Mid-Century Dystopia, Part 1: Pan's Labyrinth
There was no intention on my part to read two dystopian novels at the same time. I was already in motion to read 1984 - an embarrassingly long-overdue attempt - when I heard a novelization of Pan's Labyrinth was to be released in July. I got in the library line quickly (these things go like hot cakes), and soon, with del Toro/Funke's fantasy horror in one hand and Orwell's bleak dystopia in the other, made the abrupt leap from "light summer fluff" to "not-sure-if-I'll-sleep-tonight bedtime stories." So... What Were You Thinking!? 1984 requires little introduction. In Western culture, at least, terms such as Big Brother and doublethink flavor our vocabulary as glib reminders that a British author back in 1948 foretold the existence of increasingly powerful, monolithic, and tech-savvy governments. We see signs of it everywhere today, from more innocuous instruments such as traffic cameras to the disturbing birth of China's Social C...