New Dystopian
Don’t worry, you’ve never heard of this term before because I just made it up about 10 seconds ago, but I think this is a glimpse of the future of dystopian/apocalyptic sub-genres. Just remember you heard it here on Tell Great Stories first. Someone write it down so one day I’ll be listed as the coiner of the term on the Wikipedia page.
Just kidding.
Sort of.
Anyway, for about the past year, the YA-verse has been suffering from dystopia fatigue (not entirely unlike vampire fatigue, paranormal romance fatigue, trilogy fatigue, and love triangle fatigue.)
Contrary to popular opinion, the fatigue is NOT because the books being published in these sub-genres are bad. It’s because they aren’t unique. Sure, they might take place in different countries, in different cities, with a different twist, but it always plays out more or less the same.
The Story We All Know
Protagonist is oppressed by something bigger than themselves (a corporation, a government, water shortage, oil shortage, disease, zombies, poverty, hunger, whatever.)
The protag is given an extraordinary opportunity that allows them to catch a glimpse of who they really are or could be and a world that needs someone to fight. The Extraordinary Opportunity is better known by writers as The First Plot Point and is often thrust upon the protag unwillingly. Once the protag’s eyes are opened, of course, there’s no going back.
Through is the only direction, and so the protag spends the next 50,000 words fighting against themselves and against the oppressor in order to come out triumphant (or nearly so) at the end with a hot love interest by their side. Ta-da.
Which means, of course, there are no surprises.
And as readers, we are just a little bit tired of reading the same thing. We love these settings, these scenarios, these terrible events, but we yearn to be taken by surprise, to feel like the characters are in mortal danger, to believe there are serious stakes and regardless of our passion, we may not triumph.
Why We Need It
New Dystopian is a term I cooked up because I needed a new piece of language to describe a book I recently read that is dystopian but does not, in any way, look like the dystopian we’ve seen in the last five years
It feels different.
It disturbs.
It takes us by surprise.
There are stakes so high that success is doubtful.
And we’re not sure there will be a happy ending.
In fact, if I hadn’t told you this book was a dystopian, you wouldn’t have known until more than halfway through the book. Because it doesn’t flash its “Dystopian” tramp stamp at everyone. It’s subtle, more like, a way of life and not a defining characteristic.
And I have a feeling that the fatigue we’ve been feeling lately is going to lead to these sorts of books that are dystopian but aren’t so in your face about it. There won’t be cities burning or roving gangs of thugs in the wastelands. Government control won’t be so in-your-face. Dystopian conspiracy theorists will hang out at coffee shops with alien conspiracy theorists.
Never Let Me Go
The book I’ve been slowly building up to was also made into a movie, so if you’ve seen the movie but not read the book, I beg you not to give anything away in comments, as there are some key differences.
The book? Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
And the thing is, I can’t really tell you much about the book because in giving anything away I’d ruin the unfolding and trust me when I tell you, you don’t want me to do that. So I’m going to have to be a little backward about describing the book to you.
Ok, so, the book is told through the recounting of a girl named Kathy H. who grew up at a boarding school called Hailsham somewhere in England. When the book begins she’s a little older, around 31, and we know there is an important reason she’s about to tell us her story, but we’re not sure what the important reason is until like, 75% of the way through the book. And that’s ok. That’s part of the beauty of this book. It’s all in the unfolding.
So Kathy starts out when she was middle school aged, but she often jumps around, going much younger and much older in her stories. There’s a certain rhythm of memory that you can’t fake here – I feel honest-to-god like we’re sitting at the knees of a new friend telling us her life story and one memory reminds her of something else that happened ten years later or in telling a remembered moment she suddenly understands it so much differently than she did back then. The unfolding story is as much a revelation to her as it is to us.
Kathy’s world is intersected by two friends – Tommy, the boy she loves, and Ruth, her bossy daydreaming best friend. They are interesting in their own right, but let me say this: Pay Very Close Attention to Tommy. I believe that a deeper understanding of the story can be seen through Tommy’s character. He is maybe the only character who’s mind is filled with screams against what is being done to him.
