Apocalyptic Bebop
Jan. 11th, 2010 01:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
badseed1980I love books and movies about apocalypses and post-apocalyptic life. My most recent foray into this genre was The Road, but it's been an interest of mine for a while. My freshman year English class in college was "Apocalyptic and Dystopian Literature." We met at 8am (yeah, I know) to talk about the end of the world. It was awesome.
It was only recently that I started thinking about why I am so into these stories. I think that it generally boils down to: humans have created a lifestyle that is unbelievably complex, and we take so much of the way we live for granted. What would it take to make that that fragile, complicated structure collapse? What would take its place? How would we handle it.
And suddenly, I'm smiling. I chose the Einsturzende Neubauten icon pretty much at random, but now, I see the fittingness of it. Their whole philosophy is about tearing down or deconstructing the old (or watching it collapse on its own) and creating something new in its place. :)
It's interesting to see what kinds of things might cause society to break down. Could it happen slowly, like boiling a frog? Would people just not see what was happening as they sowed the seeds of their own destruction? Would it happen with warning? Some kind of sudden natural or manmade disaster we could predict, but not save ourselves from in time? How would we react if we knew it was coming? What would we try to preserve, and why, and how? What if there WAS no warning?
And then, once it happened, what kinds of things would survive, in terms of non-human life, technology, infrastructure, etc.? What kind of difference would that make in the behavior and values of the PEOPLE who survived? What would happen to governments? To religions? To family behavior? To romance and sex? To art? What would we care about? What would cease to matter? How would we treat one another? How would the goodness in people come out? The badness? In what ways would we find happiness? What would happen as new post-apocalyptic generations were born (if possible), who had never known the world before? How would they be different from us?
All this stuff fundamentally addresses the question of what it means to be human, which is a damned interesting question, if you ask me.
It was only recently that I started thinking about why I am so into these stories. I think that it generally boils down to: humans have created a lifestyle that is unbelievably complex, and we take so much of the way we live for granted. What would it take to make that that fragile, complicated structure collapse? What would take its place? How would we handle it.
And suddenly, I'm smiling. I chose the Einsturzende Neubauten icon pretty much at random, but now, I see the fittingness of it. Their whole philosophy is about tearing down or deconstructing the old (or watching it collapse on its own) and creating something new in its place. :)
It's interesting to see what kinds of things might cause society to break down. Could it happen slowly, like boiling a frog? Would people just not see what was happening as they sowed the seeds of their own destruction? Would it happen with warning? Some kind of sudden natural or manmade disaster we could predict, but not save ourselves from in time? How would we react if we knew it was coming? What would we try to preserve, and why, and how? What if there WAS no warning?
And then, once it happened, what kinds of things would survive, in terms of non-human life, technology, infrastructure, etc.? What kind of difference would that make in the behavior and values of the PEOPLE who survived? What would happen to governments? To religions? To family behavior? To romance and sex? To art? What would we care about? What would cease to matter? How would we treat one another? How would the goodness in people come out? The badness? In what ways would we find happiness? What would happen as new post-apocalyptic generations were born (if possible), who had never known the world before? How would they be different from us?
All this stuff fundamentally addresses the question of what it means to be human, which is a damned interesting question, if you ask me.
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Date: 2010-01-11 08:09 pm (UTC)I tend to think that, depending on how it went down, we would be shocked at how our pre-breakdown lives resembled our post-breakdown lives in the most meaningful ways. Human values don't tend to change, even when society does. We are not suddenly going to feel good about resorting to cannibalism, no matter how apocalyptic things get. We are always going to fall in love. We are always going to protect our families, and bond together in the face of adversity. We are always going to exploit each other and display completely irrational and destructive greed. Don't get me wrong, I think the kind of ethical continence most of us exhibit is a luxury of the safe and secure, but I think the desire for it is pretty much universal and unflagging. Of course, I'm obsessed with ethics, so that's the framework I immediately see all this through.
In many ways, I think apocalypse scenarios are to memetics what rapid environmental changes are to genetics. That is part of what makes them so interesting. Suddenly, ideas or practices that could never gain a foothold in stable society are embraced by huge numbers of people because they are practically or psychologically useful. I think this is why I like World War Z so much...
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Date: 2010-01-11 08:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-11 09:18 pm (UTC)The most interesting part about it is with the status quo no longer such, many things become possible.
