Alternate histories
Oct. 12th, 2006 12:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
altarielQuite a few of them rattling around the Altariel headspace at the moment.
The Plot Against America by Philip Roth. Posits the defeat of FDR in the 1940 presidential race, and the election of pro-Nazi, anti-Semitic former air-ace Charles Lindbergh. Roth puts his own family into this situation: a Jewish family living in Newark (Philip starts the book as a seven-year old boy). And very meticulously researched it is, and superb on the growing paranoia of all groups concerned (and the manipulation of public feeling). But you're left at the end with a sense of - well, that was an impressive technical exercise, but what was the point? Because Roth, horror of horrors, pulls the winky-winky lever (technical term): Lindbergh disappears in suspicious circumstances while flying his plane in 1942, and Roosevelt comes back to power in a special election. History's back on track.
Now, I don't have anything against AUs that take a narrow time window, interrupt it in some fashion, and then put things back as they were (I'm writing one right now). And I assume that what's going on is some kind of allegory to the current situation in America, but there's no kind of textual acknowledgement of this, no kind of ironizing of our current history - or maybe I'm too dense to work out what's being done (as a side note, I'm not convinced that history could be set back on track after some of Roth's interruptions: he makes a big deal of the first pogrom on American soil - could things ever be the same again?)
Anyway, I think Christopher Priest does it better in The Separation: by holding up both futures (our own and the alternate) and putting them side for you to look at, compare and constrast. So, ultimately, I felt - nice job, but... why?
Death of a President: drama-documentary with a near-future setting, following what happens after George W. Bush is assassinated after giving a speech in Chicago in 2007. I had been expecting something pretty sensationalist, and in fact it was very low-key, very measured, very well made. It didn't make the world's subtlest point, but it was a good point, and worth making.
The Amazing Mrs Pritchard: Well, I suspect this is probably going to turn out to be pish, and you know it's all a mighty long way from A Very British Coup, but - god help me - I quite enjoyed episode 1. Because I'm not going to see Tony Blair concede an election any other way, am I? Mrs Pritchard herself is a vile busybody, and her husband is tediously opposed to her political career (I just think it would have been more fun for him to be a more bewildered version of Denis Thatcher than an excuse for CONFLICT). And there's some weird gender stuff going on (i.e. what democracy needs is an infusion of Women's Innate Good Sense!). But I'll watch on, out of sheer fascination, and because I think it's quite positive to put something on prime time going, "Politics is really, really important, and you can do something about it!"
Children of Men: Bloody bloody bloody hell, that was outstanding.
The Plot Against America by Philip Roth. Posits the defeat of FDR in the 1940 presidential race, and the election of pro-Nazi, anti-Semitic former air-ace Charles Lindbergh. Roth puts his own family into this situation: a Jewish family living in Newark (Philip starts the book as a seven-year old boy). And very meticulously researched it is, and superb on the growing paranoia of all groups concerned (and the manipulation of public feeling). But you're left at the end with a sense of - well, that was an impressive technical exercise, but what was the point? Because Roth, horror of horrors, pulls the winky-winky lever (technical term): Lindbergh disappears in suspicious circumstances while flying his plane in 1942, and Roosevelt comes back to power in a special election. History's back on track.
Now, I don't have anything against AUs that take a narrow time window, interrupt it in some fashion, and then put things back as they were (I'm writing one right now). And I assume that what's going on is some kind of allegory to the current situation in America, but there's no kind of textual acknowledgement of this, no kind of ironizing of our current history - or maybe I'm too dense to work out what's being done (as a side note, I'm not convinced that history could be set back on track after some of Roth's interruptions: he makes a big deal of the first pogrom on American soil - could things ever be the same again?)
Anyway, I think Christopher Priest does it better in The Separation: by holding up both futures (our own and the alternate) and putting them side for you to look at, compare and constrast. So, ultimately, I felt - nice job, but... why?
Death of a President: drama-documentary with a near-future setting, following what happens after George W. Bush is assassinated after giving a speech in Chicago in 2007. I had been expecting something pretty sensationalist, and in fact it was very low-key, very measured, very well made. It didn't make the world's subtlest point, but it was a good point, and worth making.
The Amazing Mrs Pritchard: Well, I suspect this is probably going to turn out to be pish, and you know it's all a mighty long way from A Very British Coup, but - god help me - I quite enjoyed episode 1. Because I'm not going to see Tony Blair concede an election any other way, am I? Mrs Pritchard herself is a vile busybody, and her husband is tediously opposed to her political career (I just think it would have been more fun for him to be a more bewildered version of Denis Thatcher than an excuse for CONFLICT). And there's some weird gender stuff going on (i.e. what democracy needs is an infusion of Women's Innate Good Sense!). But I'll watch on, out of sheer fascination, and because I think it's quite positive to put something on prime time going, "Politics is really, really important, and you can do something about it!"
Children of Men: Bloody bloody bloody hell, that was outstanding.
