Good times bad times

[altariel]

A brief discussion elsewhere about writing dystopia had me musing about happy-world stories and sad-world stories, what you lot preferred, and why.

Here is the ever-quotable Le Guin on the subject: "It is sad that so many stories that might offer a true vision settle for patriotic or religious platitude, technological miracle working, or wishful thinking, the writers not trying to imagine truth. The fashionably noir dystopia merely reverses the platitudes and uses acid instead of saccharine, while still evading engagement with human suffering and with genuine possibility" (2004: 219).

Are happy-world tales escapism? Do sad-world stories back out on the possibility for action and change? What do you like to read? Why?

[Poll #614661]

Le Guin, U. (2004) A War Without End. In: Le Guin, U., The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader, and the Imagination. London: Shambhala Publications.

Comments

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

Applying Le Guin's words to fanfiction, I suspect the acid-for-saccharine substitution is part of what gets me about a lot of angst.

(Oh, & methinks you may have biased your poll by including that little word 'coffee'.)

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think I got a bit carried away making that final option sound so delicious...

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

But you nearly put me off!

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Cinnamon? Chocolate? Cream?

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

Don't like cream much, either. I think a dark and bitter chocolate seems most fitting.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Just had a rum truffle from the Chocolate Society, mmm.

[jomacmouse.livejournal.com]

If it wasn't for the rum part, you might've had a hand come through your screen then :)

[altariel.livejournal.com]

That would have been... alarming!

There was a lemon buttercream and mint one too, that was yummy. Looking forward to the plum truffle as well.

[jomacmouse.livejournal.com]

There was a lemon buttercream and mint one too, that was yummy.

It sounds like it. You would definitely have been alarmed if I'd known that :) The other one sounds like it's perfectly safe for you to consume without worrying about distressing phenomena erupting from your monitor.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

Mouth watering here...

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

[Snaffles a few squares of Green&Black's bittersweet dark chocolate. Plus a few squares of vanilla white for good measure.]

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I like the ginger one best.

[kerravonsen]

Naw, not for me. Lindt Lindor cinnamon ball, from their assorted Christmas Special box. (It's even named after a planet in B7!)