The students of Hailsham are special. How are they special? Well. That would be telling.
But here’s the thing- it doesn’t matter why they are special. Their specialness does not stop them from having normal childhoods full of drama and heartache and manipulation. Their childhoods are not all that different from the one I wrote about in my glittery unicorn diaries. It’s about favorite teachers and sports, doing well, acceptance and bullies. There’s this story Kathy tells about how her friend Ruth, when they were very young, told a small group of them that there was a conspiracy to kidnap their favorite teacher and that Ruth had been charged with protecting this teacher. She tells them she’s forming a private guard and they are to silently, without this teacher ever knowing, protect her and root out the conspirators. These little girls take on this duty with the perseverance and dedication that only little girls can muster.
Do you know you’re in a dystopian story when you’re living it?
Let me ask you this – If we were living in a dystopian society right now, where the government controlled us entirely and we were housed in gated communities were unapproved books were burned and people imprisoned for the smallest of infractions, would you walk around thinking to yourself, “Man this is one hell of a dystopian society.”
Probably not. You’d probably think, “Man, this life is hell.”
You probably wouldn’t spend most of your time dissecting the goings on of the government. You’d be too busy keeping your head down and food in your mouth. Most of the dystopian books coming out lately can’t stop pointing out their genre to you, but not Never Let Me Go (which, granted, came out in 2005, so it’s not new new.) This is what I mean by New Dystopian. It’s not a genre for this book, it’s just the way life is.
Which is why the ending, though you can kind of see it coming, slams into you like a freight train.
I can’t recommend this book enough, though for all that is holy in this world please do not go watch the trailer for the movie. Don’t go anywhere near the movie until you’ve read the book. The movie is lovely and captures the heart of the story sure, but it also lacks the subtle nuances of the book that make it such an intense and life changing read. The trailer alone will give away the twist (ARGH! HULK SMASH) and flashes HI I’M AN OPPRESSIVE DYSTOPIAN all over the screen.
So just avoid it until you’ve read the book first.
If you’ve read the book or if you don’t mind spoilers, author Margaret Atwood digs into the heart of this creepy tale in this book review.
This book is for anyone who has ever loved the following books but the idea of reading yet another dystopian book/trilogy fills you with a sort of exhaustion that makes you think, “I can’t be bothered.”
- Delirium
- XVI
- The Hunger Games
- Wither
- Divergent
- The Water Wars
- Matched
- Restoring Harmony
Where do you want to see Dystopian fiction go next?
Sommer
My name is Sommer and I'm a writer from the Midwest. I am currently working on a YA novel about superheroes, reading as much as I can, blogging, and saving the world.
I love it when I come to comment on something that made my inner 12-year-old giggle, only to find a very serious convo about apartheid and WW2…
So I’m just going to sit over here at the kids table and say this, “Because it doesn’t flash its “Dystopian” tramp stamp at everyone” absolutely made me giggle. And giggle some more. And then again. And now I need to find a way to use this line in my daily conversations.
added it to the ole’ tbr list!
great point about keeping it subtle!
*adds book to Christmas wishlist* I’m on a book buying ban until January and I’m completely backlogged, but this sounds like an owner.
Never Let Me Go is in my TBR pile. I may just have to bump it up now.
I am really excited about this book, now. I will have to check it out, and avoid all other information on it like the plague.
Thanks for the recommend – I loved Delirium and am always looking for more like it. Also like your new dystopian genre. Soooo sick of zombies or sicknesses that turn people into zombies.
I’ve heard a lot about NEVER LET ME GO, and it’s been on my TBR pile ever since I’ve finished Ishiguro’s THE REMAINS OF THE DAY (which, by the way, is an excellent novel). Unfortunately I’ve seen the trailer already, but hopefully the book will still be enjoyable.
