My late husband, Phil, often taught an undergraduate college class on utopias. As you might expect, it was hard to find novels and stories about utopias but easy to find ones about dystopias. A story he often used was "The Ones Who Walk Away from the Omelas," by Ursula Le Quin. I'm sure most of you have read this story, but for those who haven't it was about a utopia whose existence relied on the towns people's ability to stomach the torture of one small girl so that the rest of them could lead a utopian life.
In the "Men's Club," James Sallis lays out a somewhat similar situation. His story is a mere two pages and Le Quin's is longer, but he manages to capture the thrust of it in all its horror very quickly.
In Sallis' story, a teenage girl is chained and held in a squalid room where men seek pleasure in awful ways. Having this girl at their disposal makes them kinder to their wives, evokes a camaraderie between them. As they wait their turn, they share liquor, jokes, business deals. Over time the party-like atmosphere subsides, the girl ages, the room deteriorates, and there is nothing pleasurable about what remains.
This story is tough to read and I doubt anyone would justify the situation here as some justify the Le Quin scenario. If the majority find happiness at the sacrifice of one, isn't it worth it? No one would say it was in the Sallis story. He is excellent at any length he chooses to write.
POTATO TREE is a collection of short stories from 2007. Many are very short. Many were published first in other outlets but not "Men's Club."
12 comments:
I don't know which version of "The Ones Who Walk Away from the Omelas" you read, but it would take very large print and very small pages - and probably lots of pictures too! - for it to take up fifty pages. It's only about five or six pages long in Le Guin's collected stories.
All the same, as an admirer of Sallis I'll look out for his response.
I was surprised then I show the page numbers too. I could not find his copy of it. I will look for it again.
Oh, I like James Sallis' work very much, Patti - it's good to see some of it here.
Both Sallis's story and Le Guin's story seem to be variations of Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" where someone must be sacrificed for the Public Good. You're right about the shortage of Utopia stories. The focus is on Dystopias today.
Except Shirley's victim is chosen by a lottery where Sallis' teen is seized. Jackson's puts an iota of fairness into it.
Patti, I totally agree with you about Sallis. I've sought out almost everything he's ever written including the short stories. Just an outstanding writer.
Since we were packing, then traveling for 4 days, then unpacking, I have had almost no reading time this past week. I did finish the Robert Aickman book and am finishing the JOhn Lutz now.
I got a couple from the library:
Roddy Doyle, LIFE WITHOUT CHILDREN
Linda Castillo, A SIMPLE MURDER: A Kate Burkholder Short Story COllection. I know I've read most of these before but it's nice having them together.
Also, got a Crippen & Landru book that came while we were away:
William Brittain, THE MAN WHO SOLVED MYSTERIES Mr. Strang stories
I haven't started any of these yet,
I wish I had a good excuse for my reading slump, Jeff. Trying to read a Ruth Rendell, 13 Steps Down but two main characters that are tiresome is defeating me.
Based on your description I would not want to read Sallis's story, but it is interesting to read your post about it. The Le Guin story sounds interesting and maybe I will read some of her stories some day. I haven't read much by her, but I do have a couple of her novels to read.
His Lew Griffin series is terrific, (Moth) So too the other one (Salt River, Cripple Creek, etc.
I didn't see any potential for justification in Le Guin's parable. Goodness.
There are a number of utopian novels--and Gregg Press under the editorship of David Hartwell republished more than a few from the 1800s in the 1970s--but one problem with them is that they could horrify or bore the casual reader. FREE ZONE by Charles Platt is one I enjoyed a decade or so back, and I'm always amused when folks insist they find one in Joanna Russ's THE FEMALE MAN, when I don't think she meant that at all...while endorsing the ambitions of Shulamith Firestone in THE DIALECTIC OF SEX, a nonfiction work, among others. Huxley's ISLAND...Charnas's WALK TO THE END OF THE WORLD...Mack Renyolds's "updates" of Edward Bellamy are an interesting case.
And, of course, the brilliant twist of questioning the place of the artist as outlier in Damon Knight's brilliant essentially utopian story "The Country of the Kind" is an excellent example.
Both stories available online.
The Ones Who Walk Away from the Omelas by Ursula Le Guin:
https://learning.hccs.edu/faculty/emily.klotz/engl1302-6/readings/the-ones-who-walk-away-from-omelas-ursula-le-guin/view
Men's Club by James Sallis:
https://books.google.ca/books?id=9sK4Rz5wU-oC&pg=PA16&lpg=PA16&dq=%22men%27s+club%22+%22James+Sallis%22&source=bl&ots=OtvpIF6l6p&sig=ACfU3U336kmmJMufBUUKnoBX_kIV-7TXXQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjD7smk-I73AhVCCs0KHbnoDMcQ6AF6BAgREAM#v=onepage&q&f=false
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