Is Nineteen Eighty-Four too obvious? Readers suggest books on the rise of a US oligarchy, alternative facts – and a president who won’t live in the White House
George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four has seen a surge in popularity since the election of Donald Trump, but other dystopian works of fiction are available. Following on from Alex Hern’s suggestions on Thursday, our readers offered the novels they think best capture the spirit of the times.
To be sure, the management is very bad. In fact, let us not mince words – the management is terrible! We’ve had a string of embezzlers, frauds, liars and lunatics making a string of catastrophic decisions. This is plain fact.
But who elected them? It was you! You who appointed these people! You who gave them the power to make your decisions for you!”
When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, ‘This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know,’ the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked.”
‘Painting slogans on walls is hard to keep quiet. Too many people see it. They tell their neighbours who tell other people at the market. Rumour becomes fact very quickly.’
‘And what about our facts?’
I plunk the children in school nine days out of ten. I put up with them when they come home three days a month; it’s not bad at all. You heave them into the ‘parlor’ and turn the switch. It’s like washing clothes: stuff laundry in and slam the lid ... They’d just as soon kick as kiss me. Thank God, I can kick back!”
via Science fiction | The Guardian http://ift.tt/2ksIJPo
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