In any case, the way you describe “New Dystopian” seems like the ideal “transformation” of the genre. Everything in the arts has always transformed from in-your-face to subtle (e.g. sensationalism and melodrama, once used frequently, are now viewed in a negative light), and I’m surprised Dystopian fiction hasn’t gone that way yet.
You’re absolutely right! Agents have started complaining about dystopian fatigue for the very reasons you’re citing. I LOVED Never Let Me Go, although it was one of the strangest, most plotless books I’ve read in a long time. It was a bit like being privy to somebody else’s very interesting dream. The narrator is an excellent example, too, of an unreliable narrator who withholds information.
Thanks for the recommendation, Sommer. Didn’t realize how much Dystopian I’ve read until I saw that I’d read everything on that list and then some. A fresh and different take will be much appreciated.
Hi – interesting post!
I’d have to say yes, i would know. It’s one of the contrivances of these kinds of books that the characters have to believe certain things for the story to work, much as teenagers in horror movies have to take stupid risks in order to get killed by the crazed psycho. There are just certain things people in the real world instinctively cling to and this book deals with one of them (as is avoiding going into a spooky attic because of a weird noise). As a metaphor it’s fine, but as a story I think it’s wholly unconvincing.
As for your point about keeping your head down, there have been plenty of regimes in the world where people lived liek that. They might not have been able to do anything about it for a long time, but they knew what was going on. Very few buy the propoganda when the truth hits them in the face on a daily basis.
mood
True, Mood, but what about all the people who aren’t hit in the face with the truth on a daily basis, or those who just don’t see it? I say this as someone whose white South African grandfather once lectured me on how good apartheid was for everyone involved. White people, because it’s always the white man’s burden to civilise the world, and black people, because otherwise they’d still be living in huts like savages. And nothing in the world would have convinced him that the entire system was simply unfair. So, people can watch other people get treated like they are less than human, and still believe they are living in a good society.
And, if you’ve never known anything else, how could you know that it’s a dystopia? Maybe you just vaguely think that things could be, or should be, better. And that’t probably what most of us think, most of the time.
You’re example of your grandfather is looking at it from the perspective of the haves, not the have-nots. It’s in the interest of those who benefit to delude themselves. If you knew of black South Africans who believed it was a good thing, that would be a stronger argument. There are just basic human instincts that can’t be wholly supressed. If you want to trick a large group of people you have to spoil them (lots of food, tv, distractions, comforts——sound like anywhere you know?). Hardships breed discontent. Hardships while others live in luxury lead to revolution.
True, of course, Mood! It will lead to revolution, and it did. But if you are one of the haves, it may never occur to you that you’re living in an unfair society. You life is good, your friends lives are good, and you probably have no idea that discontent is so widespread. Not only do you not realise it’s an oppressive society, you don’t realise that you’re an oppressor. You might not be an inherently bad person, but you’re still part of the problem. And I think that’s an interesting angle to explore.
If we consider that people have things going on in their lives that divide their loyalties and attentions, I think it’s quite likely that people living in anything but the most overwrought dystopia are too distracted to name the problem. They might think the problems of their lives are the fault of a single political party, of a foreign people or aggressor, of a religious or ethnic minority, of moral decay among their fellow man, of economic conditions caused by the have-leasts or have-mosts. Perhaps all of these are true to some extent. Perhaps they are elements of propaganda used to distract the 95% who have little to nothing (be it money or food or freedom or power) from turning on the other 5%.
Did the average German or Italian person living during WW2 know they were living in a fascist state? Or were they distracted by economic hardship, religious propaganda, patriotic fervor, ethnic hatred, etc? How much insight does the average ‘man on the ground’ have about all the variables that go into society, into government, into foreign relations, into resource availablity and movement?
I’d have to really think on it, but I can imagine having a character who gets swept into the downfall of dystopia while thinking their role is much smaller, their concerns much more immediate (saving a single family member, trying to obtain something dearly needed, etc). It’s a little different, of course, if there is not so much an internal oppressor as a foreign invader.