Bleak House

Dear You,

Why do you suppose that fictional representations of the future are so often bleak? As I continue my current read -- one of my "beach books," my term for light reading -- I keep thinking of other novels. This one is a thriller set a half-century hence, the murder victims getting their comeuppance because of their Frankenstein-like efforts to create beautiful and intelligent young women.

Why do so many writers imagine an Orwellian future in telling their stories? Were they influenced by Huxley's "Brave New World" of over-population and genetics experiments? Orwell's "1984" of perpetual war and Big Brother surveillance? The list is much longer than I want to note here, and that's not even touching recent as well as classic movies. Like millions of others recently, I got the seventh and last Harry Potter book, and I notice in the early chapters how different are the tone and characters and plot compared with those first installments. Harry has "grown up" and his future is grimmer than his past. So goes the world, apparently!

My only reference here comes from comparing my life with that of my father's -- child of the Great Depression and wounded veteran of World War II, struggling for so many years to achieve the American Dream . . . which I inherited and too often take for granted. I imagine the future to be better and better. Even so, it certainly is entertaining to visit a much darker world in my reading.

Travel Indignities

Dear You,

Back in Rochester after the flights from Seattle to Atlanta and home, I'm newly reminded of the indignities of travel in the modern world. All my reading life I've enjoyed stories of travel. Even though I have been very few places (and never across an ocean), I've had the vicarious pleasure of trips to France, to South America, to Egypt . . . oh, lots and lots of places, on ships and trains and planes. And I think those long-ago travelers would be horrified by what we've done since 9/11.

Everyone shuffling through those dismal lines at airports, past a uniform who checks the passports (to get to Seattle???) and peers into their faces before scribbling something on the boarding pass . . . and not a complaint! At least nothing audible. The screening -- shoes off, belt off, oops, the shampoo bottle is bigger than three ounces. Confiscated! Yes, but you can have as many as two books of matches (will three bring down an airplane?).

Each time they spot a police car, a relative jokingly cautions his daughter, "Act Natural!" Then he laughs and tells me, "You know, it's not paranoia if they really ARE looking for you!"

Isn't this the Orwellian problem we face today? "They" really are looking for us. All of us, even if all we really want to do is get to Seattle and back with our favorite brand of shampoo.