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Post-Apocalyptic Dystopia? Or Just Reality?

by Vanessa Veselka, May 24, 2011 11:02 AM
Zazen has been called a dystopian novel but I respectfully disagree. Dystopia is entwined with totalitarianism and depicts a future where individuality is pathologized. In Zazen, individuality is the drug. Personality preferences are given so much primacy that no one even knows what "real" is anymore because it's all just a matter of perspective. But then again, maybe that is my own sense of dystopia. Still, the great dystopic novels — 1984 or Brave New World or A Clockwork Orange — feel different because they are terrifying, elegant and sterile.

And what about the term "post-apocalyptic dystopian fiction?" Dystopic is different from apocalyptic, yet they are often treated interchangeably. Maybe we should dispense with the "post" part. When I envision a post-apocalyptic world, I see an anaerobic ocean soup, flat as a lake, with space wind rippling the surface waters unimpeded by the interference of ozone.


Via treehugger.com

Sea currents slow to a stop. Cyanobacteria fight it out for a penthouse in a stromatolite.

Nothing. Endtimes. Brave New Bacteria.



Via Primal Science

Okay, so that's a little extreme. Which is really what I think people mean when they say Zazen is a dystopic, apocalyptic novel. They mean it is extreme. The world of the novel is a place where temp agencies are called "Brass Ring Employment Solutions" and vegan neo-hippy restaurants are called "Rise Up Singing." Some readers have asked me if that's really their names or just the narrator's language. My gut response is, who cares what they're called, that's what those places are. All along, I was looking for the language of essence.


Princess Mononoke, Hayao Miyazaki (via unrealitymag.com)

Over the years I have been deeply affected by the movies of Miyazaki as well as novels that came out of WWI and the novellas of Conrad approaching it. So what if I see Kurtz' compound while in the Denver Airport Starbucks — that's just my natural proclivity. But it doesn't mean it isn't true. In fact, I'm pretty sure the Denver tarmac is surrounded by shrunken heads on pikes.


Woodcut illustration by Hans Alexander Muller

The truth is, I imbued Zazen with my most fervent hopes. And hope is as dark as it gets. Della, the narrator, is not cynical as much as broken-hearted. I guess since the things others find funny, I often find depressing, it only makes sense that things some see as terrifying, hold for me incandescent possibilities.


Image credit: Steven Haddock




Books mentioned in this post

1984

George Orwell

Brave New World

Aldous Huxley

A Clockwork Orange

Anthony Burgess

Zazen

Vanessa Veselka
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One Response to "Post-Apocalyptic Dystopia? Or Just Reality?"

Cassandra May 25, 2011 at 10:04 AM
"Dystopia is entwined with totalitarianism and depicts a future where individuality is pathologized," errm, I don't think 'dystopia' necessarily implies totalitarianism -- just that the 20th century (over which the spectre of totalitarianism loomed particularly large) had some notable literary dystopias, as you've already pointed out. As for individuality being pathologized -- hell, lady, Zazen (great book by the way!) pathogizes individuality... I mean isn't the personality, the ego, and the shedding (or need to shed) of the ego hinted at right there in the title? But I understand your point -- in the classic dystopian vision, personality is a menace to the smooth functioning of lockstep society -- in Zazen we get the flip side, the consumer culture saturation of choice... but it is still pathology... bleach and acid both burn the flesh though they come from opposite ends of the pH range. Cormac McCarthy's The Road is dystopian as hell and there's no totalitarianism in it -- just the dictatorship of simple human biology -- gotta eat to live. Total ecological collapse, that's the dystopian vision keepin me awake. Hey, this just in (really, it's on the wires today): Colony Collapse Disease continues at 'unsustainable' level. Honeybee's -- pollinators of something like 1/3 to 1/2 our food supply -- continue to die off, globally, at a frightening pace. The cause, as far as anyone is able to tell thus far, is a combination of stresses produced by contemporary global human anti-eco culture. One commentator I read mentions: hey, since changing would require us to give up cell-phones and coal-energies and etc. etc. and since WE CAN'T DO THAT (my emphasis) we need to find 'alternate pollinators' -- That human ability to kick the can down the road. Someone who doesn't understand that bee die offs are just one of the multiplying symptoms of serious global ecological stress. When it (the ecology presently sustaining some billions of us) breaks down (and I so hope it

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