150-odd years before the story opens there was a huge revolution – but instead of taking the more usual step of hanging their oppressors from lampposts, a large number of the revolutionaries fled to set up their own ideal society. The inequality on Urras has naturally provoked a great deal of anger. I'm talking about Ursula K Le Guin's 1975 Hugo award winner, The Dispossessed, and her vivid descriptions of the dystopian world of Urras. I'm not even talking about the future as envisaged by the Tea Party. No, I'm not talking about the next few years of Cameron and Clegg's reign of terror. Any protests are put down with brutal force. The health service has been destroyed and those who cannot afford private care are crammed into ancient filthy hospitals where they go simply to die. They loathe the poor and have ensured they cannot escape poverty and receive only the minimum of education and state support. The government contains only the sneering rich and serves only the sneering rich.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |