! Live! We only live in patches. We have to eat, and then comes the dull digestive complacencies-or irritations. We have to take the air or else our thoughts grow sluggish, stupid, run into gulfs and blind alleys. A thousand distractions arise from within and without, and then comes drowsiness and sleep. Men seem to live for sleep. How little of a man s day is his own-even at the best! And then come those false friends, those Thug helpers, the alkaloids that stifle natural fatigue and kill rest-black coffee, cocaine-

I see, said Isbister.

I did my work, said the sleepless man with a querulous intonation.

And this is the price?

Yes.

For a little while the two remained without speaking.

You cannot imagine the craving for rest that I feel-a hunger and thirst. For six long days, since my work was done, my mind has been a whirlpool, swift, unprogressive and incessant, a torrent of thoughts leading nowhere, spinning round swift and steady- He paused. Towards the gulf.

You must sleep, said Isbister decisively, and with an air of a remedy discovered. Certainly you must sleep.

My mind is perfectly lucid. It was never clearer. But I know I am drawing towards the vortex. Presently-

Yes?

You have seen things go down an eddy? Out of the light of the day, out of this sweet world of sanity-down-

But, expostulated Isbister.

The man threw out a hand towards him, and his eyes were wild, and his voice suddenly high. I shall kill myself. If in no other way-at the foot of yonder dark precipice there, where the waves are green, and the white surge lifts and falls, and that little thread of water trembles down. There at any rate is ... sleep.

That s unreasonable, said Isbister, startled at the man s hysterical gust of emotion. Drugs are better than that.

There at any rate is sleep, repeated the stranger, not heeding him.

Isbister looked at him. It s not a cert, you know, he remarked. There s a cliff like that at Lulworth Cove-as high, anyhow-and a little girl fell from top to bottom. And lives to-day-sound and well.

But those rocks there?

One might lie on them rather dismally through a cold night, broken bones grating as one shivered, chill water splashing over you. Eh?

Their eyes met. Sorry to upset your ideals, said Isbister with a sense of devil-may-careish brilliance. But a suicide over that cliff (or any cliff for the matter of that), really, as an artist- He laughed. It s so damned amateurish.

But the other thing, said the sleepless man irritably, the other thing. No man can keep sane if night after night-

Have you been walking along this coast alone?

Yes.

Silly sort of thing to do. If you ll excuse my saying so. Alone! As you say; body fag is no cure for brain fag. Who told you to? No wonder; walking! And the sun on your head, heat, fag, solitude, all the day long, and then, I suppose, you go to bed and try very hard-eh?

Isbister stopped short and looked at the sufferer doubtfully.

Look at these rocks! cried the seated man with a sudden force of gesture. Look at that sea that has shone and quivered there for ever! See the white spume rush into darkness under that great cliff. And this blue vault, with the blinding sun pouring from the dome of it. It is your world. You accept it, you rejoice in it. It warms and supports and delights you. And for me-

He turned his head and showed a ghastly face, bloodshot pallid eyes and bloodless lips. He spoke almost in a whisper. It is the garment of my misery. The whole world ... is the garment of my misery.

Isbister looked at all the wild beauty of the sunlit cliffs about them and back to that face of despair. For a moment he was silent.

He started, and made a gesture of impatient rejection. You get a night s sleep, he said, and you won t see much misery out here. Take my word for it.

He was quite sure now that this was a providential encounter. Only half an hour ago he had been feeling horribly bored. Here was employment the bare thought of which, was righteous self-applause. He took possession forthwith. The first need of this exhausted being was companionship. He flung himself down on the steeply sloping turf beside the motionless seated figure, and threw out a skirmishing line of gossip.

His hearer lapsed into apathy; he stared dismally seaward, and spoke only in answer to Isbister s direct questions-and not to all of those. But he made no objection to this benevolent intrusion upon his despair.

He seemed even grateful, and when presently Isbister, feeling that his unsupported talk was losing vigour, suggested that they should reascend the steep and return towards Boscastle, alleging the view into Blackapit, he submitted quietly. Halfway up he began talking to himself, and abruptly turned a ghastly face on his helper. What can be happening? he asked with a gaunt illustrative hand. What can be happening? Spin, spin, spin, spin. It goes round and round, round and round for evermore.

He stood with his hand circling.

It s all right, old chap, said Isbister with the air of an old friend. Don t worry yourself. Trust to me,

The man dropped his hand and turned again. They went over the brow and to the headland beyond Penally, with the sleepless man gesticulating ever and again, and speaking fragmentary things concerning his whirling brain. At the headland they stood by the seat that looks into the dark mysteries of Blackapit, and then he sat down. Isbister had resumed his talk whenever the path had widened sufficiently for them to walk abreast. He was enlarging upon the complex difficulty of making Boscastle Harbour in bad weather, when suddenly and quite irrelevantly his companion interrupted him again.

My head is not like what it was, he said, gesticulating for want of expressive phrases. It s not like what it was. There is a sort of oppression, a weight. No-not drowsiness, would God it were! It is like a shadow, a deep shadow falling suddenly and swiftly across something busy. Spin, spin into the darkness. The tumult of thought, the confusion, the eddy and eddy. I can t express it. I can hardly keep my mind on it-steadily enough to tell you.

He stopped feebly.

Don t...
mehr

Autor

Samuel Butler, (born Dec. 4, 1835, Langar Rectory, Nottinghamshire, Eng.died June 18, 1902, London), English novelist, essayist, and critic whose satire Erewhon (1872) foreshadowed the collapse of the Victorian illusion of eternal progress. The Way of All Flesh (1903), his autobiographical novel, is generally considered his masterpiece.

Jack London, pseudonym of John Griffith Chaney, (born January 12, 1876, San Francisco, California, U.S.died November 22, 1916, Glen Ellen, California), American novelist and short-story writer whose best-known worksamong them The Call of the Wild (1903) and White Fang (1906)depict elemental struggles for survival. During the 20th century he was one of the most extensively translated of American authors.

H.G. Wells, in full Herbert George Wells, (born September 21, 1866, Bromley, Kent, Englanddied August 13, 1946, London), English novelist, journalist, sociologist, and historian best known for such science fiction novels as The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds and such comic novels as Tono-Bungay and The History of Mr. Polly.