For example, not that I'm a christian by any means, but I would like to do some speculative fiction about the apostles in the years following Christ's death.
Here was a charismatic revolutionary cult leader who assembled a group of fanatic acolytes. There was no "New Testament", just a bunch of stories and maybe notes. No certainty that the organization would continue the next day, never mind for so many centuries.
The uncertainty, the imminent possibility of everything, the action of making will reality... It'd be an interesting book if it weren't for how the ending turned out.
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Date: 2010-01-11 10:25 pm (UTC)Riddley WaIker is set in an unspecified, post-apocolyptic era in the future, when dogs have become humanity's enemies, and history is a rubble of allegory. It's told in a language that recalls the "smashed mess of mottage" of Finnegan's Wake, but Mr. Hoban's inventiveness guarantees that the language of Riddley is his own creation. Gutteral yet eloquent, we hear in it echoes of rudimentary English (and a tendency toward sagas) that evoke Beowulf, mixed with remnants of the technological catchphrases and political jargon of the 20th Century.
Riddley Walker is twelve years old, and at the outset of the book three remarkable things happen to him that seem to set him on a path toward mystery. First, on his "naming day"--the day he turns twelve--he kills a wild boar, and he notices the eyes of the leader of a wild dog pack watching him closely. (Since the time of the nuclear holocaust that precipitated humanity's fallen state, dogs have turned against humans; those few humans who can enounter dogs unarmed without getting their throats ripped out are called "dog frendy" and generally distrusted.)
Three days later Riddley's father is killed in jobsite accident. Riddley is suddenly thrust into prominence as he succeeds his father in the role of "connexion man": the one responsible for giving prophetic interpretations of the traveling puppet shows that serve as a combined religious ceremony, government propaganda tool and public entertainment. Later that same day on forage duty, Riddley is approached by the leader of the wild dog pack, who choses to die on Riddley's spear, a powerful omen of "the far come close took by the littl come big."
Something's up for Riddley, and it's all about to hit the fan. The next night the "Eusa show" arrives at Riddley's settlement; Goodparley & Orfing, the "Pry Mincer" and the "Wes Mincer" stage the traditional puppet allegory depicting how a figure named Eusa, in a time long ago, became greedy for "clevverness," using technology to pull the "Littl Shining Man" of the atom into two pieces. (The idea of lost wholeness represented by the Littl Shining Man is woven throughout the book; it recurs in many of Riddley's reflections, and is underscored by the way the book's language has been smashed into monosyllabic fragments. Longer words are broken down into one-word components, e.g. "sir prizes" for "surprises.")
The result of Eusa pulling the Littl Shining Man apart was an explosion known as the "1 Big 1." Since that time (according to legend) the Littl Shining Man has existed in a broken state, while humankind has lived with the bleak consequences, and "clevverness" has fallen into disrepute reinforced by a sense of religious prohibition.
But Riddley soon learns that all is not as it has been; there's a movement afoot to recover the lost "clevverness" and rediscover the secret of the 1 Big 1. The final catalyst arrives when Riddley unearths a mysterious puppet figure at an excavation site and defies an official who tries to confiscate it. Soon Riddley is on the lam, running with the wild dogs who have inexplicably befriended him, heading down darkened roads into an explosive mixture of danger, intrigue, and forbidden knowledge.
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Date: 2010-01-11 11:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-13 11:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-13 10:57 pm (UTC)Due to a very painful ear infection I am having a hard time putting together any coherent thoughts, but hopefully once it gets better that skill will come back to me. And I will come back and try to contribute something to the conversation. I just had to say something because I got excited and intrigued when I read your entry. I love nerding out about this subject. Be back after the anti-botics and garlic pills start kicking the infection's ass.
Did you read The Road or see the movie? Or both? When I read it the first time around I had a hard time getting into the book. I have that same problem with a lot of his novels. But the second time around I enjoyed it much more. I thought the movie was very well done- very grueling.
I keep thinking about how and when is this going to happen to us? What would I do? How could I protect myself and my loved ones? Would I or could I be able to stand up for the rights of people around me? What horrible acts are we capable of? What acts of courage and bravery are we capable of? When the shit goes down how will we react?
Okay that was a lot of questions. Sorry. I couldn't construct anything better at the moment.
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Date: 2010-01-13 11:44 pm (UTC)